Trail Jam 2006. The short version of the story is that I basically took a half day off of work to extend my weekend, spent around $250 in ferry, food, and fuel costs, and sweated profusely, all so I could winch my Jeep through the bush. It wasn't quite that bad, but that's not too far from the truth, either!

Our weekend began with the 7:00pm meeting at the Superstore parking lot in Duncan. Most of the vehicles there were from the island with three trucks (mine and the Lippmanns') from the mainland. Jo-jo and his crew guided us out to the campsite that would serve as our homebase for the weekend. By the time we reached camp and setup our tents, it was after 9:00p so the rest of the evening was spent socializing. The 10:00pm meeting at Superstore brought in a few more trucks, including the Rubicon carrying Randy and Remy who are also from the mainland.

Driver's meeting.

Saturday "morning," we got a rather late 11:30am start. This was an informal event so there was no set time to hit the trails. The plan for the day was to 'wheel the trails at "Armdong's Armpits" and don't ask me why they named it that. Jo-jo told me but you'd just roll your eyes if I explained it to you. We drove along a main logging road for about 20 minutes before our group split up according to trail preference. I stayed with the group that opted for the hard section which was opened last year and had only been run by a handful of trucks.

I suppose the fact that our group barely moved once we entered the hard trail should have been my first signal that this was going to be a long day. It began with a steep climb up a short, rocky straight stretch. The climb then turned into sharp lefts and rights around trees with some mild off-camber bits. I got my Jeep through all of this without much difficulty, but then the trail combined ALL of these features into a really bad time. We had to deal with a series of off-camber climbs while squeezing between trees, sliding off of exposed roots, and spinning our tires on hard rock covered with wet earth. The only good side to any of this was the fact that if you rolled, you wouldn't roll far before you'd hit a tree. This section was made particularly difficult by two stumps which killed your momentum and caught the axle tubes.

Enroute to Armdong's.	Jo-jo, our fearless trail leader.	Tim (driving) and Cody head up the first climb on the hard section.
This shot of Jo-jo's CJ gives you an idea of the angle of the hill at the really tricky part.	After a brief bit of wrenching to fix a broken power line, Jo-jo winched his CJ out.

Jo-jo was leading the group and he had problems here. The winch was called into action and Ingo came up next. We were all expecting a wild show from Ingo but he surprised everyone by using very carefully controlled bursts of RPM to maneuver his Samurai from one key position to another. The exit required a hard-left climb and he made it by starting out on three wheels. It was a great example of skilled driving and he also proved that the section could be done without winching (I think he was the first guy to drive through under his own power). Tim was up next in his tubed SJ410. He had smaller, less aggressive tires than Ingo but much deeper gears (two transmission and then one transfer case). He got through the first part just fine but got on a bad exit line and kept coming very close to rolling. The winch line was hooked up and while he was winching his way up, someone noticed that none of the wheels were being driven by the engine. The coupler between the last transmission and transfer case had broken.

Shane was up next in yet another Samurai. Like Tim, he did well through the first part until he got into a bad way approaching the exit, and he also had to be winched out and up over the last climb.

Ingo shows us how it's done. His first step was to squeeze into the space on the high side of this stump. As you can see, this is only an option for something as narrow as a Suzuki.	Next, he inches past this tree without taking any body damage.	And then he capped it off by doing a three-wheeled climb out of the section and onto the next challenge.
Tim was doing pretty well...	until he reached the exit, where he got into a rather unstable line.	Shane also had problems here and winched out. It was a pretty sick angle.
Armin and Dave had the biggest (and yellowest) trucks on the trail. This is Armin's CJ7.

Seeing Shane's Suzuki having problems getting past some trees didn't give me much confidence in my Jeep's ability to get through this section without damage. Ryeguy was driving so I could take photos, but even so, I was still nervous just watching. I think it was a problem of not enough tire for the weight of the vehicle, because my Jeep was just not hooking up at all. Ryeguy was having difficulty keeping it on course because it kept slipping sideways (toward the downhill side) and the Jeep got caught with a tree between the passenger side rear corner and the spare tire. My spare tire hangs out quite a lot but it's never been a problem except on the island where they have seriously tight, off-camber trails. Ryeguy did a great job driving the Jeep but my Jeep was just not setup well for this trail. Using Armin's winch and a snatch block, we pulled my Jeep sideways to unhook it from the tree, and used my Jeep's winch to pull it forward. It was a very humbling experience (much like the last time I was at Trail Jam!).

By this time, I was quite pre-occupied with my Jeep and it's difficulties, so I didn't pay a lot of attention to Armin and Dave. I'm pretty sure they both got through the first section fine and I think they both actually climbed out on their own, too. The lesson was clear: I needed a much better contact patch to weight ratio. 35" radials on a vehicle that weighed significantly more than a Samurai just didn't work on these trails.

The rest of the trail had similar traits to this section, but none of the others had the same "Perfect Storm" combination which made this one so challenging. Even so, I spent a lot of time winching my Jeep through the rest of the sections. Not long after the first difficult section, Jo-jo's CJ ripped its front driver's side spring hanger out of the frame. Well, to be accurate, part of the frame ripped out with the hanger. That gave us about an hour of downtime while we had lunch and pondered what further misfortunates awaited us. I found out soon enough.

At the base of the longest climb of the trail, I made several failed attempts that resulted in a lot of axle wrap and that's what killed one of my spring perches. I was about to make another when a loud thunk came from the axle. Dave Lippmann thought I broke an axle shaft but a close look revealed that my passenger side perch had broken loose from the tube. It was still held in place by the u-bolts but the driver's side leaf was severely bent and the pinion was pointing up at a bad angle. And we were maybe 2/3rds of the way through the trail. As we began winching the Jeep up the hill, we saw that the driver's side spring returned to its normal shape and was holding the pinion and close to the proper angle. This allowed us to use 4wd when it was absolutely needed. Otherwise, we would use front wheel drive whenever possible, and we'd winch if the pinion started to climb to much when using 4wd. Fortunately, the big hill climb was the last really difficult obstacle (no one was able to climb it under their own power). Ryeguy did an awesome job of rigging the winch, as did Rod, one of the island guys who was extremely helpful. The sun was beating down on us whenever there was a break in the tree cover so the work these guys did was doubly exhausting.

Some awesome frame carnage on Jo-jo's CJ5.	Big, aggressive tires really helped with these loose dirt climbs.	Dave's Bronco is a very heavy truck but his 39" Boggers were a perfect match and give it the traction needed to haul it up some impressive slopes.
One of the easier climbs on this trail.		Of course, the trail wasn't all climbing. Sidehills like this one always kept you on your toes.
Did I mention that this trail was tight? Ryeguy's driving my Jeep and he had to put a tire on this tree and lean the cage into another to make it through.	Here I'm getting ready to break my spring perch.	Spring perch go bye-bye. Check out that pinion angle.
After I broke my spring perch, it seemed like this trail would never end. The going got slower and rigging the winch cable was getting tiring.	The Lippmann's and their big, yellow 4x4s.	Dave's Bronco was the widest vehicle there so he had the toughest time trying to thread through the trees.
It doesn't get any tighter than this.	Jo-jo surveys our progress.

Brent welding my spring perch.

Jo-jo did a remarkably good job of patching up his frame later that night.

My breakage and need to winch even more often resulted in our group splitting into two, and as a result, most of my pics from the rest of the day are of my Jeep and the Lippmann's yellow CJ and Early Bronco. They were lucky enough to be stuck behind me, so they got more photo coverage. Near the top, the trail got really, really narrow. Narrow enough that the Bronco was literally rubbing left and right tires against trees at the same time. And then that was it. We were done! Jo-jo and I drove very cautiously back to camp, him with a front spring hanger chained to the frame, and me with a torn spring perch. After finishing the trail, Ingo had gone back to the beginning of the trail, driven up to where Tim's Zuk was, and helped pull him down to the trailhead and then back to camp.

Once at camp, Jo-jo suggested that I park my Jeep on his trailer so it'd be more convenient to work on it. It was a fantastic idea and was 100 times better than lying in the dirt. He provided batteries, cables and rod for welding, and Brent (owner of Brentlift), one of the island guys, offered up his welding skills. He did a brilliant job of welding the perch back on and the Jeep was soon back together and ready for another day of being winched through the woods. ;-) Thanks to Ryeguy, Brian, Brent, Cam, Chad and Jo-jo for making this repair go by so quickly and enjoyably. After washing up, I had a quick bite of dinner and then imbibed from the two kegs of beer that Jay (manager at the Bedford Regency Pub) got for Trail Jam, compliments of Russell Beer.

The Lippmann's like to start their kids fourwheeling at a young age.	Trevor's CJ on the Proving Grounds.	Brian and Jo-jo took turns driving Jo-jo's two CJs during the weekend.
Brian attempting to climb to one of the summits on the Proving Grounds...	and getting stuck on a rock.
Jay in his weekend beater. Thanks to Jay, we had free beer that weekend.	Trevor's LWB Samurai made short work of this climb.	Thanks to Jo-jo and his crew for putting on a very, very enjoyable event!
The following pictures are provided by Mike (Lister) and Colin. Thanks guys!
Ibby on the Proving Grounds.	Jay on the "easy" trail at Armdong's.	Trevor on the "easy" trail
Randy's TJ took a bit of minor sheet metal damage.	Colin.	Mike's CJ having a bad day.
Mike saving what ATF he can from his transmission.

The next morning was another relaxed start (The keg beer kept me in bed until 9:30am so I have no one to blame but myself.). In fact, it was so relaxed that I didn't have much time left for 'wheeling so Ryeguy and I stayed for about 10 minutes at the Proving Grounds before we had to race off to catch a ferry. And so now I'm back home and having a lot of internal debates about what to do about my Jeep. Bigger tires? More aggressive tires? Exo cage? Re-locate the spare...definitely! Stiffer springs to control axle wrap? Anti-wrap bar?

Of course, the simplest and cheapest answer is to leave the Jeep as is and simply avoid their trails. But that would be silly.

...lars