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Die Tryin'

By Vernon Brandt
Photos by Fred Perry

Die Tryin'I'm gonna' do it or die tryin. When you here these words do you get the impression that you've met a person with lots of resolve? I met such a guy in Montrose Co. His name is Terry and he works at the local 4x shop called Mcpherson's. Terry and some of his friends have at least two hobbies; one is Jeepin' and the other is trail building, for which the four wheeling communities can be thankful.

Die tryin' has been the source of conversation around the campfire for the last couple of years.
"It's a great trail! Have you been there?.... Me neither, but I'd like to go sometime."

Well "sometime" just came. I got a chance to go. Mike Westphal from the Chicago area and his bud, Dave, came to Colorado for a family vacation and brought their jeeps. We picked a day that was good for all of us and ok with their wives; Wednesday. I had been to All4Fun the week before and mentioned to a couple of guys that we were going. Fortunately, Peter Fogal (who is a member of the local Montrose club) said he would go and Fred Perry from Clemson 4 Wheel Center in South Carolina said he'd go, too. Peter brought his son and Shawn from Tuffy Security Products. What a great group!

Die Tryin' Die Tryin'

Die Tryin'The pre-arranged meeting was at 8am wednesday morning at Mcpherson's. Out of respect for these folks, if you want to use this trail ask them how to get there. They have spent a lot of time building not only this trail, but others and they also have built a relationship with the local BLM folks. So to protect these relationships, the directions are to go to McPherson's.

We headed west down some dirt roads and into a dry wash. Seems to me that many good trails begin with "start at the dry wash". Well, this one starts right away; rocks everywhere. There was some Swamper scratching but nothing very noteworthy until about the third or forth obstacle. It was me, and I was just a little left of the line on a pointy rock. I thought I would turn right, locker skitch, and drop. Most of the obstacles on this trail really only have one good line. The drop was about three feet and the landing was on something hard. I got out and the entire front end was sitting on that nice JKS tie rod and the factory drag link and my steering skid left me with my tires dangling. The steering skid was OK, but we opted not to fix the tie rod or the drag link. I did have replacements, but so early into the trail we all figured "long trail - let's see how long they will last".

Die Tryin'The next predicament came up less then 25 yards later. Our leader, Peter, has a YJ with the Black Diamond XCL coil kit and 38's. The rock (roughly a block 3x3x4 feet) had it's position in the middle of the trail with really no easy way around or over it. Right next to an even bigger odd shaped rock, the space between these and the boulders (larger than semi's) that made up the boundaries of the wash looked narrower then our rigs.

Peter went up the middle . He worked that rock hard for a long time and finally got over it. It was at this point that we got to see what Shawn had. Shawn also drive a YJ with the XCL kit, with 36's and an automatic. What we learned is that the distance between the big rocks and the large boulders could only be measured in dimensions of wow, gasp, and nice job.

Die Tryin' Die Tryin'

 

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