I went out in the Jeep last Tuesday. It was supposed to be a quick trip, but I was having a lot of fun and didn't get back until after 9. I got into some pretty challenging stuff and I am amazed at how well my Jeep did, being stock and all. First, I went through a big mud puddle and then headed up the hill. I was trying to find a trail that is marked there as being a 4x4 trail, but it was hard to find. There were trails and hillclimbs all over the place and it's hard to find the trail. I've been up there on my motorcycle before, so I knew there was a trail there, but I thought this one was different. Going up, I had just started on a tough spot and somebody was coming down the other way. I backed up and let him by.
After that, I tried to get over this tough spot, but I didn't have enough flex to do it and it was too scary to gain any momentum because of a steep cliff on one side. I didn't want to roll down the mountain, so I backed out and took a different route. I went up the hill more and found it to be a fun challenge. About the time I made it up the hill, the guy that passed me before showed up behind me. He decided to join me and go up the trail. We made pretty quick friends and he is the one who took all these pictures. I didn't even have a camera.
The first trail we went on wasn't too bad, but there were some deep spots where the runoff water had washed out big ruts. We came to kind of an intersection and took the route neither of us had been on before. It quickly got very narrow and it looks like water runs right down the trail all spring. It was tough going and I finally couldn't go anymore.
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| Getting narrower... |
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| This is where we had to turn around, the dirt wall was too vertical to drive on and the left side was too steep and I would have slipped down in the rut, taking out the whole right side of the Jeep. |
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| Almost lost the mirror backing out. |
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| These pictures don't do this hole justice. It was very steep, it's just hard to see from the angle we had to take the pictures. |
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| I was backing out from the spot that wasn't passable. I think I lost some trim on this one. It's hard to stay in the middle of the trail when backing up. |
After the spot we couldn't pass, we turned around and went up a different trail. It ended up being ATV and motorcycle only trail (oops, sorry forrest service). Good thing we didn't get a ticket, but it was a fun trail. Mike is the guy I made friends with. He has a nice Rubicon. He blew a seal in the front axle and differential fluid was on his wheel. Luckily, it wasn't too bad and he didn't run the differentials too low on oil. At the top of a hill, he got a flat tire.
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| Fixing the flat tire. |
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| Tire shop put the lugnuts on so tight, we bent the wrench getting the nuts off. |
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| Right after the tire repair. I almost flopped going down this. |
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| Yay, we made it, but we were locked in... |
After we made it out finally, it was about 8:30. I was out a lot longer than expected. Since the trail wasn't technically a Jeep trail, we were past where the road was closed and we were locked in by a gate. It would have taken forever to get back down the trail and we didn't want to do it in the dark. We ended up going down a very steep off-camber hill to get around the gate. Mike almost rolled over. I had to stand on his rear bumper for a little extra support to get him down.
It was a really fun trip. Now we know not to go up the ATV trail again. Some of the trails aren't well marked. I luckily didn't have too many problems. Only some missing trim, and a few bruises on the exhaust and front bumper. The Jeep lives on to crawl another day.
