EVENT: SOCAL Desert Rendezvous 2012

(See the complete photo gallery HERE)

March 24-26^th

BrentGroupRendezvous — Great group shot by Brent Haywood

Give a bunch of Overland and 4×4 enthusiasts a date, GPS coordinates in the desert, free gourmet food, a competition, and some great free raffle prizes and you get the 2012 SOCAL Desert Rendezvous. This event was organized by TACODOC as a completely FREE event and promoted through the online forum Expedition Portal.

SoCalExPedDesertPhotos014 — Checkpoint One, were the dirt begins. (Photo: Tim Sanchez)

SoCalExPedDesertPhotos016 — Kelly and I, the only sandles in the desert. At least I wasn't wearing sox;) (Photo: Tim Sanchez)

I heard about the Rendezvous through a Twitter friend (@OverlandNomads) and quickly added it to my travel schedule, as it was the week after the Santa Cruz Paddle Fest and ONLY 9hrs drive further southJ I took the opportunity to drive RT1 from Santa Cruz to LA and explore some of the attractions in LA, as I’d never been further south in CA than Santa Cruz.

Friday night happy hour, such a good spread!

The Rendezvous was everything that was promised by the organizers: a really friendly group of enthusiasts having a blast playing with their toys in the desert together. There was a great happy hour on Friday night with beer and such amazing snacks as bacon wrapped dates. After an amazing sunrise on Saturday morning the Desert Challenge began, which was a stationary series of overland skills based events. The event was great for spectators and competitors a like and lasted most of the morning with 6 competitors entering. I’m sure there will be quite a few more competitors next year, as this was the first year for the Challenge and no one really knew what to expect. The afternoon was left open to enjoy the desert. I fixed my house battery issue, a few people did a trail drive, lots of people just enjoyed a few cold beverages in what ever shade they could find and a group set up a shooting range and let loose some serious firepower. There was also a desert cleanup in the evening where a large amount of trash and debris was collected, as the group wanted to make sure we left the area better than we found it. As the sun set the awards and super nice prizes where distributed to the Challenge winners and everyone gathered for the gourmet hot dog feast. Overland Gourmet did an amazing job providing lots of super high quality grub for everyone to enjoy. There were lots of stories and experiences shared around the campfire Saturday night and as Sunday morning rolled around the slow exodus from the desert began with Overlanders headed off in all directions. All of the vans gathered for one final group photo and said their goodbyes before dispersing.

Kelly brought out some fun toys. The AR Drone was pretty cool:)

DSCN0738 — Justin took the Challenge on his cazy offroad bike. this is his version of the set up camp challenge.

Wolf made short work of the super challengeing multi tool ammo case challenge.

Justin used a bike patch on the exterior of the tire for the Tire repair challenge. It did hold 5 PSI;)

Creativity with spoons and cam straps for the imobilize the injured arm challenge.

Lots of different ways used to extract a wheel from a sand hole. High lift from the wheel.

Bottle jack on the axel. Such a small tool for such a BIG job!

Airbag lift the axel using exhaust fumes. Very cool, but didn't quite work.

I had the battery cables come off my house battery on the rough road into camp. Not an easy little job to sort out on the rig, but with good people and the right tools it got done right.

SoCalExPedDesertPhotos042 — Lots of good help! Thanks guys. (Photo: Tim Sanchez)

Enjoying some cold beverages in the shade after the battery fix. (Photo: Eric Tabb)

This thing could go over anything and was super fun to ride. Thanks Justin. (Photo: Eric Tabb)

HUGE variety of offroad rigs in the desert.

3 Shells in the air at the same time, nice:)

Lineup for Saturday night's gourmet dogs.

Offroad lights and fire light across the desert.

I want to personally thank the great group of van owners that accepted me into the fold. I also want to thank all those who helped with my little battery issue, especially Tim and Kelly. It was a great experience to network with a ton of great people. Also a huge thanks to TACODOC and all the other Conspirators and sponsors for creating a truly memorable event. I learned a ton and am excited about catching up with everyone again soon, maybe at the Overland Expo in May.

See you on the trail,

Bryon

Vans with all their owners. Such a good group of people!

-Organizer’s website with info and photos: TACODOC (HUGE thanks for putting this together!)

-Expedition Portal main Rendezvous Thread

-Exploring Elements FB photo gallery

-Tim Sanchez’s quick report and photos on DirtNewz.com

-M109A3 driving off a cliff VIDEO (So cool!)

-Brent Haywood Photography VIDEO (Long, but some good stuff in there.)