The summer of 2003 was getting off to a slow start. Snow was still falling in the Sierras in the beginning of May so we were hoping the weather would cooperate so we could enjoy the excellent camping that is always a hallmark of camping at Board's Crossing. In the end, the weather Gods smiled upon us and we had the best weather of the month for our weekend in the Sierras.

Friday afternoon Dave and I headed East on 580 and met up with Joey in Lathrop. From there we rocketed up 99 and 4 to the campsite in about two hours. The three of us set up camp and unwound while waiting for the rest of the group to roll in. Damon, Dan, Dan, Bill, and JB showed up with his friends.

Late Saturday morning our group set out for the trail head off of Highway. 4. The fairly recent snow made itself known by showing up in shaded patches as we ascended 4. At the turnoff, we encountered more snow as we headed south to meet the trail proper.

JB had brought two realatively new four wheelers on the trip and they were driving a near stock Pathfinder and a slightly lifted late-eigthies 4Runner. They did a great job hanging with us, especially as the logging road has some massive culverts carved to channel rain runoff.

As we got closer to the actual trail, we found a massive Sequoia had fallen accross the trail. Someone had blazed a bypass trail that went up and around the Sequoia that gave us a warm up for the off-camber sections that awaited on the actual trail.

Once on the actual trail, it was smooth sailing down to the first major obstacle, the S-turn. While there wasn't a lot of snow on the trail, there was a lot of snow run off in places.

At the bottom of the trail, Damon found his radius arm mount was bending from hitting it on the rocks on the way down the trail. Bill was having steering box problems so we took some time to repair those two problems. The sun was retreating behind the hills by the time we started back up the hill. I had to fix a hub that wasn't engaging and a backed out starter bolt on the first obstacle. I was leading, followed by Bill. I had sent JB and the two stockers up the trail while Bill was working on his steering box. Dan followed them up. Bill was following me and had trouble at the waterfall near the S-turn. Dave, Damon, Joey and Dan W. were behind him and had to deal with going after Bill's 37" MTRs. After sitting near the trail head for a while, the rest of the group emerged from the S-turn around 10 PM. While there are no pictures, Dave took some night vision video of the group.

We rolled into camp around 11 PM to find the rest of the group safely relaxing by the fire after a long day.