Long Island Off Road Trail Ride

We rolled into Charlemont at about 7:00pm. As usual, it took forever to get out of the metro area, but once in the countryside we flew along. After registering with the E4W guys, I headed up to the Whitcomb Summit to get my room and then came back down into Charlemont where Dave Brill from E4W joined us for dinner at the historic Charlemont Inn.

Saturday morning rolled around fast enough. We were sitting down to breakfast up at the Whitcomb Summit (besides me, the Blairs, who don’t camp, and Felix, were up at the Summit) As our breakfasts came out in came Mark Silverback, Rocky Bulldog and Angie, and Two-Jeeps, looking for breakfast themselves. We had a hearty and headed back down to Mohawk Park for the trail line-ups. Mark, Bulldog, and Two-Jeeps went north up to Crazy 8’s trail in Vermont. Scoutmaster Bob, who as of the Vacation weekend did not have a functional truck, rode along with Mark, Two-Jeeps and Bulldog. Also running the hardcore trail, arriving late Friday night was Yaron in his do-it-all CJ. I chose to do good old Florida Road, and was joined by Felix and Bryan K, who drove up Saturday morning, in his Rubicon.

Dave Brill led the trail, I ran tailgunner. By the time we snaked out of Mohawk Park we had fifteen trucks to run the Road, assuring us of an all day trailride. Our vehicles ranged from hardcore (Felix’s Spare-parts, Dave’s “Toxic Turtle”, and my Barkmobile) to near stock (we had several TJ’s with 2” lifts running 31” tires with open diff’s). We aired down at Tannery Falls and rolled down Hoosac Street to the entrance to Florida Road, easing on in. Almost as soon as I got off pavement I was stopped by the front of the line hitting the first obstacle, alternately called the Skewer or the Grinder, depending on the extremity of the line one takes.

I’ll tell you, though, I was really shocked at how much the trail had changed since I was last there only eight months earlier. A lot of the roadbed around and behind the rocky protrusion from whence comes the appellation “Skewer” had eroded away to where there once was a ledge across the road directly behind the Skewer there is now a severe off camber spot that wants to throw your truck into the trees to the left of the trail. Just up from this used-to-be-ledge was another ledge of about 18” which has now evolved into more like a 24” ledge with a twist of tree roots on the left side. Most people made it through here without too much difficulty. Even I benefited from the strategic placement of a rock or two, and it was here I discovered that my previously beloved Ox-lock was still not locking up, damned, bedeviled machine!! This put a sort of grouchiness over everything else for the rest of the day, even though one doesn’t really need to lock up the front to do this trail. Grumble chuff chuff.

It was here that, despite the noble attempt to create a vehicle ready to wheel right off the factory line, Daimler-Chrysler once again showed why the best Jeeps are built, not bought. Even running on a 2 inch lift, and 33” tires, the transfer case of the Rubicon hangs low enough to be a major clearance problem on even moderate trails like Florida Road. Poor Bryan got to hear, again, “The Rubicon is stuck, the Rubicon is stuck.” Nothing like a YJ, right fellas? (from a Cherokee driver) We made it up past the first obstacle, with some pretty cool three-wheel driving by a Nissan Pathfinder, and Alan in his Grand Cherokee showing people how to have a good time. After passing through some serious health-related trials in the last year Alan, of Eastern 4 Wheelers, has become a model for wheeling behavior: everything is fun, ‘cause think of your options. He managed to detach several trim-plastic type thingies from his GC by the end of the day, and was still laughing about it at dinner. I admire his fortitude and his great attitude toward life.

As we slowly worked our way up to the next obstacle, Felix began having problems with Spareparts, and, it turns out, fried his ignition coil. As fate would have it he had just picked up a spare coil from Two-Jeeps and after poking under his hood for a while discovered and remedied the problem that caused the first coil to fry, put the new one in and we were good to go. I gotta tell ya, Felix (Joe) was pretty impressive in tracking down his electrical problem. He didn’t do too badly ‘wheeling either, once he managed to keep Spareparts running.

The last major obstacle before the turn-around spot also had undergone some changes since I was last there. Those of you who have run this trail remember this as a rather formidable ledge to climb with the difficulty of the approach depending on the condition of the trail and the line the driver chooses. Anyway you look at it, this is a tough ledge to hump over. One big change is that there is a long chunk of rock which used to lie in the trail almost like a ramp up to one of the lines over the ledge. This rock has been totally shifted so that now I lies across the trail like a barrier, increasing the difficult of the climb by creating a drop behind it just before the base of the ledge. Dave Brill did a brilliant job spotting all the trucks up over this ledge. There were points at which I would have quit and turned around or winched up over, but Dave was positively persistent and managed to spot everyone, locked or open, 35’s or 31’s, up over the obstacle. A few tugs were needed, but the winches were not broken out once.

I was at the end of the line and as I pulled up to the obstacle with only Felix and Bryan in front of me I got one of those feelings. The top of the trail is only 100 yards up from the obstacle, so the trail was just about done. The feeling that maybe I’d better not climb that rock today welled up through me, and I thought about all those times that the day was almost over, and we’d do “just a little more” and, without fail, THAT would be when I cut a tire or break something. I called up to Dave that I would just wait below for them all to turn around, I backed off the trail and settled in for a little rest as the gang made their way up to the turn-around spot and started on back down the road. As the last of them rolled on by I fell in at the end of the line and we rolled on down the mountain. As we hit pavement, most headed back to Mohawk Park, I headed straight back to the Summit. A nice day on the trail, only one major annoyance for me, in that my Ox-lock is still snafu. Also, as I sat in front of my room at the Whitcomb Summit I noticed fluid running freely out of the front of my Jeep. It turns out I’d worn a small hole in my lower radiator hose and was spewing coolant: no big deal, but something else to fix (what am I, made of money???)

I stopped long enough to wash up and change clothes, then it was back down to Mohawk Park for the big Florida Vacation Buffet Dinner and Raffle drawing. Dinner was fine: Roast Beef, Stuffed Chicken Breast, Whipped ‘taters ‘n’ gravy, veggies, salad and strawberry shortcake for dessert. The raffle was good, lots of people now have tire-deflators and pressure gauges. Bob Blair got a new Premier Power Welder Hat, Two-Jeeps won a bunch of stuff. Eastern 4-Wheelers gave away almost $4000.00 worth of stuff.

I was feeling kind of bloated so I headed back up to the motel, where I sat and socialized with Scoutmaster Bob, Joan, Felix and a few wayward travelers for a short while and then waddled off to bed. Is there a nicer place to be than the western Massachusetts mountains on a summer’s evening? I do love it up there. Another great trip drew to a close, and again it revolved around great wheeling, great people and a great place. This is the Poobah, signing off for now, and until next time, remember to keep it rubber down, paint up.