Paul & Kevin did some scouting for the upcoming Los Coyotes run. Here are some photos from their trip. All of these photos are of Kevin Kocher's Explorer.

OK you want a campfire story?  Let's see where do I begin?  It had been a long day of really cool trails.  My adrenaline was at an all time high for most of the day, and I was just starting to come back down when we decided to check out "one last trail".  How bad could it be?  Hell the name of it was Lady Bug Lane for Pete's sake.  Paul, Wendy, and I had just eaten up trails like Dangerous Road, Jeep Squeeze, and Rough Road just to name a few.  I turned down the trail-head with Paul in the lead ready to kick-back and sleep my way through a pre-run trail for "Beginners". I was whipped, and I wasn't in the mood to think.  Well, shortly into the trail we noticed a line of about 7 Jeeps coming the other way.  They were stopped because one of them needed to do a quick field repair.  Funny?  Why would all those custom Jeeps waste their time with a silly trail like this? Oh they're Jeeps!  Not as "cool" as Paul and I.  We had the Exploders from Hell.  We'd wait for these guys to pass and have their cute little fun. We were simply "evaluating" the trail, we weren't going to "enjoy" it. So, as we continue on Paul and I are commenting on the lameness of the trail.  "Looks more like a camping road", I say. Paul agrees, until...

OK so in my defense you have to see things from my perspective.  I see a huge tree laying on its side, the bottom of a hill, and Paul making his way around the huge tree.  At that moment Paul, comments that maybe this won't be a beginners trail after all, he's thinking that his ol' Exploder might be hugging that tree a wee close, and might make some beginners "uncomfortable".  Now, once you pass the stump, there are 2 live trees on the left very close together that  you have to maneuver your truck though, and I mean right after the stump.  I sat there watching Paul make about a 23 point turn after getting around the stump to get between the trees.  Well, he makes it through, but little did I realize how focused I was on his 23 point turn.  My tired brain had decided to think about how I was going to avoid that 23 point turn.  Getting around the stump was below my thought process right now. So there I was, solving vector equations, and complex geometry in my head as I deduced how wide I was going to make this turn so I wouldn't have to back up 22 times after I cleared the stump. Apparently, "how wide" was to take a line probably 6-12 inches to the right of Paul's line.  My eye's had deceived me.  I saw the rock off to the right (you can see it in the picture), but I didn't see the rut on the left.  One or the other would have been OK, but not both.  After dropping my left tire into the rut, and clipping the rock on the right, my truck decided to educate me in areas my brain had ignored when choosing the line.  Mainly, pivot points, leverage, and most of all gravity.  After hearing that little voice that say's "Hey, dork, this isn't right" I found myself propped up with my left hand against the driver side door. At this point all I can say is Thank God we had more than one Hi-Lift Jack.  Paul and Darien did a great job of 1 holding back their laughter, and 2 getting me back to level ground.  As you may see from the pictures, I'm pretty much dangling there.  Power steering fluid is pouring out of the top of my pump, and I'm not taking my foot off this brake, because every time Darien touches the truck, the hole thing slides closer to him (and not in a good way mind you).  Those guys had to "right" me while I sat there staring at the sky though my passenger window.  After getting out of that little predicament I still had to get around the tree. Darien spotting, I was able to hug the stump and make my 23 point turn. Good thing I saved us some time by swinging wide.  Anyhow, the moral of this story is pay attention (Duh!), Darien put it best when he said, "The trails at Los Coyotes many times seem easy, but the trail can bite".  Well, it bit, but thanks to the help of Paul and Darien, it was more of a "nip" that could've been a lot worse.

Kevin Kocher