Those Crazy Jeep People....

[Aquamander]

I wanted to share with you guys some of the strange goings-on I saw this weekend.

My family and I went to Racoon Mtn. to go camping over the Memorial Day weekend. When we got to the camp grounds, We ended up being the only Xterra in an all Jeep campground! There must have been 30-40 Jeeps. I found out a few clubs were there to go wheelin all over the area, the highlight being the run across the ridge of the mountain.

Now mind you there were NO stock Jeeps. Most all of them were running 33"MT's or better. Most of them being swampers. A large homemade truck was there. Looked like a Suburban chassis with a p/u cab. It was sportin a 350, pretty tricked out, open headers big ass 40 something tires. The cab was set in the middle of the chassis. Pretty awesome. So I met and talked with a few of the guys there. I told them I had an Xterra, after talking a bit further I eventully asked if I could join them on one of their runs. They told me that the man that owned the property was charging $100.00 to wheel all day and feeding everyone BBQ that evening.
They then began to warn me off the trail, "dude, you don't want to take that thing up there" and shit like that. I told them I could probably get through most everything they would. (at this time I start looking for my toolbag so I could start taking the steprails off
and such) They were pretty insistive about not taking the X up there, and convinced me it would be better to go muddin and creekbed rockcrawling. Never seeing the trail and not sounding like I was experienced enough to make the run, common sense kicked in. On Saturday, we went our way and the Jeeps went theirs.

My friend and I went rockcrawling in some of the local riverbeds. Since there had not been alot of rain, the trails we went to were kinda lame. Most of them dry and boring. So we crawled around in the riverbeds most of the day. I'm happy to say that we went through some nasty craggy big assed cobblestone stuff. I had to
run 4lo the whole time but the X crused through it with the greatest of ease. My friend was spotting me through the real rocky areas. I never did pull off the steprails, but almost creamed them a couple of times. I was surprised that I was able to get where I was, I only hit bottom a couple of times. I tried to steer clear of potential hazards. (I should have left the rails at home!)

Anyway we pull back into camp and guess what... there's a flatbed with a badly rolled Bronco and a pretty damaged jeep on it! Of course, I had to go check it out and find out what happened.
Apparently, on one section of the trail there is a real exposed area on one of the switchbacks. The Bronco was at the top of the switchback, working his way through the bad spot. From what I understood he was leaning pretty severly, tried to get up over what many people were later calling the truck killer, lost traction and rolled over twice down the hill landing on the Jeep below. No one was hurt thankfully, but these guys weren't going to be driving these baby's home. And while we were talking to the guys about this incident, another tow truck showed up pulling another Jeep by the rear. If your thinking he killed his diff, you would be correct! Don't know what he did for sure but it too was undriveable. These guys were F***ing up some hardware!

Other than being a little dirtier and out of gas, the Xterra began to gain some attention. A couple of people poo-poo'd it (extreme Jeep people) while most other folks told me it was the best looking Xterra they had seen. I told them that there were people across the country who were going wheelin in X's and would have jumped at the chance to do the ridge trip. Much to my surprise, many people haven't seen any Xterras up close, much less one that had the suspension lifted up and some good tires on it.

They too heckeled me about the steprails.

Sorry for such a long post, and I wish I had some pics to share, but I took pics of us, not those crumby beat up ol' jeeps! I need a bigger smartmedia card.