Scott, Lou, Susie, and I did a little exploring yesterday of the Achy Breaky Trail. We had nice weather and only saw one distant Jeep the whole day. This trail has very sharp rocks, with multiple flats per vehicle being very possible. Lou sustained a four inch cut on a recently acquired BFG MT and sweated out the rest of the trip with no additional spare. Scott recieved a few deep cuts to his tires as well; mine are so beat up it's hard to tell what is new damage. The trail is made of very steep hill climbs and a few rock gardens.

Here are a few photos: Achy Breaky

Nice photos Mark

Please tell us more about the trail. Location, is it a trough trail or a dead end? Length? When is the club run, I would definitely be interested. I would suggest 2 spares per vehicle or having multiple similar vehicles to help out with the spares.

Nice photos Mark. Is that Southeast of Randsburg? Sorta looks like it.

Scott, how are you liking that new (4th?) set of tires?

It is trail number 23 on page 101 in the Southern Cal fun treks book.

It is just South of Barstow in the Stoddard Valley OHV area.

Nathan, I am liking the tires very much. Only my second set, not counting the OE ones. So far they seem to do better on a variety of terrain then any others I see out there.

The 3 ply sidewalls are really great especially on trails like this.

Amit Sedha wrote:
Nice photos Mark

Please tell us more about the trail. Location, is it a trough trail or a dead end? Length? When is the club run, I would definitely be interested. I would suggest 2 spares per vehicle or having multiple similar vehicles to help out with the spares.

Amit,

As Scott said it's located in the Stoddard Valley, just outside of Barstow. This trail has a good mixture of challenges. If anybody plans to navigate it they should have underbody protection and good tires with multiple spares available via similar trucks. The rocks were extremely sharp and loose. In my opinion the trail rates between the difficulty of John Bull and Gold Mountain. Staying on Achy Breaky proper can be confusing due to bisecting routes. Scott and his trusty computer did an excellent job of navigating the short loop trail (approximately 6.5 miles). We completed the trail in 4 hours taking our time, not including our breaks; we were only a group of three. My one concern would be the traffic on a weekend; it was vacant on Tuesday. Before we add this trail to the list of day trips, I would suggest checking out the crowd on a Saturday. I wouldn't want to get a big group out there navigating the traffic; we can do that in LA.