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Story and Photos by Dave Chou & John Cullen

Offroad Day Kamp and Rock Krawl '99

After cleaning that up, we ran some easy forest trails to allow everyone to cool out. We took a trail called Mini-Rubicon which is a tight sluice with some big rocks. Most trucks took the bypass. Several of the lifted Wranglers, a Toyota truck, and a full-size Blazer made it up without beating on the trucks too badly

We headed over to a really steep, 1/2 mile, downhill climb called Icky Hill. This trail has bypass's but the main trail has dips and big rocks, boulder walls, and slopes to the right. It's broken into two separate sections. The Toyota went first and did fine, with just a couple of bounces before getting through. Then the rest of the trucks that weren't taking the bypass's followed our lines and we all got ready for the next section.

Two large boulders guard the entrance to this drop-off. You pull up watching the spotter, drop the front wheels over and stay off the brakes, due to the loose rocks and dirt, just letting the engine walk you down.

Again, the Toyota pickup lined up, dropped over the edge, and crawled on through without a problem. I was up next. I popped in to 1st low and let my crawl ratio control the speed going down. However, my YJ was still going a bit too fast. I tapped on my brakes and she stalled. At the same time, my left bumper got caught on a big boulder. I remembered my spotter telling me to turn right. However, I panicked and started in first as I was turning. My YJ then bumped over the boulder and landed on her side facing down the steep hill between two boulders. The 3 point harness I had installed kept us secured and the full roll cage prevented the windshield from caving in. However, my bottle jack fell off during the roll and hit my passenger John on the head. He was bleeding, and I was getting worried. Our group helped us out. However, we had to wait about 1 1/2 hours for two trucks with winches to arrive from the harder trails.

Don't forget that this was the STOCK run. Using the winches in tandem we were able to right the truck, fix it, and drive it home, making for some exciting wheeling.