No One Got Bit on Snake Bait Run

I am going to start with a note about how I learned about Snake Bait. When I was thinking about relocating to Ridgecrest, I was perusing YouTube and looking at “Ridgecrest 4 Wheeling”. There is a lot to see there, but one set of videos caught my attention, dated way back in 2007, a group of Cherokees, Jeeps, and Toyota’s on Snake Bait, but literally, nothing else on the internet that I could find.

It was pretty hard core, but there were no locations or directions given. It was a “mystery trail” to me. And that also reminded me of a random encounter with a Ridgecrest Wheeler I had about 5 years ago up on the Swamp Lake trail. I forget the name of the individual, but I do remember that he claimed to be one of the OG-13 group that first ran KOH years ago, and he was in a beat up buggy from that era. I can remember his comments to this day, “you need to come out to Ridgecrest, we have great wheeling, and we have our own secret trails, that are pretty kick a$$ to run.”

I guess I was hooked, Snake Bait must be one of those “secret Ridgecrest trails” and well, I had to find it. Fast forward a couple years and thanks to Lee, a local wheeler who goes by the name of Ammo Dawg, and my new club members in Gear Grinders, I finally found Snake Bait. This trip was my third trip out there. The first trip, I flopped my Jeep messing around on the Gatekeeper. The second trip, we started up the trail, it got pretty hairy in the wash heading up to the hill, and we went around to the back and managed to get all the way up to the top ridge, where we could see the trail coming in. My companion, Ammo Dawg and I went back, and well, he had a go at the gatekeeper in his buggy. That attempt ended with a broken rear link and a few other tweaked goodies. Thanks for the fun Lee.

So, having been defeated at least twice by Snake Bait, a few Gear Grinders (Susan & I; Jerry Grimsley; Mark, Helen, & Frankie Kuttor; & prospective member, Chad Marxsen) set out on Feb 15th to at least try and run the trail end to end. We wisely bypassed the gatekeeper and walked the various trails and bypasses, mapping out our way through. Our mentor and guide Jerry, stayed back to provide rescue assistance if needed, and three of us started up the easiest path we could find, bypassing a lot of the really rough stuff down in the wash. Of course this meant a lot of side hill action, some pretty uncomfortable off camber sliding, and a few serious obstacles that just could not be avoided. Some rock stacking, backing up and re-routing, and a successful snatch block save of my Jeep as it slid toward a potential roll over, and we were at the bottom of a really loose and steep climb to the top.

I made the first attempt, and a whole lot of right foot to maintain momentum, along with some luck, I made the climb, Chad followed in his JK, making it look pretty easy, followed by Mark in the no lift TJ who walked right up with a little sliding for fun.

I actually thought the hard part was over at that point, but NOOOO! The decent down, which I had made once before had deteriorated and partly driving, partly rolling, and partly sliding down the back side, over some off camber downhill challenges and we were victorious. Snake Bait had been conquered.

There will be more to this story in the future as we bypassed the gatekeeper and some other serious obstacles, making this a real Ridgecrest Secret Trail that can challenge any vehicle’s capability.