Where Have You Off-Roaded Today? 3rd Gen

Crown King trail with friends. Hey, 4 Bars on the way to the top, what can go wrong 'eh?

 

You missed the "easy" path to Prescott and the preserved stagecoach station ... Senator Highway.

Did they let you tow the pirate ship home?

 

We will be heading back during Thanksgiving for Senator Highway side, Taking the FJ for that one!!!
Nope, No tow.

 

Senator scared me at places ... narrow, cliff-edge, inside 90-degree turns. Be sure you have enough daylight, it is definitely NOT "flat forest gravel road".

 

I'm new to off reading on 4 wheels, decades of 2 wheel off-roading in the western deserts. I'm way to old and have to many replacement parts in my body to fall off motorcycles anymore so I picked up a 23' Off Road.

Being new I decided to take a local off road clinic run by "Esprit De Four" at Hollister Hills Ca.

It was fun, I learned a lot and found out that Double Cab long bed Taco with the better off road oriented tires I put on did very well

The Taco of course has a rear locker and crawl control but the instructors recommended we spend the day in 4 low and not use those enhancements if our vehicles had them. The logic was learn to handle the vehicle without those.

Here are a couple shots of the stair step in the obstacle course section of the park. It is hard to tell how steep it is in the photos, the last pic with the truck at the top shows it best

We spent hours on the narrow twisting trails and now my new truck is now pinstriped from front to back on both sides....Oh well....

 

Spent the day out at Hidden Falls (Marbe Falls, TX) with 4Runner/Lexus group from Houston

 

Both sides of my truck took a beating.

It did look somewhat better after washing it.

 

The truck is a nice color ... dust brown!

 

A layer or two of dirt is the best mod you can do to your truck! (I was still finding that dirt six months later!)

 

Were you part of a class from The Driving Company?

 

No, I just found the Esprit de Four club training event on line. It is open to anyone. There must have been 20+ experienced club members there along with the primary instructors helping out. Some Individuals taking the class came from a long way away and utilized the camping located in the off road park.

I'm a big fan of getting good training for sports like this having taught motorcycling for 15 years and seeing the positive effect it had on so many people.

 

That picture kinda rubs me the wrong way …think there might be a pun in there. Did the clinician tell you beforehand that you were going to earn your stripes?

 

Not specifically but a waiver was signed and knew my truck could get damaged.

 

I think I might of been a little pissed if the course included bushwhacking and I wasn’t told ahead of time. To mar a truck like that at an "intro” clinic is a little much, imo.

 

I understand your concern.

Not to be flippant, it does make me think of a parallel I heard when I asked about risks when I started doing some solo hiking in Glacier National Park, Grizzly country. An old guy said, if you're scared of bears stay out of the forest.

To be fair to the clinic I reread the form I signed....They covered it. This is a screen shot of part of it.

 

to be sure I’m not questioning your judgment, and it looks like something I’d like to do in the near future, it’s just that pin stripes is a little more than I'd like see with a intro clinic.
anyway, I did some bushwacking (1st time in my truck) a couple of weeks ago with the wife and came out of the bush to see this:



Had a blast ;-)

 

I knew what I was getting into having ridden that park on my motorcycles for a couple decades.

I need to take another pic of my truck after washing it. Is still has scratches but I suspect most will rub out. The vast majority of the pinstriping in my photo at the clinic was the brush just rubbing off the layer of dirt on the truck.

 

rocks are not your friends

 

Bringing back some memories! We were out there a few years ago and caught Balloon Fest in ABQ. We stayed up in Vermillion Cliffs and spent a day doing Point Sublime and the North Entrance / Visitor Center. If you're still out there and you're headed to the south end, find the old airport. It was a neat bit of history.




Trip report if you're interested. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...h-your-wife-for-your-25th-anniversary.740871/

 

I have the wing on my sliders. I thought that if nothing more, it might help keep the fenders off of trees and such. Only used the wing once on a tree stump, moved the tire around it. Yeah, we have trees instead of rocks.