I love Crag Lake. The Front Door is a rocky twisty tight-treed climbing trail that takes you through and up and over the Canadian Shield to a lunch spot at the lake. It’s challenging for a new driver and will remind even experienced drivers with the odd bump or scrape that they need to focus. When we set off on Sunday it was with 16 trucks, some new, some experienced, but everyone knew what they were doing and it would make for a fun day on the trail. (more…)

I would just like to start it off and thank everyone that showed up as it was great to see everyone again and to see some new faces. We all started the day off at Loblaw’s parking lot with coffees in hand and bright spirits…the sun was shining and the weather was warm. It reminded me of the summers I would spend in Rangoon……Sorry started to dream - back on point…. (more…)

On Sunday 27 May we all met at our usual primary meeting location in Bells Corners where Ken G. and Burns came to see us off. It was nice to see some faces that I hadn't seen in a while. The contingent leaving from Bells Corner were comprised of Mike, Jerry, Dana sporting his new lift (looking good), Robert, Paul, Grant, Jason, Ken (our guest for the day), and Greg. The weather was a bit cloudy when we left at 9:30, but it was clearing up the closer we were getting to Calabogie. All in all t...

The thing I like about off-roading is the unpredictability. You can open a new trail at fall camp and return 3 weeks later and raise the bar on minimum requirements and still spend all day slipping sliding and twisting on wet leaves and rocks and come out in the dark. We ran 7 trucks in the back door of the Quinn and emerged out the front some 10 hours later. (more…)

Wow! what a great day on the Quinn. There were 7 of us and we were at the lake overlook by 2:30. The trail was dry, dry , dry so the traction was excellent. No winches or tow straps needed. (more…)

Well the weather report for Sunday looked bleak and Sunday morning confirmed it, "….so much rain no-one will want to go out today…." My son Martin and I gassed up Carol's Jeep , as mine was on block's, and headed out hoping to get to Bells Corners as close to 9am as possible. The whole drive in from Brockville was rain, there goes my internal dialog again, " ..probably one or two Keeners will show up…" . Well to my surprise we had over ten vehicles ready to roll with a grand total of...

Bon Echo this year was a little more low key than previous years. We managed to get some exploring in but it really didn't pan out into anything interesting. On Saturday we ran the Kilbourne trail, this was a trail we discovered last year. This trail is close to the park with enough interesting scenery and moderately challenging obstacles to keep us entertained. (more…)

With a nice sized group, we left camp with the intention of running the combination of Rusty Bat and Calabojee Line. We began with our routine air down at Wabun Lake where we had to take a few minutes to secure Marks sway bar before hitting the trail (can you say foreshadowing). Rodney took the lead as we slowly made our way up the trail, playing on the various obstacles along the way. We deviated from the traditional path along the power in a few places to add a little variety to the tra...

We had a beautiful day offroading in Brockville today, but as always, we had a little drama :-) Firstly, I apologize in advance, I am not good with remembering names. I arrived at the Loblaws in Bells Corners at about 0845hrs and was met by Dominic and his two friends in his beautiful black JK. Bit by bit more trucks arrived: New member Dave and his wife, with about 2,000km on their brand new mango-coloured JK Rubicon, followed by Ken in his new mango-coloured JK Rubicon. Another new JK R...

Gorge pics are up! (more…)

Pictures from Lavant are up! (more…)

Executive summary Weather - Hot Mud - Thick Ice Cream - Cold Gory Details (more…)

Day One We started off the day with a nice meal at Shooter’s Bar and Grill in Calabogie. When I pulled into the parking lot, Grant, Tom and Mike were already there, and shortly after we joined them Brian arrived. We ate, chatted and laughed before heading for the trail, stopping only briefly to air-down tires and disconnect sway bars. The weather was threatening rain, but so far, we had remained dry. (more…)

What happens at Weir, stays at Weir! (more…)

It was a dark and stormy wet night ... (more…)

The forecast for the day was clear and sunny, but it turned out to be a warm but overcast day. Being Mother’s Day it was questionable as to the potential turnout for the run. Lavant is a great trail with a little of everything to offer the off road enthusiast, but with very few bypasses. At the primary spot, I was met with a good turnout of eager participants, including a new guest to the club Stephen in his blue modified 2 door JK. With the vehicle count at 7 trail rigs, 1 tow rig and 4 dog...

After all the rain we have been having the forecast was calling for cloudy skies and a high of 13 C… it was exciting looking forward to Easter Sunday for our first official trail run of the year to get the off road season started. As most of you know we choose the Gorge trail as an opener for two reasons. One because we always get new folks wanting to try their hand at off-roading and Two because the Gorge is an “obstacles are optional” trail. We had a total of 21 trucks, 14 members and...

Well the Weatherman was wrong, it turned out to be nicer weather than I had anticipated. We had a few Board members up on Thursday so they could do a little exploring on Friday before the other members arrived. From what I've heard they found some trails that warrant further exploration. Most of the membership arrived on Friday night greeted by damp ground and a wicked wind. Saturday morning we managed to get the groups rolling before 10:30…. am. Three groups were formed 1)-Six modifi...

Well, my first Trail Report, I hope everyone enjoys, it is very lengthy for the shortness of the run. With a good number of the veterans doing minor fix-ups and members unavailable this weekend, I accepted the offer to lead my first trail run with Chris as my tail-gunner. I’ve been working on getting to know the areas we explore a bit better as well as expanding my GPS abilities. I had complied quite a bit a track data from the last few years but never had the time to do anything with it....

Well the Eastern Ontario Trail Blazers are living up to there name. We took a team of five vehicles and did some trail blazing north of Mazinaw Lake to see if we could find the same power line that has it's beginning at Mountain Chute Dam, the place were we air down before venturing into the Quinn or Crag Lake trails. (more…)

Grab a cup of coffee, this could take a while. We should have known that the day would be unusual. By 10:00am, all the trucks were ready to roll except Chris. While attempting to quickly swap his CB antenna mount, he found it to be stripped and a 5 minute job took a little longer than expected. By 10:30am though, we were ready and headed to the trail. We had trucks inclung Chris, Martin in Carol’s TJ, Nick, myself, Mark, Rob, Bob in his Hummer and Craig. At the exit to the park, Tom squeezed ...

The day started out with a coffee and some great weather, sunny and little clouds. The Bell Corners meeting spot had Mark W in his Discovery ( garbage bag window still installed, Brain G in his silver TJ (hooked), Paul D in his family machine JK (sporting the TJ's 33's as the TJ was down for TLC), with myself in a black TJ. Guests, Simon from ORA (Montreal) in his 35" Green JK, Jean-Louis (JL) in his 35" black JK and a F150 driven by Jeremy. After getting to know everyone and collecting mo...

With the forecast calling for a hot sunny day we pulled into the Parking lot at Bells Corners. It wasn't long before Ryan and family joined us followed by Brian and his family. This was the group that headed out for the second rendezvous in Merrickville. As we drove along 43 the CB crackled to life and started to pick up Steve and group chatting, a few minutes later and we had visual contact. The park at the locks already had a couple of trucks waiting and with the two new groups arrival ...

The day started out overcast and drizzly as we waited in the Bells Corners’ parking lot for the arrival of what turned out to be 10 other trucks. We were pleased to see so many of the newer members of the club and we also welcomed and signed up three guests for the day’s run. Shelley drove ‘sans’ Clint as he was heading to Ian’s for a day of slave labour. We were happy to see Jerry pull into the parking lot eager to head out - we had not seen the explorer since last season. We lined up and h...

WARNING: The contents of this e-mail may not be suitable for all readers. They contain graphic descriptions of events, vehicular damage and other off-road activities. Reader discretion is advised. The events described in this e-mail occurred in real-time. Grab a coffee, this is a long one. (more…)

Well it was a cloudy day, not real exciting but not raining. I met with the Wiz & LJ at Timmies in Perth and we then traveled up to meet the group at Munford's in Calabogie. Mark, our favourite Rover guy lead the group of 8 out from Ottawa. Unfortunately Brian had to head home because one of his crew was under the weather. So we were 9 trucks for the day. (more…)

With nice sized group of about 7 trucks, we left Bells Corners to collect the rest of the group at Munfords and continued from there to the trail. At the trail head, we found a group of campers and a couple of trucks already making their way up the trail. We took a few moments to prepare our trucks for the trail and allowed the other group to move ahead. (more…)

While the weather forecast called for rain and clouds loomed overhead for parts of the day, We all managed to stay dry on Sunday, but we all wished the black flies had stayed away also. With a nice sized group and a couple of guests, we left Bells Corners and headed to Hopetown to meet Chris and Nick where we also collected another guest and made our way to the trail head. (more…)