BARC, the Bay Area Rivian Club, held its Tumey Hills run on the calendar for April 4th: 4/4, known as 4×4 Day in the offroad community. When I first signed up, I didn’t really think about two massive things colliding in my schedule that weekend. While it sounded awesome when I initially saw the event, I didn’t connect the dots that this run was right next to The Easter Sunrise Ride. That ride was the next morning with a 3 am departure. The idea of driving my truck solo to western Fresno County (and back home) was setting in. I was feeling stretched where your calendar looks full but your gas tank, ahem EV battery feels empty.

I really did want the time with the club. It had been a long time since I’d done an event since my term as president ended. So instead of driving my own truck, I made an offer to ride shotgun, take photographs, and just be. That way, I’d have to be up at 5:00 AM to be in the South Bay by 7:15 for departure, which seemed like a good forcing function to get my biological clock in order for Easter morning. Somehow, I just needed to think smarter about the weekend. Shifting into riding shotgun with a good friend turned out to be the smartest thing I did all week.

Highway 152 Over Pacheco Pass

I’d scored a ride with a friend of mine from San Jose to Tumey Hills. He’s one of those guys I’ve just learned a lot from over the short time we’ve known each other: career advice, building the Rivian club, off-road knowledge, AI, as well as spirituality. He’s just a good and seasoned dude in that regard. Some friendships you measure in years. This one I measure in the quality of conversation per mile. I’ve grown a lot since we’ve met, and I’m thankful for that.

The drive down was just about everything I had wanted — the time was great catching up, plus I wasn’t driving alone in my own truck. I’ve been doing a lot of solo seat time lately and needed some good time with good people.

It was also cool heading down to Gilroy across Highway 152 over Pacheco Pass, seeing San Luis Reservoir. That road has rich memories for me — many years of being a staff member at diabetes camp. I hadn’t seen that stretch of pavement for at least ten years. Roads have a way of holding history for me, even when I forget to visit, the memories come flooding back.

The Driver’s Meeting

The driver’s meeting was a little different for me in the sense that I wasn’t driving a truck. The ride lead went through all of the required bits — airing down to about 30 PSI, talking about how tires perform differently off-road. What struck me was the depth of knowledge across the group. People weren’t just showing up to drive around in the dirt — they were sharing tire pressure strategies, comparing gear, talking about approach angles and ground clearance. The 4×4 and off-road experience within BARC runs deeper than I’d seen first hand – especially over the year as the club has matured into an active 4×4 club. It was clear that the new leadership team has been intentional about building that expertise into the culture of the club.

As we hit the trail, I could see all of the emotions surrounding bringing a group across open terrain. It brought me back to Homoto’s Memorial Day Mingle 2015, where I had 25 bikes that all had to get from the Bay Area to Mammoth Lakes. I could see the same stress on him, and he handled it well. It’s tough coordinating logistics from the front — it’s the kind of leadership that looks deceptively natural unless you’ve done that sort of thing before. The club came prepared with having radios in every truck and a designated midpoint and sweep for the entire crew. I wished I’d had that kind of technology 10 years ago when doing the same kind of trip with motorcycles. Leading a group with grace takes a specific kind of steadfastness and calm, and they had it.

Tumey Hills

Tumey Hills sits just west of Interstate 5, about three miles down Panoche Road in western Fresno County. The BLM manages the area and designates a handful of ranch roads — TM1 through TM7 — that wind through the hills. We were on TM1 for most of the day. The terrain is called “California’s westernmost desert” — rolling, treeless hills of grass and low scrub, shaped by the rain shadow of the Coast Range to the west. Not a tree in sight. The geology is young sandstone and conglomerate, and when you look at the exposed rock in the eroded sections, it’s easy to see why — the whole area was once under an inland sea, and the pale, porous rock is full of ancient fossils. Temperatures were in the low 80s, and the sun was relentless.

It was very much a trail ride — a great season opener for people who were new to off-roading, or just wanted to get out and socialize for a bit. It’s a far cry from true off-roading or rock crawling. Nothing required 4-Low. It’s just a great excuse to get together and scrub in tires, build skills, and test our process as a club. It reminded me of similar events in the motorcycle community: MSF training and newbie ride days. It’s an excuse to be social, bring new members into the fold, and bond as a club.

Driving off-road is different than driving on pavement in the sense that routes aren’t always obviously marked, which becomes a problem when you have a large group behind you. Mistakes get costlier and they are easier to step into. My job was to jump out of the truck every so often and take some pictures, open and close gates, as well as help navigate where we were going when the terrain was not completely obvious.

Lunch was more of a function of time than destination. We found a lovely bluff with a great overlook in the park by an old abandoned water or fuel tank — easily 30 or more people spread across the hilltop, tailgates down, sharing food and stories. The Tumey Hills, in and of themselves, were very much clinging on to their last bit of green. It’s clear this area gets brutally hot in the summer, and those days were right around the corner. It was only April 4th, but it looked like June — with just about all of the green beaten out of the hillsides. The BLM closes vehicle access on April 15th for fire season, so we were there with just 11 days to spare. A number of people remarked we should have been here about six weeks earlier to get more of a green rolling hills atmosphere, but time, space, and scheduling got us here on April 4th. While the green would have been neat to see, a wet day could have easily turned the trails into mud, making for a very different weekend.

The mix of vehicles was by design: BARC’s leadership team has connections across the EV and 4×4 community here in the Bay Area. It was great seeing the Cybertruck up close, driven by someone who is definitely a cool dude. The Jeep came from another off-roading club, so it blended some diversity into the group. It was decidedly Rivian, but I think everybody appreciated talking to those who didn’t drive Rivians. That cross-pollination of experience — different platforms, different backgrounds, different reasons for being out there — is what makes a day like this more than just a drive.

Building Something That Lasts

I was surprised how many people showed up, and the fact is I didn’t really know anyone – outside of the board. After stepping down as president, I focused on some other priorities in life and blinked — and a year went by. My then view into the club didn’t see any familiar faces here. At first that hit me in a way I didn’t expect. But then I looked around — really looked — and realized that’s the whole point. The club outgrew me. It outgrew the handful of us who started it. And it’s thriving.

I met some great people out there — even a fellow Type 1. Everyone came prepared, pitched in on airing down, and knew their way around tires and gear. That kind of shared buy in comes from somewhere. The board and the president have put real work into this club, and you can feel it in how the day ran.

Building a community is hard. It takes grit, persistence, and being in it for the long term as a board. But standing on that hilltop looking at 30-some people in a line of Rivians stretched across the ridge — people I’d never met, running an event I didn’t plan, and the whole thing just worked — I felt something I wasn’t expecting. Pride: I’m excited to see where BARC is now in its journey. I can now see that the club is in a different place, and that’s awesome. Part of good leadership is letting go so that others can continue the work of growth. Organizations shouldn’t need you forever.

The leadership and community that makes it happen — the planning, the radios, the sweep truck, the patience, the grit in seeing all of the details dovetail together — that’s the stuff nobody sees until you’ve been the one who’s done it. I’m proud of the board for carrying the club’s mission forward, and how the club rallied around it today.

I think we both needed this day, honestly. My buddy found someone in the passenger seat who’s been in his exact position before — leading a group, worrying about logistics, sweating over shifting errata trying to make it all work. I got to show up without having to run it. Riding shotgun was an entirely different perspective than owning the event. I could be more casual, enjoy rather than own the moments, and simply be with the group. I didn’t even have to worry about my own truck lol. That was more than enough.

The Ride Home

The ride home was as fantastic as the ride there, and that’s what I appreciate about good friends. It’s not really about what you do — it’s about the journey to, during, and from whatever the activity was. I really value that time with a good friend.

Whereas I thought at some level I would be a bit of a tax, it turned out riding shotgun and helping with the details was actually needed. I could just be a spotter and a helper. I learned to be present, see the next thing before it’s a challenge, and let the people who are doing the work know they’re not doing it alone. That’s the reminder I needed from the community to get out of my own way.

Did I make the right decision going, and riding shotgun? Absolutely. The 5 AM wakeup forced my biological clock to begin to shift so that Easter Sunday wouldn’t be so brutal. Plus, I got to spend the day with a great community, doing some pretty cool things, with a good club. The next morning at 3 AM, I was up and moving — and Tumey Hills had done its job.

Adventure on!