Rausch Creek, PA
May 15, 2010
by Bob Blair
Mark and I actually started wheeling in our tow rigs. Rain had cut a sharp gully through the paving stones in the new Rausch Creek
parking lot, which we crossed trailers and all. The rain was yesterday and this was today; a beauty without the usual PA coal dust.
We ran Rausch Creek with the Hudson Valley crew, about 10 of them and 5 from LIOR. The map of the new property showed mostly green
trails. Maybe next time there will be some blues and blacks cut there. No one from LIOR wanted to lead, so we followed HV4W behind
their president, Andy, thinking same ol, same ol.
Wrong! There's a bunch of little blue trails near the new camping area with 12' hillclimbs. Not real tall, but plenty steep. Probably
any Jeep could make these smooth dirt climbs. It's the drivers and especially the passengers that have the trouble. Driving into,
over and down you see dirt, sky, treetops, then dirt, seemingly straight down. Andy called this the warm up; it was more like a wake
up!
The LIOR contingent was a Scout that looks like a Jeep, 2 YJ's and 2 Rubicons. Behind me was Mark Silverman in Snow White, Warren
Silverman in his Rubi, Jim Slawinski in E-Jay and his son Bobby in a brand new stock JK Rubi.
When we got over to Tombstone Scott's TJ Dana 30 gave it up. They removed his front driveshaft, whick took a while due to a monster
skidplate blocking 1 joint. The rest of us ate lunch in a nice sunshine and shade mix. Once fixed, after 10 feet in 2WD the front
axle locked up. Back 2 feet; locked. Forward 2 feet; locked. So the next operation was to remove an inner axle shaft and hope the
ARB's spider gears still worked. They did.
While we were stalled, 2 groups went by us; a trio of Russians in Land Rovers and 4-5 from Blue Mountain Jeep Alliance. The Russians
had a yelling match that we could not deciepher when they got stuck. A BMJA axle shaft let go and stalled them, so we got to drive
through both groups.
We when down to Rock Creek, only 3 dove in. Joan whacked her head last time we crossed the 'Creek so I was happy to watch and not
risk that again.
Andy found some hellish rock garden trails in the area. The trails are wide enough that there are options. I kept taking the hardest
lines. Joan said we could have gone down the creek, it wasn't much rougher. We got strung out pretty badly just as Bobby finally
found a section that stopped his Rubicon. Pretty amazing that he drove that long on tough trails in a stock truck before getting
caught. This was his first time rock crawling. Great driving!
There was one big rock only whatisname in a lime green CJ on 38's tried, and another that he had to winch off of. Jim drove E-Jay
righ up and over in one motion. Nice.
Most everybody had enough by around 5pm. Except for us, Andy, Mike and ol' whatisname. Andy lead us to some rock hills. I ran out of
propane while at a 50 degree angle. The carb would not fire on gasoline at that angle and I ran the battery down trying. Mike gave me
a jump start after whatsisname pulled me down to a reasonable pitch. Then she started right up.
Good ol' whatisname went for the insane line next to where I was. He got pretty far up, too. Until the left front tire went for the
sky and the CJ rolled over. It stopped rolling righ away. But when it did, whatisname - who was not wearing a seatbelt - went
flying on top of his passenger. Could have broke his buddy's neck. Please wear your seatbelts off road!
We strapped Andy's rig to a tree and winched the CJ back upright, then used the CJ's winch to pull itself up the hill while Andy'
winchline steadied it. A little clean up and we called it a day.