Long Island Off Road Trail Ride

Our camping plans were done in by the remnants of hurricane Ivan. After a six hour caravan, pitching a tent in the rain didn't seem like such a good idea anymore. Thrasher & Jay in Jay's newly spring-over YJ, Marc Silverback and Scoutmaster were warm & dry in local motels when we heard from Tim M. Poor Tim got pitched onto local roads twice when the super-highways were closed by flooding. The truck stop we tried to meet in was closed, as were many other businesses because the employees could not get to work. Thrasher & Jay were horified to find themselves without maid service.

To give you an idea of the amount of rain, the little town we stayed in, Pine Grove (pop. 2,115), had 2 emergency evacuation centers. The good news is we found an excellent diner with 3 gas stations, 2 motels, Blimpies and a McDonalds nearby. For future reference, stop at exit 100 off I-81. While we waited for the floods to subside we rescued a Chevy sedan from 2 1/2' of water in the interstate ramp.

Once Tim arrived, Thrasher lead us out to the west side of Raush Creek. Some of the trails were 90% under water, water rushing down-hill with a roar. We stayed on the easier trails - no one wanted to step out to check the line, spot, stack rocks, or take pictures. The zig-zag trails cross each other and the intersections were like stream crossings. We found some deep, gooey mud trails interspersed with water traps and downed trees.

Our travels lead us to the "Rock Creek", Rausch's 1800 foot long, 50 foot wide rock garden. A glacier left thousands of V8 sized rocks as a playground for rock buggies. There is no apparent line through, just crash & winch, so we passed on that one.

Jay, new to the sport, did a great job of learing just how much his open YJ on 35's could do. Very impressive, as the blue & black rated trails were a challenge in these conditions. He also learned that just a little too much momentum can give you a close personal moment with a tree, or two.

We found a rocky section that wasn't too wet so we could do some technical wheeling. Thrasher was forced to accept Marc's winch cable when the YJ slipped off-line and could not climb a pair of 3+ foot rocks. Howler's attempt, though successful, was interrupted by the sound of fan blades on metal. Thought to be a broken motor mount, it turned out that the hidden mount bracket was ripped from the frame. A ratchet strap tourniquet actually held things together fairly well, as long as all 300 lb.ft. of torque weren't applied.

The last trail of the day had a rock garden with 3 through 7 foot rocks that challenged the group. Tim's TJ, locked on 33's and Jay's YJ on open 35's had to work harder than Howler or Snow White, but aggression & skill got them through. This was no piece of cake; there were places were I had to climb up the tires to get into the cab. On the exit of the rock garden the blue YJ snagged a sidewall. One more ratchet strap came out, this one to cinch the AT while Snow White's OBA got a workout.

I was able to make the second day at the run at Rausch Creek. I guess I didn’t miss much on Saturday because reports from those who attended reminded me of monsoon season. There was so much rain that the trails were rivers as were many of the highways. I guess the crew tackled many green and blue trails that were challenging. Just ask Tim about his 9-hour trip from L.I.

We began the second day by meeting at the world famous Rausch Creek Truck stop where we had breakfast and a yearly supply of second hand smoke. When we made it to the park we were surprised to find that most of the trails had dried up nicely. Mark, Scoutmaster, Yaron, Garrett, Thrasher and Little Jay from Fire Island headed out and tested the rigs on some blue trails.

We had just started moving along pretty well into some upper blue trails when we had some misfortune. After passing through a decent rock garden Yaron called everyone on the talkabouts. When we stopped we discovered his oil pan skid plate had been ripped right off his oil pan leaving 6 holes that leaked oil. After surveying the situation it was decided that we could make trail repairs in order to get the heap back to the staging area. Trail repairs included borrowed sheet metal screws from various places through out Yaron’s jeep and spares from other people. After plenty of rtv and scrounged up quarts of oil Yaron was ready to go. Scoutmaster in the meantime had managed to break his temporary motor mount that consisted of a one-inch ratchet strap. He continued wheeling for the rest of the day, but in his own words decided to “take it easy.”

One of the most memorable moments of the day was when Thrasher, our fearless leader, decided to test the center of gravity on the YJ. In one of the most graceful rollovers I have seen, Rob was able to get the passenger side of the YJ up on two different rocks and just managed to tip slowly over to the driver's side and luckily land softly on a carefully placed tree. After taking plenty of pictures of this scenario we threw a strap around the roll bar and pulled the Jeep back down onto 4 wheels.

We ran the rest of the day on mostly blue and black trials without any major incidents. The next minor incident that occurred happened as Mark was trying to load Snow White on his trailer. He tried once and was not on strait so he tried once again. One or two subsequent attempts proved the same results. Once Mark got out and looked under the vehicle the problem became evident. One of the bolts holding the leaf springs had come loose and shifted his rear axle slightly so the vehicle would not drive perfectly straight. This problem was quickly solved with a chain and a come-a-long. Once we were all set we hit the road and headed east without further trouble.