Well Marek (Angela, Emma and Marah, Justin (Erin) and I (Connie) and Steve with his daughter Alix and we had a blast. Only a small group showed up for Saturday and we all felt bad for Pierre after all the hard work he puts into the park. There were 8 rigs including ours and for the morning we all travelled together and did Driveshaft. Everything was very slick with all the rain we have been getting and all the hills were steady streams.
We were back at the parking lot at about 11:30. Connie and Angela had stayed back at the campground so we "rushed" back to get them and Marek's kids but with the construction (yes on a Saturday and Sunday with several kilometres of flagman then following a lead truck) we did not get going again until almost 2 but We had told Justin to go ahead and Pierre had stayed to lead us back to the group. Well he decided after seeing our trucks perform well enough in the morning that we could take a new trail right off the bat on our way to meet up with the rest of them on Can Opener and was it ever great, (picture can opener before all the earth washed away so it is not as deep between rocks but really slippery because of all the mud). We only got 50ft up the trail before we were stopped and needed spotting and all the girls immediately bailed as they had been complaing about how they didn't think they should be in the truck for from the moment we had turned on to it hahahah.
As we were finishing up that Justin got hold of us on the CB and drove to join back up with us. We then headed to Can Opener where we had a a bit of problem getting Justin through the mud as his 33's just didn't reach as the ruts were deep enough to have diffs dragging on 35's and as this was the only deep mud we encountered all day that was not a problem.
This makes this a good time to point out that although Justin only was on 33" Boggers with definite wear that with Justin's good driving skill, knowing his truck and some good spotting by all of us had him doing the all of the trails just the same as Marek and I with 35's and 36's respectively. Now there were a couple of places where he definitely pushed his truck harder and a few places where he needed to be winched a little farther, but note we had to winch at those points as well.
What I will tell you is that those of you that have been thinking of coming here with our level of trucks (locked, 33-38's, gears but full bodied) yes it is definitely doable but as Pierre says he like his trails so they are technical and there are some parts of the trails that only more articulation, tire size, clearance will overcome and if you don't have those you can resort to wide open throttle but if you love the skinny pedal you will most likely break your truck because on a lot of obstacles even if you make it over one there is another one right after and hitting it at velocity probably won't end up well. At those points we chose to winch or take a tug which was less than 5 times for each truck during the whole weekend.
Which leads me to the point that this is definitely a place to have proper underbody protection as all of our skid plates and and axles definitely got a work over and I would say Justin's underside of course got the most and we mangled his rear diff cover which he has no armour on but had never damaged before. Anyway then we went onto the rest of Can Opener which is a great work out for driver and machine and Alix (Steve's daughter) picked up spotting while taking pictures at the same time and she did a good job for her first time so don't be too hard on her is the pictures aren't all quite clear.
We were moving at a not bad speed through the trail when the traction from Marek's new 35's MT's were too much for even the beefier GC drag link.
So after several attempts of trying to straighten it on truck using Marek's winch from above and Justin's from behind we ended up taking it off and finding a new way to straighten them without any hammering at all, and now my tube has a "curved jig" built into for the next time. We then put Justin's jack handle it and used it that way for the rest of the weekend.
The rest of Can Opener was a a fun challenge and I drove all 4 wheels onto "The Cliff" face but I don't think I moved 6" up it trying to crawl it, and no I did not try powering up it, although we had heard the Orange TJ (long arm) in the pictures did try and apparently has no windshield and lots of other body damage.
So this has to be 2 parts due to Forum rules.....to be continued
Dwayne:beer:
We were back at the parking lot at about 11:30. Connie and Angela had stayed back at the campground so we "rushed" back to get them and Marek's kids but with the construction (yes on a Saturday and Sunday with several kilometres of flagman then following a lead truck) we did not get going again until almost 2 but We had told Justin to go ahead and Pierre had stayed to lead us back to the group. Well he decided after seeing our trucks perform well enough in the morning that we could take a new trail right off the bat on our way to meet up with the rest of them on Can Opener and was it ever great, (picture can opener before all the earth washed away so it is not as deep between rocks but really slippery because of all the mud). We only got 50ft up the trail before we were stopped and needed spotting and all the girls immediately bailed as they had been complaing about how they didn't think they should be in the truck for from the moment we had turned on to it hahahah.
As we were finishing up that Justin got hold of us on the CB and drove to join back up with us. We then headed to Can Opener where we had a a bit of problem getting Justin through the mud as his 33's just didn't reach as the ruts were deep enough to have diffs dragging on 35's and as this was the only deep mud we encountered all day that was not a problem.
This makes this a good time to point out that although Justin only was on 33" Boggers with definite wear that with Justin's good driving skill, knowing his truck and some good spotting by all of us had him doing the all of the trails just the same as Marek and I with 35's and 36's respectively. Now there were a couple of places where he definitely pushed his truck harder and a few places where he needed to be winched a little farther, but note we had to winch at those points as well.
What I will tell you is that those of you that have been thinking of coming here with our level of trucks (locked, 33-38's, gears but full bodied) yes it is definitely doable but as Pierre says he like his trails so they are technical and there are some parts of the trails that only more articulation, tire size, clearance will overcome and if you don't have those you can resort to wide open throttle but if you love the skinny pedal you will most likely break your truck because on a lot of obstacles even if you make it over one there is another one right after and hitting it at velocity probably won't end up well. At those points we chose to winch or take a tug which was less than 5 times for each truck during the whole weekend.
Which leads me to the point that this is definitely a place to have proper underbody protection as all of our skid plates and and axles definitely got a work over and I would say Justin's underside of course got the most and we mangled his rear diff cover which he has no armour on but had never damaged before. Anyway then we went onto the rest of Can Opener which is a great work out for driver and machine and Alix (Steve's daughter) picked up spotting while taking pictures at the same time and she did a good job for her first time so don't be too hard on her is the pictures aren't all quite clear.
We were moving at a not bad speed through the trail when the traction from Marek's new 35's MT's were too much for even the beefier GC drag link.
So after several attempts of trying to straighten it on truck using Marek's winch from above and Justin's from behind we ended up taking it off and finding a new way to straighten them without any hammering at all, and now my tube has a "curved jig" built into for the next time. We then put Justin's jack handle it and used it that way for the rest of the weekend.
The rest of Can Opener was a a fun challenge and I drove all 4 wheels onto "The Cliff" face but I don't think I moved 6" up it trying to crawl it, and no I did not try powering up it, although we had heard the Orange TJ (long arm) in the pictures did try and apparently has no windshield and lots of other body damage.
So this has to be 2 parts due to Forum rules.....to be continued
Dwayne:beer:
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