March 13, 2011
Today was just about the perfect day for some nice wheeling. Due to all of the rain recently, WillC choose us an awesome little trail that we could enjoy without worrying about it turning into a winch fest. As it turns out, the scenery was unbelievable. This combined with the wet conditions and great group we had out today and it was a great time.
Obviously, trail conditions were wet. It actually wasn’t as bad as we expected, but it still was muddy in some areas. Nevertheless, 4WD ended up being optional for a good portion of the trail which always makes for smiling faces. Trails in 2WD are fun. You drive differently and your rig responds differently. Throw in a little mud and scatter in some slippery rocks ....it’s a recipe for a good time. We did experience some clouds and a very small amount of sprinkles on the way there, but that quickly gave way to sunny skies and a great 45 to 50 degree day. You really could not have asked for much better for a day in early March.
Club members in attendance were moosin, skibum, B52BUFF, Bill3753 (myself as a passenger only) and WillC as the Trail Boss. Our distinguished guest for the day was t0sd0gg.
The trail started with a mostly gravel basin covered in some mud leading us by a lake bed and eventually to our first "photo op".
moosin:
Yes … moosin we should have aired down those tires. We all decided not to. You can see in the last picture the zero give the tires have when you don’t air down. Lesson learned: Always air down. It certainly doesn’t hurt.
skibum:
I just wanted to point out that this picture below belongs on Jeep’s homepage. It’s exactly the kind of picture I’d expect to see on a Jeep advertisement. I thought it came out great.
B52BUFF:
and our guest t0sd0gg:
From here, the trail continued on till we found some more mud combined with a rock in the perfect location to get our “Stock Guy†aka “Stuck Guy†B52BUFF, well, stuck.
Is his defense though, I missed a shot just before this that was probably the best action of the day. He got his TJ up super high and off camber on the driver’s side climbing up a rock ledge to the left of the trail. It looked awesome and I’m disappointed I didn’t get the shot.
Anyways, being he was stuck in just about the perfect little mud hole, WillC “accidently†pulled him out in 2WD. Opps.
The trail continued on until we found ourselves at the end. Here we decided to break for a short snack/lunch before we took off to tackle it in the opposite direct back to the trail head where we entered.
The following pictures are a result of B52BUFF being egged on by WillC specifically trying to get him stuck. Basically, after breaking for lunch it was decided B52BUFF would follow WillC’s line; no matter where it may be.
His TJ did great though and made for some fun pictures:
This little friendly competition seemed to spark everyone’s adventurous side leading to more obstacles on the trail being attempted. (Sorry the one of t0sd0gg is slightly out of focus.)
As to be expected, it did cause a small error though. t0sd0gg unexpectedly slid off a log (do you ever expect to slide off anything on the trail?). It was very minor though and in less than a minute his was back on track.
From here, we slowly continued to make our way back to the trail head. Finding more and more rocks and logs to have fun with along the way.
Then, out of nowhere really, we hear B52BUFF on the CB. “Hey guys, I think I’m dragging something. Hold up a second.†This was shortly followed by “Ummm, my tire is pointing in the wrong direction. I think I broke an axleâ€. WillC and I were all but certain his Dana 35 rear gave loose.
Fortunately, that was not the case. B52BUFF quickly discovered that he was in fact dragging something, just not like he thought he was. If anyone has ever seen a rock get stuck in a rig like this; speak up. It was a heck of a sight.
With the assistance of a High Lift jack and a tire iron, the rock was removed. Right at the spot the rock was found, it was placed to permanently mark the location for future trips on the trail.
From there, the tire was back on and we continued on:
We reached the end of the trail and our day was done.
Like I said earlier, it was a great time. I thought it really showed what stock suspension type TJ’s and JK’s are capable of. Both BF52BUFF and skibum run with a stock suspension system. Yes, skibum is running a JK Rubicon which comes fully locked factory, but it still was awesome to see him flexing it out on the stock BFG’s.
Our esteemed guest t0sd0gg did absolutely perfect on his first trail with the club. He was a welcome addition and I highly look forward to wheeling with him again in the future once my build is complete.
Disclaimer To JT4X4 Non-Club members: This IS NOT a ticket telling you to wheel your stock Mall Crawler Jeep or Truck. You will almost certainly get yourself in trouble, break something, or worse. Both BF52BUFF and skibum are experienced drivers running rigs with very good skid protection. Additionally, they both wheel smart with equipment you need to wheel for a day and still make it home. Long story short, they know what they’re doing and have the recovery equipment and assistance from other rigs to stay out of trouble.
Now that’s out of the way, I’m going to leave all other comments to everyone else. I hope you enjoyed my first edition trail report. I’ll work on making them better in the future.
Bill
