TOOLman
07-29-2002, 04:21 AM
Last Saturday, me and four others went for a little off-roading adventure. I won't mention where we were, since we technically, or, rather, legally, shouldn't have been there. It was my CJ-3A, an MB, a CJ-2A, an M38A1, and something which I think is originally a CJ-5, but now has a CJ-3 body on it.
We spent 7 hours covering about 15 miles of varying terrain; rocks, ruts, mires, mud bogs, creeks, ditches, ... anything except sand, really. Everything went well, nobody broke anything, although we all got stuck from time to time.
All in all I was very impressed with what the CJ can do. There were places where I was absolutely certain that we couldn't handle, but we did. The worst (most scary) was a small creek in a 'canyon' with ten-foot vertical walls. We all helped push the first Jeep up the sheer wall, then used a tow strap to get the rest of us up. The feeling when I was sitting there with the hood pointing straight to the sky was quite indescribable, but it felt very good afterwards. :)
I didn't bring my digital camera, 'cause the batteries were dead. One guy brought his, and he e-mailed me the pics he took of my Jeep. They're not the best quality, but here are two of them:
http://hem.passagen.se/suntool/temp/stuck1.txt
http://hem.passagen.se/suntool/temp/climb.txt
None of us had a map, so when we finally arrived at a dirt road we didn't know where we were. We hailed a passing car and the driver turned out to have a very good map with him. When we found out where we were, I saw that we were only a few miles from where I live. From there I could guide the rest of the guys to the nearest gas station, because by this time all of us were getting low on gas. I didn't know we were going to be out that long, so I had only brought a thermos of coffee and a bottle of water with me, but no food. The hot dogs I bought at the gas station tasted better than any gourmet food, I can tell you. :)
People gave us some weird looks as we were parked at the gas station. No wonder, because the Jeeps and ourselves were covered in mud. As I cleaned the windshield a guy eyed me very suspiciously when I used the scraper even on the inside... :D
Anyway, this was the first serious off-roading I've done with my CJ, and I'm impressed. I can't wait until the next trail run with the club (we'll be on our legal turf by then).
We spent 7 hours covering about 15 miles of varying terrain; rocks, ruts, mires, mud bogs, creeks, ditches, ... anything except sand, really. Everything went well, nobody broke anything, although we all got stuck from time to time.
All in all I was very impressed with what the CJ can do. There were places where I was absolutely certain that we couldn't handle, but we did. The worst (most scary) was a small creek in a 'canyon' with ten-foot vertical walls. We all helped push the first Jeep up the sheer wall, then used a tow strap to get the rest of us up. The feeling when I was sitting there with the hood pointing straight to the sky was quite indescribable, but it felt very good afterwards. :)
I didn't bring my digital camera, 'cause the batteries were dead. One guy brought his, and he e-mailed me the pics he took of my Jeep. They're not the best quality, but here are two of them:
http://hem.passagen.se/suntool/temp/stuck1.txt
http://hem.passagen.se/suntool/temp/climb.txt
None of us had a map, so when we finally arrived at a dirt road we didn't know where we were. We hailed a passing car and the driver turned out to have a very good map with him. When we found out where we were, I saw that we were only a few miles from where I live. From there I could guide the rest of the guys to the nearest gas station, because by this time all of us were getting low on gas. I didn't know we were going to be out that long, so I had only brought a thermos of coffee and a bottle of water with me, but no food. The hot dogs I bought at the gas station tasted better than any gourmet food, I can tell you. :)
People gave us some weird looks as we were parked at the gas station. No wonder, because the Jeeps and ourselves were covered in mud. As I cleaned the windshield a guy eyed me very suspiciously when I used the scraper even on the inside... :D
Anyway, this was the first serious off-roading I've done with my CJ, and I'm impressed. I can't wait until the next trail run with the club (we'll be on our legal turf by then).