OK @Wildman ... as requested 
So along with my club the Timber Tamers, we (my wife and I) attended and hosted at the Trail Jam event this year in Naches Washington. We arrived Sunday last week, and got home today.
The first three days we pre-ran the three trails assigned to us, Naches, Manastash, and Rocky Saddle.
Monday, day one up Naches was fairly interesting, one of our members in an XJ started having leaky front axle seals, and when he opened them up at camp, he found a missing ring gear tooth in his diff... yay. Ended up fixing the first on site at the campground Tuesday and was able to run on the missing gear the rest of the week (although he had issues Tuesday). Going up the trail we already knew the west side of the trail was still closed, but when we got up to the boy scout sign at the top we found a massive mud bog just after it, meaning that since this is supposed to be an easy trail, that was now the turn around point.
Tuesday, we ran up the trail with some great guys from Cascade 4x4 club. Early in the day our trail leader (I'd been running tail gunner as the trail leader and I both had GMRS so could stay in touch) ended up turning around with a mysterious clunking sound in the rear of his JK. Dan from the cascade group turned around with him as escort. Not 3 minutes later, our XJ once again had issues and couldn't keep his Jeep in low range, so he too turned around and joined the other 2 headed back to camp... so 8 was down to 5. This also meant I had to take over for our crew, creating a GPS track to follow later in the week and getting some great tips/notes from John from Cascade 4x4 along the way. About the time we hit funny rock, one of the Cascade group's TJ's started having overheating problems with the radiator they'd installed the day before. She was able to get it to cool off each time it over heated and we continued to try to nurse her down the hill until shortly after we hit the service road on the way back when her new radiator explosively burst... with a new 7 inch crack along the top of it. Now down to 4 sigh. We left her TJ there, with another of our group to watch over it, and the 3 remaining vehicles went back to camp. I then followed her and another of her team back up the hill as they took a pickup/trailer up the service road where we loaded the TJ up and 3 hours later had everyone back safe at camp.
Wednesday our whole crew was back in action as we proceeded to pre-run our rocky saddle trail run. This was the least eventful day so far as 7 hours later all 5 of us managed to come back to camp in one piece!
Thursday was the first day of runs with the participants. We hosted the early Naches run, where we had I think 13 participant vehicles that we led up the trail. We decided to take them through the rabbit holes to start (avoiding the seriously tight section), eventually making our way up to the boy scout sign where we stopped for lunch. We came back down the road and ended up taking some of the more adventurous (and LJ or smaller) vehicles back through the rabbit trails, this time spotting them through the tightest section. No break downs... just a great day out wheeling.
Friday we took 11 rigs up manastash. We took the milk creek trail up to five fingers (which has 7 now) and let those who wanted to try the different hill climbs before then heading up upper woodpecker. After stopping for a photo op of mount Rainier, we headed to funny rock where I spotted about half the group up the easy line and the other half opted for the bypass before continuing through the trail. The only issue that day was right at the otter slide as we were lining up those who wanted to climb it vs those who wanted to go around, we found the zj in the group had lost the upper bolt to his passenger rear shock. Luckily we found the bolt, and after bending his shock mount back into place we were able to reinstall the shock fairly quickly and continue on. This was the first time I'd been trail leader for something like this and I found I enjoyed it... several of the participants gave thanks and good feedback, so I guess I did OK
Saturday... Rocky Saddle. We had a much smaller group Saturday, only two of us hosts, and 4 participant vehicles. We were doing good until about a third of the way through the trail when we had to stop and replace a missing upper track bar bolt in a JK that was in the group, luckily I found a 'close enough' bolt in my bolt bag. Moving on, about half way through the trail, we stopped and our groups trail leader once again heard something strange from the back of his JK... turns out, he'd completely ripped the driver side rear upper control arm mounts off of the axle. We removed the arm, I pulled in front of him and since we didn't have a welder, we just moved slowly on as he nursed his Jeep along the trail. On two of the steeper (loose shale rocks etc) inclines I strapped him to my Jeep and pulled him up so he wouldn't have to put too much power to his rear axle. We were nearly down to the service roads once again, thinking we'd avoided major issues as the JK was still moving ok, when one of the participant vehicles cracked his main engine pully nearly in half. After some discussion, we managed to pull the belts and zip tie the pully remains out of the way enough that he could run the vehicle for a minute or two at a time before over heating (he'd lost water pump, power steering, etc and it was around 95 degrees). I pulled him up a couple of hills, but luckily after that it was mostly down hill. I ran ahead of him as he coasted down the hill to watch for oncoming vehicles of which there were actually 2 groups which I managed to get to the side of the road before he coasted past them, avoiding him having to stop. Once he'd coasted most of the way down, we left his jeep, with our damaged JK to watch over it, while I drove him back to the camp to get his truck/trailer so we could go get the vehicle. Hit the trail at 8am, back to camp just after 5pm.
Over all, Awesome week, met tons of great people, and at the end of the day, we got everyone safely up and down the mountain. I met with @tombicon a few times, loaned some sockets to Carl Jantz LOL, and got to meet @Wildman as well as one other forum member who's name I have thoroughly forgotten!
through all that, the only problem with my LJ was some movement in my upper trac bar joint, but not enough to stop me from completing all I needed to!
Couple quick videos here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3Kwz99UBBn1VgbmZ6
And some pics... I didn't end up taking many :/
So along with my club the Timber Tamers, we (my wife and I) attended and hosted at the Trail Jam event this year in Naches Washington. We arrived Sunday last week, and got home today.
The first three days we pre-ran the three trails assigned to us, Naches, Manastash, and Rocky Saddle.
Monday, day one up Naches was fairly interesting, one of our members in an XJ started having leaky front axle seals, and when he opened them up at camp, he found a missing ring gear tooth in his diff... yay. Ended up fixing the first on site at the campground Tuesday and was able to run on the missing gear the rest of the week (although he had issues Tuesday). Going up the trail we already knew the west side of the trail was still closed, but when we got up to the boy scout sign at the top we found a massive mud bog just after it, meaning that since this is supposed to be an easy trail, that was now the turn around point.
Tuesday, we ran up the trail with some great guys from Cascade 4x4 club. Early in the day our trail leader (I'd been running tail gunner as the trail leader and I both had GMRS so could stay in touch) ended up turning around with a mysterious clunking sound in the rear of his JK. Dan from the cascade group turned around with him as escort. Not 3 minutes later, our XJ once again had issues and couldn't keep his Jeep in low range, so he too turned around and joined the other 2 headed back to camp... so 8 was down to 5. This also meant I had to take over for our crew, creating a GPS track to follow later in the week and getting some great tips/notes from John from Cascade 4x4 along the way. About the time we hit funny rock, one of the Cascade group's TJ's started having overheating problems with the radiator they'd installed the day before. She was able to get it to cool off each time it over heated and we continued to try to nurse her down the hill until shortly after we hit the service road on the way back when her new radiator explosively burst... with a new 7 inch crack along the top of it. Now down to 4 sigh. We left her TJ there, with another of our group to watch over it, and the 3 remaining vehicles went back to camp. I then followed her and another of her team back up the hill as they took a pickup/trailer up the service road where we loaded the TJ up and 3 hours later had everyone back safe at camp.
Wednesday our whole crew was back in action as we proceeded to pre-run our rocky saddle trail run. This was the least eventful day so far as 7 hours later all 5 of us managed to come back to camp in one piece!
Thursday was the first day of runs with the participants. We hosted the early Naches run, where we had I think 13 participant vehicles that we led up the trail. We decided to take them through the rabbit holes to start (avoiding the seriously tight section), eventually making our way up to the boy scout sign where we stopped for lunch. We came back down the road and ended up taking some of the more adventurous (and LJ or smaller) vehicles back through the rabbit trails, this time spotting them through the tightest section. No break downs... just a great day out wheeling.
Friday we took 11 rigs up manastash. We took the milk creek trail up to five fingers (which has 7 now) and let those who wanted to try the different hill climbs before then heading up upper woodpecker. After stopping for a photo op of mount Rainier, we headed to funny rock where I spotted about half the group up the easy line and the other half opted for the bypass before continuing through the trail. The only issue that day was right at the otter slide as we were lining up those who wanted to climb it vs those who wanted to go around, we found the zj in the group had lost the upper bolt to his passenger rear shock. Luckily we found the bolt, and after bending his shock mount back into place we were able to reinstall the shock fairly quickly and continue on. This was the first time I'd been trail leader for something like this and I found I enjoyed it... several of the participants gave thanks and good feedback, so I guess I did OK
Saturday... Rocky Saddle. We had a much smaller group Saturday, only two of us hosts, and 4 participant vehicles. We were doing good until about a third of the way through the trail when we had to stop and replace a missing upper track bar bolt in a JK that was in the group, luckily I found a 'close enough' bolt in my bolt bag. Moving on, about half way through the trail, we stopped and our groups trail leader once again heard something strange from the back of his JK... turns out, he'd completely ripped the driver side rear upper control arm mounts off of the axle. We removed the arm, I pulled in front of him and since we didn't have a welder, we just moved slowly on as he nursed his Jeep along the trail. On two of the steeper (loose shale rocks etc) inclines I strapped him to my Jeep and pulled him up so he wouldn't have to put too much power to his rear axle. We were nearly down to the service roads once again, thinking we'd avoided major issues as the JK was still moving ok, when one of the participant vehicles cracked his main engine pully nearly in half. After some discussion, we managed to pull the belts and zip tie the pully remains out of the way enough that he could run the vehicle for a minute or two at a time before over heating (he'd lost water pump, power steering, etc and it was around 95 degrees). I pulled him up a couple of hills, but luckily after that it was mostly down hill. I ran ahead of him as he coasted down the hill to watch for oncoming vehicles of which there were actually 2 groups which I managed to get to the side of the road before he coasted past them, avoiding him having to stop. Once he'd coasted most of the way down, we left his jeep, with our damaged JK to watch over it, while I drove him back to the camp to get his truck/trailer so we could go get the vehicle. Hit the trail at 8am, back to camp just after 5pm.
Over all, Awesome week, met tons of great people, and at the end of the day, we got everyone safely up and down the mountain. I met with @tombicon a few times, loaned some sockets to Carl Jantz LOL, and got to meet @Wildman as well as one other forum member who's name I have thoroughly forgotten!
through all that, the only problem with my LJ was some movement in my upper trac bar joint, but not enough to stop me from completing all I needed to!
Couple quick videos here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3Kwz99UBBn1VgbmZ6
And some pics... I didn't end up taking many :/
into a spare 5 gallon can that I added to the tank.