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The last few years, you will all have to admit, have barely offered any winter at all. Last year, in fact, I don’t think the ground froze even once here on Long Island. Well, the last few weeks have been a powerful reminder of what winter can really be like, with plenty of snow and truly bone-chilling temperatures. This past trailride was not spared the icy blade of winter’s frosty scalpel, as we headed out to Hazleton for the 2nd Annual Ted the Fed Tribute Trailride at Paragon Adventure Park. It was so cold that poor Bark the Jeep-dog would only spend a few minutes at a time out of the Jeep before he started hopping around on cold feet (okay, my dog’s a wus). It was so cold that as we ran though the snow it was not packing down, but coming up like dust. How’s THAT! I really enjoyed the intensity of it; knowing, of course, that I had a warm home waiting for me at the end of the day made it easier.
We gathered in the sign-in area at Paragon, each person heading up to pay their fees as they arrived. Mark Silverback, Evan the Bear (with Trevor Fan-man in his passenger seat) and Jay Wrecker Reed (with Mikey the Rat in his passenger seat) showed up a little late, battling the icy conditions the light snow was causing out on the highway. Then, EE. Wrecks wouldn’t start until we hooked about 32 batteries up to it, slowing us down a little more, and it was after 10:30 before we actually moved out of the sign-in area towards the trails. Aside from the three rigs listed above (Mark’s “Snow-white”, Evan’s “EE. Wrecks”, and Wrecker’s “Blue Toy”), we had Marc R. in “The Tan Whale,” Mike B. in “e-Jay”, Bobby Two-Jeeps with Annmarie in “Lil’ Red Riding Hood”, Me and Bark in “the Barkmobile”, Alex and his friend Raia in his TJ and Nick and Jonathan in Nick’s Hummer II. That’s one big truck. We tried to keep to trails the Hummer could fit on. We started by circling Rubicon Lake, then headed up to Turtle Rocks. The trail up to Turtle Rocks narrows quite a bit and the Nick was polishing his Hummer through the narrow twisty part of the trail. At the top of the hill I had wanted to go over the other side of Turtle, but, it turns out, the trail over the other side was closed. We looped back down to the High Road, back the way we came and dropped down into the Sand Pits to try some hill climbs. The hillclimbs we went for are tough enough in the summer when traction is available. With nearly two feet of snow filling the ruts it was impossible. I gave the hill seven or eight shots, really working at getting some vehicle speed up on the approach. I got no further than about a third of the way up the hill. Wrecker Reed positively took air trying, and Bobby Two-Jeeps blew a tire when he slammed into a rock near the bottom of the hill. No one could make it up the hill in the snow. Jay spun off to play around in the Sand Pits and managed to find a soft spot where he dropped the Blue Toy right through the icy surface into some seriously deep muck. Evan pulled in behind him and helped pull him out; the rest of us were a tiny bit more wary while playing around down there. After eating and jabbering for a while more, we headed back up the hill to Lower Wampum, which we entered backwards. Bobby got hung up on the tougher of the two entrances, Mikey B. had to anchor “e-Jay” to a tree to winch him out. I went into Wampum through the slightly less difficult entrance (exit really) and was doing fine until I got hung up on my new control arm skid plates; had to pull cable to get off that rock.. That’s one mod that was removed almost as soon as we got home. The minor bit of protection I got from them was not worth the inch and a half of clearance lost under the front axle. We swung back down through the Sand Pits to another less difficult short hill climb and started to work our way over towards Rabbit Run. I got a little disoriented in the snow; how different everything looks in the winter, you know? We ended up working our way up to the Coal Road and then over to the second half of Chicken Run. By now it was almost 3:00pm; the park closes its gates at 4:00, but I figured we could get most of us through this part of the trail in an hour. Of course, I was thinking of this trail without snow. The white stuff cranked up the difficulty factor quite a few notches. Bobby was leading the way up with me right behind him when he got hung up. Trying to back out of the way so I could go around him he got sort of crooked and it took a few minutes to free him up there. I scooted around without too much difficulty. You all have to remember Bob was driving “Lil’ Red”, with open diffs; all things considered, Bob actually did quite a job driving that day! I tried tugging him up over the obstacle there, but couldn’t get the right angle to pull him up without smashing him into a tree. Through his persistence (bull-headed stubbornness) he did actually make it up over that little pile of rocks. Even Mark the Silverback got hung up trying to get up over those rocks! He stood there muttering how he, double locked couldn’t get up there, but Two-Jeeps did it with open diffs . . . angry gorilla. Its already 3:30 and I had just reached the peak of the trail, still had to get back down to the Coal Road, from where it was only five minutes to the exit area. I started down off the peak and got stuck in a rut which slid me off the trail and left me with my nose against a considerable tree and a rock behind my right rear tire. I was going nowhere. Luckily big Make had made it up to the peak and winched me back enough so that I could swing around the tree and work my way back onto the trail, with some help from Two-Jeeps and the logs he kept shoving under my wheels. I got out of the woods and down onto the Coal Road at about 3:45 and headed right for the gate. As far as I could tell, everyone was right behind me. As I neared the exit road I came up behind two Jeeps rolling along at a nice clip and fell in right behind them. The lead, an old CJ, I think, lost all his traction and started sliding backwards. In front of me was a heavily modified XJ, who wanted to throw into reverse but I was right behind him, and the Tan Whale was right behind me, and . . . well, you get the picture. This CJ just slid backwards into the XJ, whose driver jumped out and glared at me, complaining that it was my fault that he got hit, prevented him from backing up. I was so dumbfounded that he was blaming me that I just ignored him and waited until I could go by. Good for a laugh, in retrospect. Well, we all eventually made it out at or close to the 4:00pm closing time. We got to watch a Hummer play in the snow, and we got to do some good obstacles, and we got to freeze our p’toots a little too. No major damage, no Boneheads, everyone smiling at day’s end. We stopped at Damon’s for some dinner and a little football, and headed on home. Great trip, great day. Until next time, this is Poobah saying remember: paint up, rubber down! |