3rd Annual THCI Black Mountain trip

[JGBB04]

Well we had another fun year w/ The Hummer Club at Black Mountain in Harlan Ky, had 24 trucks total, about 6 of us from Fla & 1 of which was another T so I finally got to wheel w/ my own kind. 4 of us started a day early to check out a new place, Wilderness Trails off road park that’s near Harlan. Seems like a nice place but we didn't cover a lot of it & what we did was easy even though some of the trails were rated difficult on their map.

More of the trail info can be found on their web sites
http://wildernesstrailoffroadpark.net
http://www.harlancountytrails.com/blackmountain.php
& I posted my GPS info on 4x4trailtalk.com

Did have a little carnage though, day 1 I hit a gully at the base of a hill climb & stuffed the L/F tire into the fender (started to regret getting the 35's but that faded fast) which I then bent opening the door. Day 2 I dinged the plastic on the R/R fender turning around on a tight trail that was unmarked, that will be taken care of by the Thor Parts bumper. The other T w/ us took out a half shaft at the same spot, but I had spares & we were able to get him back to the hotel so we had plenty of help, tools & a trailer to work on. Day 3 & 4 were good for our group but some of the H1's broke, 1 broke an axle but was back up the next day & Hal broke a bunch (never did hear the whole list) on his which resulted in a tow to the old Hummer dealer in Knoxville & hitching a ride home w/ 1 of the other Fla trucks.

My ride home resulted in a 2 day pit stop in Symrna Ga, sprung an oil & trans cooler leak, which I suspect was due to my run in w/ the gully but they covered it under warranty. I'm not real happy w/ Capital Cadillac, after continuing on it had a real hard shift while getting back on the highway after stopping for gas & the check engine light came on w/ 2 codes B2AAA which apparently nobody knows & P0717 which shows as a transmission speed sensor. I was almost home so I just kept on going, whats 1 more call to road side assistance. After checking things over the next morning I still have trans fluid in the coolant so back to the dealer we go. Capital also did my hood louver recall w/ out asking me which left a nice trail of glue on my hood, used so much degreaser on the front end cleaning the oil leak it now squeaks like hell & apparently my truck was dirty enough not to bother to wash it to get the oil off which had covered the whole passenger side.

On a good note I had 35”Cooper STT's put on right before I left which I'm very happy with. They performed great on the trails I had previously struggled on & would clean out mud better than those running similar tires. I'll add this & some other new stuff to my build post.
http://www.hummer4x4offroad.com/forum/showthread.php?67-JGBB04-s-H3T&p=2150#post2150


Ok now on to the good stuff PICS


Wilderness Trail

“Fender hill”

This cow was less than impressed w/ us intruding on his mud hole, didn't budge, started stomping & snorting when Hal stopped next to him.

Black Mountain – I help trail lead so I don't get many pics so some of these are from others

& of course the BSHS made an appearance

Oops

And big thanks to who ever posted the how to change a half shaft pic thread a long time ago on the old site, it came in very handy as none of us had done one before.

All of my pics are here
http://photobucket.com/THCIBlkMnt2012
http://photobucket.com/THCIWildernessTrailPark2012

And some links to ones that others took
https://picasaweb.google.com/WWCBERRY/Day4BlackMountain2012

https://picasaweb.google.com/WWCBERRY/BlackMountainDay32012

https://picasaweb.google.com/WWCBERRY/BlackMountain2012Day2PreRun

https://picasaweb.google.com/WWCBERRY/Day1WildernessTrails

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hjitfgidpcgwry2/9KNqfS78gK

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/15810201/1/Black Mountain 2012?h=139348

 

[3Hummers]

Looks like a great place for an event. All types of terrain.

 

[HUMMER INVESTMENTS]

:agree: I hope to make it out there when school wont get in the way! Its great that BSHS was being presented:thumbs: Was anyone else there from the forum?

 

[JGBB04]

Looks like a great place for an event. All types of terrain.

Black Mnt is great, the new place is a little bigger & seems like easier trails but its free & for the east coast that's unusual

 

[JGBB04]

Its great that BSHS was being presented:thumbs: Was anyone else there from the forum?

I had a blue shirt on the the 1st day just didn't get any good pics of it :emb: I did some recruiting w/ the new guys (2) in my group but most of the H1 guys stick to HML or what ever they call it now, nice bunch of guys but that's where they started & that's where they stay when it comes to forums kinda like some of us here now

 

[HUMMER INVESTMENTS]

The HML is a great resource but some of the "older guys" don't really want to help us "younger guys" as I heard it a while ago.

 

[Bigunit]

Looks like a great time and some really fun trails! :thumbs:

If you want to replace that rear bumper side molding piece, you can get one real cheap here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/370584837382?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

A couple of us T owners have already bought our "spares" from this seller & you can't beat the price.

 

[3Hummers]

HML is great for H1 owners. Lots of help, technical posts and knowledge and experience. While a lot of H1 owners have come up from H2 and H3 models there are still some vestiges of the old attitude that if it isn't an H1 it isn't a Hummer. That has changed quite a bit since I first became a member but there are still some holdouts over there.

 

[kflips]

Great Pics -- would have loved to been able to make it.

 

[BW_Hummer H3]

Looks like a lot of fun. Sorry about all the carnage though!

 

[Kurt]

The HML is a great resource but some of the "older guys" don't really want to help us "younger guys" as I heard it a while ago.

That's a big understatement. There's lots of discussion on the H1, [I find the technical info on flashoffroad to be a bit better but the forums relatively dead compared to the HML], but the attitudes about the H2, H3, well there's a lot of people who have both or don't care but there's still a number of H1 owners over there with their heads up their asses unfortunately...