I'll post up a quick rundown of how everything went for those unable to go. We ended up meeting with michael shortly after 9am at loon and hit the trail shortly after that. The trip to buck went fine with no carnage to speak of. We ended up camping at a couple of great spots right on buck island lake.
The weather held out for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, being about 80-85 each day. A couple of us spent Saturday fishing in buck (michael caught a nice 15" rainbow), paddling around the lake (michael and I both brought inflatable rafts), or watching other people try various obstacles on the trail. After a while, Craig, andy, michael and I went further up the trail to big sluice, and Craig unfortunately came down on his front driveshaft.
He was able to get it back to camp and swap out his banana of a driveshaft for his spare.
We packed up on Sunday morning and left just after 10am. We posed for some pics at the lake. (Craig has a better picture above of all four rigs.)
Sean's son ben had a good time too.
We weren't so luck on the way out of buck. I ended up coming down on a rock and bending my rear leaf spring, sorry, forgot to take a photo of that. By the end of the trail, the spring was bent in a "s" shape and I had a bad lean on the passenger side. (I was able to drive it home though.) we all stopped and watched Craig weld a leaf shackle anchor back onto a cj5. (Craig complained that the weld wasn't that good because they refused to remove the shackle anchor so he could weld both sides, but based upon what I saw, it was probably the best weld on the entire Jeep.) once we got into the bowl, we hear a loud "crack" and by the time we reached the top of the bowl, Craig's axle on the driver's side had move back several inches. He sheared his alignment pin, so he took it apart, installed a new pin, and we finally reached loon at about 5pm. We gassed up at fresh pond, and then had pizza in pollack pines. My wife and I pulled into my driveway at 8:20pm.
Altogether it was a great time. Andy got some great video that I'm sure he will post up once he gets it uploaded. Maybe we'll see you next year?