The Fall Classic 2015 – this time with extra ‘murica!
Editor: Eric Bewley, Photos by: D. Arnold, V. Mueller, M. Verley, A. & M. Lilienthal, Videos by: M. Verley
Bend, OR – We’ve been putting on this event since the early 2000’s and even though it’s held in the same general area, as a group we always seem to find and do new and interesting things each year. Weather is always a driving factor this time of year in the high-desert and we were lucky enough to have clear and beautiful skies for the whole weekend. This made the camping, adventure, and shenanigan all that much better.
Originally a ‘Suzuki Only’ event, the fall classic has grown in its vehicle diversity. This year we had a Land Cruiser, FJ Cruiser, full-sized GMC, and even a Jeep to round out the trail ready Suzuki flock. More of a rally than a trail ride, people showed up at different times of the week and lengthened or shortened their stay based on what was right for them. For those that showed early extra exploration, hiking, and ‘camping stuff’ was the reward on crystal clear and sunny days. Did I mention the weather was nice this year??!
… above is a video shot by Matt of some of the model rockets. He even flew his drone up and had the rockets streak past it for a cool perspective.
One long-time event goer summed up this year like this:
Another fall classic, complete! Memorable stuff that happened this year:
-multiple model rocket launches and recoveries
-some AR/tannerite interaction
-broken transfer case in the sidekick resulted in momentum-based hill climbs
-lots of dune carving at Christmas valley
-drone flights and RC cars
-huge campfire every night
-excellent (but very cold) weather
-hike around the rim of fort rock
-exploring the ice caves
… Yep, that about sums it up. For me, the highlights were breaking in my new electric chain saw that wasn’t wimpy and embarrassing, climbing Fort Rock up to the top of the rim and looking out over the vast and open land, and the dunes, the dunes were just great this year and I’m glad we got to spend more time there than usual. A humorous moment for me was ….
…. After one particularly ‘murica event. We drew in some state troopers in an airplane (assuming it wasn’t a drone) and one in a truck. He was very friendly and didn’t seem to notice (or care about) the millions of tiny pieces of obliterated pumpkin scattered around. In case anybody is wondering, 5lb of tannerite is enough to vaporize a very large squash and send pieces of it quite a distance.
If this looks like fun to you, plan on joining us in 2016. It’s always the same weekend and the same place for the base camp. The weekend before Thanksgiving and the camp is ‘close’ to the Cabin Lake campground.
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