Our group came together on the valley floor at about 9:00 AM and started out toward the trail head. The route we choose to get to Sunbonnet took us through Hell's gate and down Devil's slide. Hell's gate had one really good obstacle. This was a huge bolder in the middle of the trail. Too far to the left and it's too steep to climb. Too far to the right and you would roll off the rock into a ravine. Taking the right path causes the front of the truck to shoot up into the air and lean to the right. You can't see the trail in front and you know doom is just off your right fender. It was a real thrill. The solid granite offered great traction on this climb and we all made it up easily, but with a little more adrenaline in our blood.

After climbing to the top of Hell's gate we drove down the other side of the mountain, this is known as Devil's slide. This is a steep down hill section with a few even steeper drops just to add a little spice.

On the way down Dave Ryngiewicz had a brush with disaster. Going just a little too fast and failing to see a rock he was driving over, he lifted his right side tires up off the ground. He was on his way to a multiple roll over all the way to the bottom. With quick thinking and lot's of throttle Dave was able to get the front of his truck pointed down hill and back on it's wheels. Rolling over here would have totaled his truck for sure. Once all of us were safely at the bottom of the slide we stopped and had lunch before moving on to run the Sunbonnet Pass trail just ahead of us.
 

Sunbonnet Pass starts out hard right from the start with a narrow off camber section. This is one of those sections where you need to get closer to an object rather than further away to get through with out damage. Rocks to the right of the truck slope up gently but on the left side the rocks stick out like a can opener. If you go too far to the right the truck leans into the sharp rocks on the left and our group damaged at least four doors on this section. The line on this one is to drive up as close as possible to the jagged rock on the left and touch it with a nerf bar. Then turn into the rock! Talk about a torture test for the nerf bars! As you move forward the trucks skips and jumps until it rotates around the sharp rock using the nerf bars.

The next difficult section took us about an hour to get through. This section is just more rocks, a few larger ones and lots of smaller smaller ones. Our Trail leader Jon Bundrant made it up and through this section with out any assistance but it took some rock stacking and winching to get the rest of us though. Once all had passed we removed the rocks we used to fill in the holes and returned the trail to it's previous condition. 

One more obstacle left before the end. Here the Samurai had his front drive shaft come apart after taking a bad line, after a few minutes we were under way again and the Samurai winched up. After a few hours we made it to the end of the trail and rode back down into the valley.

One thing I noticed on the trip was the large number of shortened Toyota's on this run. The majority of the trucks on this run were cut, bobbed or otherwise shortened. Of the 10 trucks in our group 7 of them were cut down in one way or another. Here is a picture of Bob Williams' recently bobbed 4Runner. Look for an article detailing how this was done soon.

Special thanks to the Victor Valley four wheelers for creating this wonder full trail and to our trail leader Jon Bundrant. If you interested in running this trail I recommend front & rear lockers, low range transfer case gears, and heavy duty nerf bars. At least one truck in the group should have a winch and strap.