Eastern Washington Expeditions
Juniper Dunes Trip/Juniper Dunes Clean Up
Hosted by Eastern Washington Off Road
By Clay Graham / CegPics.com
On Friday April 8th 2022 Eastern Washington Expeditions Club members met up in Smith Canyon and set up camp for the Midnite Mudders Annual Juniper Dunes Clean Up. To get out of the wind, we sat in the pop-up around the propane campfire. We told stories until midnight.
Saturday morning two more guys joined us for the day. We left camp around 9 am and drove over to check in at the Midnite Mudders Juniper Dunes Clean Up. They gave us some trash bags and then we headed out. Our group of 6 people with two Jeeps, a side-by-side, and a quad.
We picked up trash as worked our way toward the east power lines. At the power lines we found a guy digging tires out of the sand. We stopped to give him a hand.
We took a short break at the Juniper Dunes Wilderness entrance for a photo.
We worked our way to the north end of Juniper Dunes picking up trash with a little play on the way. We stopped for lunch around noon and let the dogs run. TJ40 headed back to camp since he forgot his lunch. Scott rode with him to go get his F150.
After a short lunch break, we headed back to the Midnite Mudders Camp picking up trash along the way. There did not seem to be as much on the route we took. Others may have picked up trash before we got there.
We got back to the Midnite Mudders Camp around 1 pm. We dropped off the trash we picked up. They had a flat bed truck to haul the trash to the dump. Doug and us parted ways. He stayed to find someone so he rode off on his quad.
Mr. Wilson and I went to Go Play! We took the east boundary from the south up and then took the Wildness Road out to the main road. We heard Scott on the CB asking where we were. To we told him and then waited up on a high point. Scott met up with us in his F150 and TJ40 in his side-by-side. Then we found a lot of hills to climb as we headed north. The bowls and tracks were real fun.
Heading back to camp we play some in the big open dune area. The wind picked up so we didn’t play long. Odo took over driving the Jeep to wheel us back to camp. He did well climbing the sand hills even with the rain, snow, and hail that was coming down fast into the open top Jeep.
Back at camp Odo cooked dinner in the camper. Shelby our dog has to sit at the table since she is too big to be on the floor. She really wanted some of Odo’s dinner.
We spent the evening out of the wind in the pop-up around the propane campfire again.
Sunday morning we all headed for home.
This was a very fun trip thanks to all who came.
Note: The YJ did a lot better then it did the year before. The Skyjacker 2″ lift kit worked well flexing and the ride was better. I only rubbed a tire in the fender once on this trip. We will see how bad the tires hit the fenders after I put offset rims and 31″ tires on the YJ.
– I was happy that the Spartan Locker worked very well. The YJ climbed the sand hill a lot easier than being open like it was last year.
Here are some photos of Juniper Dunes Trip:
