In a word...EPIC!

My buddies Ed and Derick (Blanco Bronco Adventures) here in WA hatched a plan to be a part of KOH this year and invited myself and another local enthusiast to join them. Ed is very active in Bronco Nation and was able to secure us accommodations within the Bronco Nation Basecamp. This included a tent, place to park, Breakfast & dinner for the durations, and some trail runs for what I think was extremely reasonable! We had a fenced in area where we didn't have to worry about our belongings. The tent was a bit small for 4 guys, but we made it work.

We left the Spokane area 7 Feb at 8am. We drove Ed's F150 pulling his Gen 6 on a trailer with plans to make the 19hr drive in one pass. With 4 drivers, we felt that was achievable. We headed east on I90 to Butte, MT, then south on I15 for the remainder. But with all the excitement, no one could nap on the way and when midnight hit, we decided to try and find some shut-eye in St. George, UT. We got up at 5 and each of us got our last shower and picked up some groceries and hit the road early. Arriving in Barstow later that morning, we fueled up on expensive CA gas, grabbed a subway sammich and made our way to Hammertown one more hour down the road!

Once we left the pavement, it was a surreal experience seeing RV scattered out thru the valley and a cloud of dust hanging in the air. Little did we know, the concentration of people would increase as we made our way the 3.5 miles to Hammertown.



The vague maps that are provided made it difficult to find Bronco Nation Basecamp, especially when you are pulling a trailer and entering a deadend is a real possibility. Finally, after speaking to someone who just exited a bronco, they showed us the location, but with the blocked roads, we still had some trouble finding it.

Once we arrived, and settled in, I took a pano of the camp, which was to increase in occupants over the next couple days.


First order of business was to find our way to Chocolate Thunder to watch the 4600 class qualifying.


Then we walked around Hammertown for the sites. It is here we ran into Mitch Creel of Wild Horses fame.






Everywhere you looked, there was every shape and size rigs. From clapped out old ZJ's and retired race trucks, to Trars (truck chassis/car body), not to mention Motos and SXS's! Always something to look at.

From there we enjoyed a catered dinner at basecamp and a fireside chat with the folks at ARB, we then made our way our to Chocolate Thunder to watch the ensuing chaos that results from people (mostly inebriated) trying their hand at the obstacles the racers use. So much heckling and breakage involved. Fun to watch, but I'll never participate in such shenanigans. This is where people crawl over a perfect stranger's rig when they are broke down. So many bad decisions are made here and for some reason, to show excitement or annoyance, or any other emotion, you are to smash you foot down on the throttle allowing the engine to bounce off the rev limiter for as long as you dare.


Little did we know that this first night was only the beginning of many more near sleepless nights. From loud music and people partying, to fireworks and people arriving at basecamp with every possible light-bar illuminated.

9 Feb, we awake at 6am for a 7am breakfast and a BN guided drive to Bronco Knoll.




We planted a rock we made to represent our club:




From there we split off from the BN group because it was a bit tame for our liking. We tried to climb an obstacle, which resulted in a stick thru the sidewall of one tire. And we found how inadequate the factory jack is for offroad, but we got the tire pulled off and were able to plug it and reinstall. From there, we made our way to a flat lakebed for some high speed fun being mindful at first that we are running on a plugged tire.


On our way back hidden in the perimeter of the desert, we discovered a Ford Performance team testing the Bronco DR, which is a Coyote powered Gen 6 racer you could buy direct from Ford, if you had a quarter mil and were on the list to buy.




Back in Hammertown, we walked around during contingency and much more eye candy was enjoyed.












Back at basecamp, we enjoyed another dinner and fireside chat with Jason Scherer who brought up two KOH gen 6 packaged broncos. From there, we made our way to Backdoor for more fans doing stupid things. Absolutely insane the level of stupidity, but infinitely entertaining climbing a 10ft wall.






After another sleepless night for the same reasons, we embark on another BN guided tour thru Rattlesnack Canyon to the south of hwy 247. Again, a fairly tame trail for our liking, but it did challenge many who are new to off-roading.
Walter (? of Count's Kustom fame) brought out their Sema build, which was as much go as it was show:


Our chariot for the week:


BroncBuster on 40's:


After a group photo, we again, split off from the group and ran the trail backwards, enjoying the bypassed obstacles.






Upon return to camp, we learned that the Bronco's came in 1,2,3 for the Everyman Challenge! We lave (left to right) co-driver & Bailey Cole, Loren Healy w/ Vaughn Gittin Jr., & Brad and Roger Lovell.


It was then a friend in our group needed to get back home due to a family emergency and I volunteered to make the 6hr trek back to Vegas and back to get him on his way. I missed the nightly chaos at chocolate thunder and a few more hours of sleep, but it's what you do for friends right?

The following day was the big race; 4400 cars. Up until this point, we enjoyed highs in the low 60's with light breezes, but the wind picked up this day. This was our view as we drove thru the dust on the way out:


We followed BN again on a "chase the race" arrangement. We started at the desert Spectator one where we watched about 20 cars drop over the first hill after having left the starting line in pairs on a staggered start and rip across the desert and into a dry lake bed. It was quite amazing for the first few and for the bronco teams, but we weren't close enough to see the cool details of the suspension working or take any real photos. From there we made our way back to Chocolate Thunder to watch the competitors come down that obstacle.






Being rock-crawlers at heart, we wanted to see if we could find them crawling uphill somewhere. Someone suggested we try Turkey Claw, so we returned to camp, ate some sandwiches and went back out to find this Turkey Claw. We discovered that it too was downhill, but at least a location we hadn't been before. And the wind had died down some and we were able to get some good views.








We returned back to Hammertown with the idea of packing up 12hrs early and head back north. This seemed like a good idea as the only thing we'd miss is a dinner, but we'd get out of the wind and get a good nights rest at home before the work week starts as opposed to driving thru the night to arrive early Monday morning. Quickly we packed up and were headed out, but so were so many other folks and those 3.5 miles took us nearly 2hrs of stop and go to get out. We stopped at Barstow for a real dinner and drove thru the night enjoying a nice breakfast in Idaho Falls and finally returning to Ed's house around 5pm. So thankful to be home, I didn't bother unpacking and after squeezing my family took a long and cleansing shower! I know I am still coughing up Johnson Valley dust!

I don't know that we will ever get a final count, but they expected 80k+ people and I think those people brought a plus 1. Traffic was always generally bad and it was utter chaos getting thru or around hammertown. People going every which way from every direction with poor visibility most of the time and especially as Saturday approached. You have to have your head on a swivel.

Next time, we may look into better lodging and would bring 10gal+ of extra fuel so as not to have to run into town, which could be easily an hour or more for 24 miles if traffic is bad. The BN gig is great in that it is very affordable. Certainly fuel was our most expensive cost. But I would do it all again!! What an amazing experience.

A link to all my photos and videos and perhaps more to be added??
https://photos.app.goo.gl/4kqWWo7q8mtTh1Wq9

Awesome pictures!

A few friends went from here. One was able to stay at his daughter's home about 45 minutes away. I think that might be the secret to enjoying things/sleeping/staying clean.

There are some benefits to that, but the issue is traffic. There are ways around that as well, by coming and going through off-road tracks if you have a rig that can handle some whoops. I think my bronco would beat the snot out of me on most of that stuff!

That looks like a stupid amount of fun.

Very cool! Nice hat yer sporting there too..... Need to put that in the where has CCB been section.