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The 2025 Vision Quest and Counting Coup Wrap-up

Chris Vargas and Chuck Beek with the bear claw Close up of the bear claw Beek's Place' Darshan and his award The Beek's Place flag' Club members Brian and Danny cooking Ned's plaque' Ned's rememberance O dark 30 A happy customer

One thing we can say about the 2025 Vision Quest Ride and Counting Coup rides is although we didn’t get much sun, the smiling faces of the finishers was all the warmth we needed.

It was a tough course for both events. The Vision Quest riders had one comment in regards to event course director Darshan’s challenging course - when asked at the bottom of Tombstone how their descent went most said jokingly; “I hate Darshan.” All our club sag riders on Tombstone, accomplished technical riders, thought it was a blast. After the event Darshan wanted to make the course harder - but we decided not to because instead of jokingly hating Darshan our riders will want to jokingly kill him.

Bob Pettigill, riding the only single speed in the event, was apprehensive about Tombstone after a difficult descent on the pre-ride we held the week before - but rode it without incident. Estelle Pellegrino, the only female rider in the Counting Coup, is one tough woman. She asked if she could do the last half of the course instead of the first half as her Counting Coup course because she’d rather go down Tombstone - she was one of the few including our club sag rider's and Darshan, (as well as record holding 18 time Vision Quest finisher Frank Cain), who did it with a smile on their faces.

Gerrit Van Glabbeek had this to say of this experience riding the Vision Quest:

"I too am still buzzing from Saturday and cannot recall a group of such genuinely nice people.

When Paul and I arrived at the top of Eagle, we were greeted with cheers & smiles and much-needed salty snacks. You volunteers were sincerely happy and excited; thank you for waiting for us. Patrick, on his moto, had checked on our slow Eagle climb progress a few times. We were then escorted by the truck & SUV to Tombstone for some pickle juice and on to the Two Monkeys trailhead where Dan guided us down Three Monkeys where we both fell and laughed.

Way cool celebrating this huge accomplishment with all of you at Beeks. Then Keith P. guided us down some single tracks and gave us a tour of the Black Star Canyon Indian Village Historic Site...he explained that the Tongva and Acjachemen tribes inhabited Black Star Canyon area for thousands of years. That was a special moment...thank you Keith P.

Paul and I may have been slow, but we did it! 11,004 ft of climbing, according to my Strava. Thank you all so much!”

We thank the Beek’s family for graciously hosting the event at Beek’s Place. For those that don’t know, The Beek’s run the historic Balboa Ferry and are a big part of the history of Orange County (their grandfather started the ferry with only a row boat in the early 1900’s). Chuck Beek surprised the Warrior’s Society by giving the club a Brown Bear claw from the last bear killed in Orange County in the early part of the 1900’s.

The claw was given to his grandfather by the person that killed it. Chuck Beek gave the bear claw to us in recognition of the thousands of hours (over the last 25 years) that we have volunteered in maintaining the trails and protecting our responsible access to them. We felt it a great honor to be given such a precious and historical gift. The claw will be attached to the Ned “Lone Wolf” Reynolds memorial pipe held in his honor by Debbie and Erik Brown. We gave Chuck Beek a flag depicting the Beek’s cabin to fly over Beek’s Place. His family, included his brothers, their kids and grandchildren were camping out there cheering on the riders. They joined us in the food and festivities.

Mary Huth was awarded the “Pua memorial award” for her contribution to both our events and trail work. Mary is one of our event directors and an accomplished endurance athlete who has completed the Vision Quest. Mary also volunteers for a high school mountain bike team her son is on.

Darshan was awarded the “Bob Haislett memorial award” for his outstanding work in designing and working on the course to prepare it for the events. Like Keith Eckstein, Darshan has a passion for trail work and goes without saying is a tremendous athlete. He is a big part of the success in returning us to our grass roots; his enthusiasm and passion is contagious.

We had a great breakfast, lunch and dinner cooked by Mary Huth, Danny Morones (nominated to be a legacy member) and Brian Ephraim, who was back cooking “Warrior’s Burgers.” Keith Parson’s made a great choices of IPA beers for the riders and we had Bloody Mary’s as well.

Next year we will have you drop Off your aid station bag the night before at the Black Star gate and we will also have pickle juice, tangerines and fig newtons at the Tombstone, Skyline and Eagle checkpoints.

We will also have everyone in the Vision Quest ride with those not making the cut-off times dropping down to the Counting Coup. No DNF's unless you don't finish the Counting Coup. That puts less pressure on the riders on the bubble.

Finishers of the Vision Quest (not in chronological order). All finishers received in addition to their event shirt a beaded coup feather award and a finishers jersey:

Finishers of the Counting Coup (not in chronological order). All finishers in addition to the event shirt received a coup feather:

And here are videos from participants:

Renewal of Associate membership begins now and ends June 1st. If we have any Associate memberships left (membership is limited to 50) we will ask Associate members to if they have any friends who want to join - and if we still have openings we will open Associate membership up to our email lists.

Once we have our full 50 Associate memberships we will poll our members at to what dates work for out 2025 - 2026 Beach Ride, Toad Festival and Poker Ride, the Christmas Tree Ride and the 2026 Counting Coup and Vision Quest. All rides come with food and the Toad Festival/Poker Ride and the Vision Quest and Counting Coup include prizes, awards and event t-shirts (and finishers jerseys for Vision Quest finishers).

Our plan is to go back to our grassroots beginning without pro’s and without sponsors. Once we reach our Associate membership limit we will not advertise our rides, only the ride write-up and our trail work projects; we intend to go back underground as it was the first 3 years of the event 25 years ago when the Vision Quest was originally a Laguna Rads event.

We want to give the every day person who does our rides, who juggles work and family to get their training in and fears they won’t finish - a memory (by finishing our rides), they, or she, will never forget. Our rides are not for pro’s who just want another feather in their cap.

Associate members go to the “Donate” link on our homepage to renew your membership fee of $100. All new members will pay in addition to the $100 fee an $25 initiation fee; Where can you participate in four rides for this price?

This event would not be possible if not for the many hours put in planning the event, working on the course and the graciousness of our volunteers:

Thanks to all our great volunteers!

– Chris Vargas AKA Dances With Hornets