We met at the Four Corners area, at Corral Canyon OHV Park about 9:30 in the morning. Now this seemed to be way to early for some of the older members of Dehesa, as well as our resident Land (ab)Use correspondent. We aired down, disco'd and headed for the trail. The first obstacle is a waterfall set of rocks, no actual water. I was leading, took me a few trys but I finally got up and over it. Seth gave it a few good runs, and decided to winch up it, instead of forcing the issue.

We went on up the trail to the second major obstacle. The climb up Bronco Peak can be a real pain at times, it's all loose rocks about the size of a bread box with a few bigger ones thrown in. The rocks are on top of the finest dust/dirt you've ever seen, so they are constantly moving under your tires.

We both made it up to the top where there are a series of ruts in the rock that love to grab differentials. The line forces you to go up a rock on the right, lightly graze some bushes, and turn left off of the rock.  It's about a 2 1/2 foot drop coming off of the rock, but usually your left side tires stay off of it, or just barely on it and don't drop off that much.  I fell off the line into the ruts a couple of times, and had to back down a little for a better line. Finally I decided to really stay to the right and go way up the rock before I made the hard left off of it. Bad move. Then I compounded the problem by turning back to the right after my front tires were off the rock. Just as I turned, the rear tires went up on the rock, and over we went.

I never felt the Jeep get tippy, it just flopped with the quickness. It was a relatively soft roll, my wife and I just looked at each other, asked each other if we were OK, realized no one was hurt, and exhaled.

Seth ran up to the Jeep, saw we were OK, and helped Machelle climb out. I climbed out, Seth got his camera, took a couple of pics, and we started the recovery process.  I had the brilliant idea to open my tailgate to get my recovery gear out, and everything under my bed shelf promptly fell out of the Jeep. Tools, spare axles, first aid kit, shovel, and the gear bag with my recovery stuff in it.  Seth's Jeep was behind and below me, with no way to get around me. We put a strap around the base of a large bush, connected his snatch block to it, another strap to the middle of my cage on the right side, and shackled the winch cable to it. I climbed back into the Jeep, put it in neutral and got ready to stand on the brakes as Seth winched me over. Got it back on four wheels, started it up and pulled on up the trail to make room for Seth.

The winch cable was already out, so we winched Seth up the last few feet, using my Jeep as an anchor.  I came out of it with a crunched left front fender, small ding in the hood, big dimple in the left side of the cowl, and a bent leg at the rear of the cage. Lost a little gear oil out the rear diff vent, but didn't have any other fluids pouring out.  Actually I started the Jeep as we were winching it over so I would have power brakes available.

We still had some significant rock gardens up and down hills to go, but finished with no further difficulties.  The Jeep seemed to have a new vibration on the way home, but I'm overly sensitive about things like that.  It steered straight which was my biggest concern.

My wife and I have talked about what to do in a roll on numerous occasions.  It may have helped me when it actually happened, as I managed to keep all of my limbs in the Jeep.  As I said before it went over without warning, so I'd like to think that instinct told me to keep myself in the Jeep, without having to think about it.  We keep all of our gear under a shelf I built in the back of the Jeep, that worked in that it kept us from getting hit by flying tools/axles.  The cooler was tied down, but it doesn't have a lid latch, so it emptied, need to get a latch on that.