On the last day of the Jamboree, most of the snow had melted and the sun was shining. We were ready to tackle John Bull and fingers crossed, our Jeep would manage it with minimal damage. Here's Dan showing off our flag and sporting the red bandana for the red group.
Lined up and ready to go.
John Bull is no joke. To get on the trail, we had to get through the Gate Keeper. One guy in our group said that he thought the Gate Keeper was actually a road block, because it just doesn't look like an open trail. We went slowly and we needed to be winched at the top, but we made it.
Getting through the John Bull Gate Keeper, wasn't necessarily the toughest part. The trail was basically one non-stop obstacle that we slowly crawled our way through. We had gorgeous mountain views as our reward for making the climb.
I'm constantly blown away by the ability of Jeeps to just drive over anything. It's crazy. John Bull put us to the test and we made it through with time to spare. We used the extra hours to go through the Rock Garden, an area that we did on the last Jeep Jamboree with the intermediate group.
The Rock Garden may be much technically easier than John Bull, but it's no less spectacular. The landscape of crunched up rocks makes it feel like we are exploring the moon. It's so unusual and beautiful.
On the way back to the Elks Lodge, we saw our friend Brian's vintage Jeep parked outside of his business, the Le Dolce Vita Tasting Room. Very cool, right?
Dinner for the second night was prime rib and we had cake for dessert.
After dessert, we had the awards ceremony, which the team leaders recognize stand-out individuals in each group. I always like this part, as it's fun to hear the stories from the other teams, especially of new jeep owners that took their vehicle off-road for the first time or old-timers who have been to every jamboree. The community aspect of this event is one of the biggest reasons that we enjoy it. It's just a great group of people.
I won a killer prize in the raffle, something that we really wanted...tubular doors from Rancho and Spiderweb shades. Dan has been very excited to finally take our roof off for summer and we would have bought both the doors and the shades. Thank you to Rancho and Spiderwebshade for the cool prizes and for getting them in the mail so quickly. We love them!
Our second time at the Big Bear Jeep Jamboree was a huge success. We did have some damage, including a puncture and oil leak. The week following the Jamboree, we dropped our Jeep off at Rebel Off-Road for repairs and a bit of a face-life. After much teasing, we upgraded our tires from 33's to 37's. We probably would have had less damage, if we had the 37's before the Jamboree, but it wouldn't have been as good of a story. We like our hard earned battle scars!