January 10 Arctic Blast!
Wow, what a day! This was among the largest turnouts for a DeJA Trail Ride that I can remember (although after 40, that’s not saying much!) We had something like 17 jeeps attempt to start the day, with 16 actual getting moving.
Here are the DeJA members and guests in attendance: CJs91YJ (CJ), Claymont-Hilbilly (Matt Edwards), DCCYJ91 (Donnie Caudill), demudfrog (Drew McGrady), DJWirfel (Dave Wirfel), dmaster (Stetson Wallis), DrJeep (Steve Hicks), fatfarm (Nate Griffith), Fly-N-Hi (Kenny George), gavan (Gavan Young), Icky (Erica Lalik), jeepers (Greg Boyer), JeepSahara (Chris Hall), jpfan (Keith Schussler), NikkiYJ (Nikki Sample), Orange Crush (Tom Sample), quadna71 (Chris Koran), Solomi (Sal Giglia), UrbanCrawler22 (Kevin Hamilton), and your host, Alesser (Andrew Lesser). We also had assorted spouses, friends, parents, sons, and daughters along, but I didn’t catch all those names.
We started with a long ride up to Paragon Adventure Park, a little more than 2 hours from our Wawa meeting place in N. Wilmington. We did make one unscheduled stop at the Exxon on 209 just off the turnpike for a quick rest room stop. When we got to Paragon, I think there was one truck with 2 ATVs, and maybe five other Jeeps. Our arrival tripled the day’s attendance at the park. We checked in, paid our fees, and started getting our jeeps trail ready. One was DOA at the start, Nikki’s YJ didn’t like the cold Friday night (they went up the night before) and had a frozen heater block, so it stayed parked while we rode.
Our first warm up obstacle was Rubicon Lake. The lake has a number of paths down, some easy and some more difficult. Before I describe my descent, let me just say IT WAS GAVAN’S FAULT. As I headed into one of the gullies, Gavan suggested I cross into the next one and get high centered as a demonstration to the rest of the group. We did one better - partially heading up the edge and then back down, and slipping on some ice, we found ourselves with BlueJ at a 45 degree angle and slowly getting worse. Lives flashing before our eyes, Gavan and I sat motionless hoping that BlueJ would decide to start tilting back. Suddenly we felt a strong pull as Greg and others from the front of our group managed to grab onto the bumper and pull us back level. Whew, that was a close one... But no one had their cameras ready?!? Damn, we’ll have to do it again!
The next one down I could identify just from the Bang, Boom, Scrape! It was CJ in his new Liberty, sliding down just as many rocks as he got his tires on. The rest of the crew followed on down, and we all rested at the bottom.
Coming up from the lake Donnie couldn’t get his 4WD to engage, and Drew started to have stalling problems. Both made it through the next trail, but then called it a day.
We then headed back via the Bunny Loop, and nice little beginners trail, and then down Coal Road to unnamed trail 25. It started off pretty good, with some nice rock obstacles that we all made our way past (some with a little spotting), but eventually seems interminable. The trail had apparently been extended considerably since I last rode it, ending up close to the park entrance. The new route took it way up and behind the Q, M, Pipe Bender, Chicken Run, and Drumstick trails. It took so long it seemed like we changed time zones, so at the end of the trail we unpacked and ate our lunches. Some folks stayed in their jeeps to beat the cold, but others gathered on the trail to eat. How cold was it? Here’s how cold - my bottle of Diet Pepsi was liquid coming out of the ice-filled cooler, but started to freeze when I opened it up on the trail!
After lunch and brownies for dessert, we separated into two groups. First, we decided to cross the deep water crossings off the itinerary becuase we didn’t want to be driving around in icicles. Chris Hall led the modified group down Valley Road, and I let the stockers through the 101 area, up High Road, and down Turtle Trail. Chris will have to fill us in for the modified ride’s experiences.
We were halfway down Turtle when we experienced our first damage. In a simultaneous maneuver, CJ managed to both shed his right front fender, bump his front bumper, and blow the bead on his left rear tire. Pretty talented, huh? As CJ picked up the pieces of his fender (can you say “someone hit me in the parking lot, Mr. Insurance Agent...”), Gavan set up a bottle jack under the rear, and lifted it up a little bit. With my Powertank, we were able to pump enough CO2 into the tire to reseat the bead and air up. Mission accomplished, we continued on down the trail.
At the bottom of Turtle, we crossed over some ice patches to get to the Spring. I tried out the water crossing entrance, but even with Krawlers, lockers, and a running start, couldn’t make it up the ice covered hill. Backing out, we headed in the next entrance over, bringing up in just above the icy hill. We then spend a while playing on the hills around the Spring, and I let Gavan drive BlueJ around for a while as I snapped some pictures. Kevin managed to get himself and his jeep wedged into an icy trail against a little rock, and was hopelessly stuck. So BlueJ ran to the rescue, backing down that trail to get a strap on his jeep. Getting a grip on the edges of the trail, we spun the jeep enough for Kevin to be able to slide his way back down the trail.
We finally decided that it was time to head on back to the staging area, so we re-grouped and headed up Haul Road. About halfway up, ran into (figuratively) our modified group heading the other way. After some consultation regarding the icy nature of Valley Road, the stockers turned around and join into formation for the trip back to Turtle Trail.
As we headed on down Haul, I heard on the CB “left or right”. My response was “straight”, but I guess that wasn’t helpful enough. Chris had lead the beginning of the group up Boy Scout trail, which wasn’t a problem in itself but due the time we couldn’t do. So we backed onto Haul for the ride to and up Turtle Trail. We half expected CJ to take his other fender off on the way up, but the ride up was uneventful.
Instead of turning left at the top of Turtle for the long way around, we turned right towards the shortcut. Somewhere along that trail I missed the switchback downhill, and the trail closed up to an eventual stop, with me sitting in front. Backing up again, Chris re-took the lead down the hill and through the woods. One more wrong turn put O.C. in the lead, and he took us up to the Coal Road and the staging area.
Our group was the last one left in the park. Luckily, they did not lock the gates yet so we aired up (thanks to Chris Hall and Kenny George’s compressors), loaded up the trailer, and headed up to the Exxon for the bathroom, gas, and hot tea (in order of importance). Then the long ride back home...
Thanks to JeepSahara for “volunteering” to lead the modified group after we split, and to O.C. for helping Chris and not breaking anything (in order of importance). Thanks also to those who took Nikki and her passengers along when her YJ crapped out.
And did I mention it was cold?