OVLR Birthday Party '05

Silver Lake Provincial Park

Maberly, Ontario

Submitted by Deeker

On a hot Thursday night in London, Ontario, Jay (Jay), Susan and six month old Zack (another off-roading baby) arrived from Tennessee in their XD Discovery on the first leg of their journey to Ottawa. Derek (Deeker), Christine and little Logan (just over a year old, and on his fourth off-road event) played host before leaving in the morning for the rest of the drive to the little town of Maberly, near the site of the OVLR Birthday party HQ.

Around the same time Brian (Specter) and Nikki arrived in Toronto, from Columbus, Ohio to stay with Fern (Gemini) his family, and friend Toze’.  Now we just need Toze’ to sell his Golf and buy a LR!  (My FL could be yours, Toze’, it’s experienced!)  The next morning the crew from London gathered up and headed out, taking Andrew’s wife Christine along for the ride, since Andrew (Spitfire) had classes all weekend.  The London convoy hooked up with the Toronto contingent just after lunchtime, and carried on to the campsite.  It was early evening when we all arrived and began setting up camp.  Phil (bleedgreen) had already made it up from NY and was sleeping in his tent as we set up.  Scott (Scrum) and his two kids were up from NY State as well, in another area of the campground. After a very warm evening around the campfire, acquainting and re-acquainting, we turned in for the night and looked forward to trails the next day.

By 9am Saturday we were out of the campground and over to the OVLR HQ where the registration and main tent were.  By accident, since it wasn’t posted anywhere, we were able to catch the drivers’ meeting and find out what was going on for the morning.  A schedule of events or agenda posted would have been very helpful throughout the weekend (if they would adhere to it).  We found out a light, medium and heavy off-road would be running by 10am.  Fern, Brian, Scott, and I figured we’d try the ‘light’ out to see what the classifications turned out to be.  Phil and Jay missed us and ended up setting up the RTV course and checking out other trails.  Phil also scored the RTV and got a free t-shirt for his labour.

The trail boss, in a topless Series, didn’t have a working CB or an FRS/GMRS radio, so we loaned him one.  Brian took the rear in his winch-equipped Disco in case anyone needed help from the back end.  There were about 12-14 vehicles total in our group, a couple of Defender 110s, a few Series trucks, three Discoverys, four Freelanders, and an ex-Canadian-military Iltis. 

The trail was fairly nice for the most part: rocks, hills, roots, little puddles and some tall grass.  We eventually got to the toughest part of the trail, a 30 yard long mud puddle. You approach coming down a small hill, drive straight through the puddle, climb a 20” mud bank and make a quick, hard right to clear a couple big rocks and trees.  The puddle would be near 16” or so deep, unless you got off-line.

The lead Series needed a few runs at it to get through, as he was bogging his engine in the water – Lucas electrics?  The next few vehicles went through with not much trouble, until we got to one Disco that thought trying an alternate line would be fun.  In the muddy water you couldn’t see anything and he sunk his front wheel nicely, getting stuck.  After a few minutes of trying to pull him forward through the mud, Scott was asked to hook onto him and pull him out from the rear. 

The Freelander, backing uphill, tried valiantly to pull out the stuck Disco, but just couldn’t do it.  Not enough power and traction.  They shuffled vehicles around and another Disco tugged him out.  The driver of the now un-stuck Disco then decided to spool out his winch and winch himself across the puddle.  That took a bit of time but he got across. When he got to the bank he turned too soon and got sideways in the muddy ruts.  Stuck again, and winched himself out of the ruts. 

Next truck through was Scott in his Freelander, and he made it through perfectly, as did the rest of the Freelanders and Brian in his Discovery.  That escapade with the stuck Disco took about 45 minutes, so it stretched our trail time to about 3 hours total.  Most of the people watching were quite impressed with the little hippos.  We headed back to the campground to grab some lunch, more water, and see what the girls were up to.  As it turns out, the heavy was not run at all, the medium was more light, and the light more medium.

After lunch Brian and I headed over to the HQ to see what else was planned for the day.  After getting no real answer, we decided to head back to the camp to get as many others as we could, and try to find Phil, who was somewhere in Ontario marshaling an RTV event.  Jay, Brian and I left to go check out the area.  Jay had been there in the morning and led us there, with me in the middle and Brian last.  When we arrived at the RTV course area, no-one was there; the event had already wrapped up! 

We ran through what we thought was part of the course, and a short loop of a trail.  We hopped out and looked over one section that had a very steep, short climb, followed by a very large ‘speed bump’ of a rock that you had to turn left on to continue down the trail. 

Jay went up the hill easily and over the rock.  We got a good picture of the rear wheel getting stuffed into the wheel well as he came off the rock.  He waited just a short distance away as I ran down the hill to give it a try. 

Ronc sliders: 1, sill-eating rock: 0

Brian then came up the hill, his Disco not even stuttering a bit. The MT’s and 2” lift gave him lots of clearance over the rock, even though he went further outside on the turn than Jay or I.  We headed back toward the campground for dinner.  When we got to the road, Jay could not shift out of low-range.  He fiddled around with it for a bit, but with no luck.  As we were standing around pondering what to do, Phil came around the corner and pulled over.  He had found us by sheer luck, as he had no idea where he was, or what we were up to! His “Muddy Oval Sense” must have kicked in!

After driving back to the HQ in low, Jay got some assistance from Kevin Willey and others in getting it into high again.  I could not imagine waiting until Monday to get out of town, or imagine driving to TN in low!!  We headed back to the campground to begin dinner plans and check in with our wives. 

OVLR provides a catered dinner Saturday night, so everyone can get together and tell tales.  This event seems to lean more towards the social end of things, since the locals can get out and run these trails fairly regularly.  The meal was reported to be good, though I didn’t get there – we had plenty to eat at our site.

That evening we had discussed a night run of the same mud puddle trail we did in the morning, so Phil and Jay could get out on it.  We didn’t quite get that far, however.  Jay had set up 6 or so Tiki lights on his big site, a campfire, and a picnic table full of snacks to keep us entertained.  With fourteen of us gathered around, some beverages poured, and s’mores being made with assembly-line precision (headed up by Fern’s son!) everyone looked comfortable yet weary from the heat of the day.  Bed time came early for some, and early in the morning for others.  Alas, there were no whisky-pyrotechnics; though reportedly Spitfire was living up to his name that night at a party in London.

The next morning, Brian and Nikki packed up and headed out by about 9am, as they had a long drive ahead of them to pick up their kids and get back to Columbus.  The rest of us slowly got gathered up, packed, said our goodbyes and headed homeward.  With anywhere from 4 to 12 hours driving ahead, a good early departure got everyone home in decent time.

A good time was had by all!  More socializing than trail-riding really, but it is pretty neat when a bunch of people – some who have met before, others new acquaintances – can have such a good time together.  These Muddy Oval LR people are great!  Plans are in the works to get everyone together again for the Green Oval Guild event in August.  See you there!

Photos courtesy Brian, Fern, Jay, Phil, Derek