4 Wheel Off-Road Magazine Ultimate Adventure – Day 2

The next morning, we headed out for a road trip to an off-road park where we were exposed to some of the knurliest obstacles we have ever seen. Remember – we play in the mud and sand and the occasional hill climb, so starting out your first run on beyond black diamond trails is a little scary. Being slightly hesitant but secure in our abilities, we stayed towards the rear of the pack to observe what the others were doing in hopes that we would learn a few things.

One of the things we learned is that we did not have enough gear for crawling and that our carburetor was a major disadvantage on these steep hills. On one of the hill climbs, most of the other guys were crawling up the hill with great success. When it was our turn, we tried to crawl up with horrible results, stalling repeatedly at the base of the hill. Not knowing what to do, we went with what we knew from climbing sand dunes: more throttle! We backed up a bit from the base of the hill and just stood on it. People were jumping back and climbing trees when our 460 roared to life and shot up that hill like a scalded dog. I think the truck spent more time in the air than it did on the ground. After our full throttle, no-fear run, we became the entertainment for the group. They started to announce when it was “the Bronco guys” turn and everybody would watch.

One of the last obstacles of the day was called the double whammy, which it was for us. This hill was super steep with a waterfall at the bottom, a bump in the middle, and a turn towards the top (just for fun). We again tried to crawl up this thing with no success, so we went with what works. We hit the hill hard and flew right up the waterfall. When we hit the bump in the middle, we got caught something serious. We really don’t know for sure where it all went wrong, but the next thing we knew were laying on our side. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

After using winches to get us back on our wheels and rolling us back down the hill, we pulled the plugs, checked the oil, and cranked our engine over, making sure not to injure it due to a cylinder full of oil (which there was). We got our beast running but elected not to take the Bambe route, proceeding to do it again with slightly less throttle this time. We made it to the top where one of the photographers captured a spectacular wheel up finish. It looks like we were going to hit the tree, but we did miss that one.

At the end of our first day of wheeling, we were met at the end of the trail by the BFGoodrich support trailer and a terrific BBQ put on by the local 4wheel club. After our dinner, we had a little powwow to go over the brakeage and damage report. We were voted the rig with the most body damage, between our flop on the side and all of them tree things (we are from the CA desert). We had killed both rear fenders and destroyed both of our tail lights. Rick advised us to get a good night’s sleep at our hotel, because that would be the end of that luxury until the end of the trip.

My next post will cover day 3 of this awesome trip, so make sure to check it out.

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