** DEJA Trail Ride @ Anthracite Offroad - Nov 29 2014 **

    I'm out pulled something in my lower back (sucks getting old) and the tow rig needs rear brakes. :censored:

    Neill


    In a perfect world every dog would have a home and every home would have a dog.

    Good ride...Cold....Slippery about sums it up. Most the damage was done to the bodies...As in the human kind from slipping and falling...Well there was one door a mirror that took a hit too :doh:
    Sorry no picts on my end.
    First time ridding with you folks and just wanted to say, good meeting you and thanks for a good day of wheeling.
    Hope everyone made it home okay.

    I'm sure Stafford will have a report and a bunch of pics and vids, but It was a fun ride and yes slippery! Anthracite has come a long way since I was there a year and a half ago. The trail map will take some time getting used to, but it does a good job of getting riders back to the trail head. It's hard to see what the trails are like in the snow, I'm sure we can figure it out after a few more rides. Not there was problem one, but I forgot about sharing a park with Quads and Bikes (Paragon RIP). I got home fine, although I mowed a deer down about 1/2 mile from home. It was a direct hit broadside on the front bumper, then under the Jeep. No apparent damage, I'll give her a better look after a trip to the car wash. The guy in the car coming the other way stopped and was looking at the deer and then the YJ, kinda in awe. It probably would have totaled his car.


    btw. Crystal. I'm sure you realize I still have your radio. I don't know how soon you'll need it so pm me and will work out a drop.

    '88 YJ, 4" suspension, 2"body lift, 456 locked F & R, 35-12.50-15 BFG KM2s on Cragar Soft 8's
    &'03 KJ, 2"+ shackle lift, armor, BBs, 245-70-16 BFG A/T TAs

    Great ride. Found a new respect for snow and trees. Good news is I know a dent guy so hopefully he can get the worst of it out. Oh well, could have been much worse. Thanks Randy for giving me so much advice. I know it would have been a lot more damage with out you. (I'll pm you bout the radio. no big deal ). Sorry to hear you hit a deer and hope no damage happened. Can't wait for the next ride and it was nice meeting some new jeepers and seeing everyone again.

    had a good ole time yesterday, most of the trails seemed pretty easy except turning around on top of the mountain which caused a little bit of body modification via a tree and not the best communication between driver and co driver :doh: . Cant wait to go back but next time with no snow.

    Quote from Jeep41


    most of the trails seemed pretty easy except turning around on top of the mountain which caused a little bit of body modification via a tree and not the best communication between driver and co driver :doh:



    But you should have known "Whoa!!!!!!" meant the tree is almost the the transfer case....Not six inches from the bumper. :doh: :mrgreen:

    I got to use my new winch...and it worked !!! Not sure what happened with the four wheel drive for a while but I made it out...Thanks to all those that helped... some of the Trails are still a little too narrow for my ZJ...but other than that we had a blast...

    I had a great time. I learned a lot and enjoyed meeting and talking with everyone. It was the most fun I'd had in a while. Thanks to everyone. I hope to have some pics from my co-driver soon.

    I used to have Super Powers,
    but my Psychiatrist took them away!

    Keeping the trail report in with the main thread because I think it's easier.


    Most of us arrived on time and were ready to go around 9 then we got a call from Daddanelana that he was lost. AOAA is definitely further off the beaten path than Rausch so it's understandable. I'll also add that 125 relatively close to the park has a nasty, nasty uphill along a curve that some of the trailer guys really won't like or even be able to make (JKGray10). Careful. The parking lot was a skating rink and more than one person probably had a bruised butt the next day. Snow started to unexpectedly fall around 8am but stopped shortly after we left the parking lot.


    The (rather nice) welcome center is to the west side of the park with one main trail/road going towards the east with all of the trails to the north and south of the main road. Unlike Rausch, the intersections are marked instead of the trails. I guess this is easier for them but it doesn't make it easier to navigate imho. We found many unmarked intersections including some rather large ones. Many trails are designated for ATVs and some are for Jeeps (those are marked with pink ribbons). Several trails had spray painted blue or greens dots/slashes the meaning of which was unclear to me. Maybe it's an ATV thing? Also, none of the trails on the map have difficulty levels. Occassionally we would see a sign on a tree that signified a blue or black trail with a Jeep on it. Even from there it was hard to tell where those trails where but that was due to the 4-6" of snow on the ground, I suspect in the spring it would be much easier to determine what was a trail and what wasn't. We ended up on a few trails that ended up getting pretty narrow resulting in some custom pinstriping but not that bad (though I wasn't driving a JK with temp tags :))


    <deep breath> Started at the Welcome center, to 530, 547, 586, 587, 590, 741 where Daddanelana and I dipped off into a black trail. Really surprised we made it through unscathed as we were slipping off the line constantly. It looked like we could reconnect with the rest of the group (now led by Shorebird) quickly but not so much, somehow we teleported out to 755 although there's no trails between the two. The other group ended up on a trail that required some recovery efforts I'll let Shorebird explain and a ZJ that temporarily lost RWD. We eventually reconnected with half of the group after a lot of 'where you at?' 'I dunno, where you at?' discussions over the CB (I'm going to blame this mostly on unmarked trails at intersections, it's frustrating being at a major 6 point intersection without a marker or if you find a marker the numbers)


    More to come tomorrow.

    Stafford pretty well covered it other than our experience while he and Wayne were on the black trail. We planned to loop around and meet up with Stafford and Wayne. I chose a trail that looked rather wide at the entrance and continued that way until we encountered two trees in the trail which may have allowed enough room for my YJ to pass through, but not for the ZJ or the JKs. I took an alternate line over a tricky little hump which I made with no problem, but it got progressively more slippery as it was driven on. Chrystal (Freckles) was the last to get around it, and although she slid into the tree on the first attempt was able to get through with direction and a very light foot. At this point John's ZJs 4WD was acting up and the hump had almost turned to ice. We tried to winch him around but he continued to slide into the tree. A decision was made to send John and the remainder of the group back while the 3 of us that got by continued and met up with Stafford and Wayne. With the help of the intersection markers we were able to reassemble the group.

    '88 YJ, 4" suspension, 2"body lift, 456 locked F & R, 35-12.50-15 BFG KM2s on Cragar Soft 8's
    &'03 KJ, 2"+ shackle lift, armor, BBs, 245-70-16 BFG A/T TAs

    After the previous we ended up at 755 all the way at the end and started heading back. The ZJ and a couple others were back around 341 so we headed back down the main rd, grabbed them and then took 503 to 502, 375, 522, 527, 531, 539, 559, 562. At 715 we found two nice consecutive hill climbs with fresh untouched powder. That was a lot of fun. 703 was the top of the hill iirc, then 702 and we accidentally did the hill climb again (not that it was a bad thing). Some ATV's had also decided to climb it since we cleared the snow. 731 to 702 to 710 then we started heading back. Hit 547 (which has a half decent rock garden parallel to a short hill climb) then something in the 300 before hitting the parking lot. I forgot to mention the higher number trails are further from the parking lot.


    [img width=1200 height=675]http://i.imgur.com/Xe1QUlt.jpg[/img]


    [img width=1200 height=675]http://i.imgur.com/Fl1BWBO.png[/img]




    [img width=1200 height=675]http://i.imgur.com/5j7jeRF.png[/img]

    Quote from Stafford


    After the previous we ended up at 755 all the way at the end and started heading back. The ZJ and a couple others were back around 341 so we headed back down the main rd, grabbed them and then took 503 to 502, 375, 522, 527, 531, 539, 559, 562. At 715 we found two nice consecutive hill climbs with fresh untouched powder. That was a lot of fun. 703 was the top of the hill iirc, then 702 and we accidentally did the hill climb again (not that it was a bad thing). Some ATV's had also decided to climb it since we cleared the snow. 731 to 702 to 710 then we started heading back. Hit 547 (which has a half decent rock garden parallel to a short hill climb) then something in the 300 before hitting the parking lot. I forgot to mention the higher number trails are further from the parking lot.


    [img width=1200 height=675]http://i.imgur.com/Xe1QUlt.jpg[/img]



    Can you export that as a .gpx or something I can import into an app? Interested in the track in general but also wanted to overlay it on the current track I have.

    For anyone interested.


    Not the best overlay but this is the first I've used Google Earth. I changed your track to blue. Looks like you might have jumped on Barney Rubble and/or BamBam when you hit the black around 741. You also covered a lot more ground than we did. I also see we missed a bunch of good stuff further down off 744 and 752. The place has potential and I see that there are some more black/red my group needs to head back and hit up.


    Link do .kmz file you can open in Google Earth. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.…054/AOAA/AAOA_overlay.kmz



    [img width=1200 height=679]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11516054/AOAA/AAOA.jpg[/img]

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