Hardcore off-roading in america

For Crawlin' You Need Rocks!

5y ago
4.6K

One thing that always strikes me as I travel around this amazingly varied world of ours is how so full of contrasts and similarities it is. As soon as you leave your home country it's a swirling collage of the comfortingly familiar and the strangely different... and I have discovered that it's the same in the world of off-roading. Over the years I've green-laned in Wales, winched through bogs in Russia, built bridges over ravines in Malaysia, raced through the Sahara to Dakar... and a few more things besides... but until I met Mark Cave, president of the California Association of 4WD Clubs at last year's SEMA show in Las Vegas I'd never been properly rock-crawling. Or wheelin' as they call it out here. “Well, Jeez,” Mark exclaimed. “Then ya sure need ta let us show ya what we can do!”

Watching the antics of a web-footed family in a roadside Mojave diner was a little disconcerting but then I supposed a small gene pool is often indicative of wide open and sparsely populated expanses of wilderness... and as we all know, big spaces of nothing are always perfect for off-roading!

The Californian 4 Wheel Association is made up of a staggering 123 off-roading clubs. “We look after everyone,” Mark explained. “Just 'cos you bought a 4x4 don't mean you know how to use it properly, so one focus of the association is safety. And another part is the fact that's it's normally those who can't use stuff properly that make the most mess so there's a lot of emphasis on education as well.” Statements that should sound familiar to any thoughtful off-roader around the world.

The name Panamint Valley conjured up images of bubbling creeks and spring blossoms but the area the Cal 4 Wheelers chose for their weekend was a barren valley between two ranges of massive, gnarly mountains just a few miles as the golden eagle flies from Death Valley. No mud or little forested lanes to amble through here, just rocks, lots of rocks... perfect crawlin' territory.

A club off-roading weekend in my home country of Wales would typically include a few Land Rovers, some old tents, a couple of disposable BBQs and smart-phone wielding kids marvelling at this strange thing called grass... and so the American version was the first big contrast... Dozens of fully-equipped, absolutely palatial RVs had made a temporary town in the desert, all with the Star Spangled Banner hoisted high with the stunning snow-dusted mountains as a back-drop. I had just come from the SEMA show and seen that there was an obviously huge market for off-roading products and the endless streams of Jeeps fitted with every imaginable catalogue part trundling by was the certain proof.

A little shy than 200 vehicles from 30 different clubs had made it out and 10 different trails wound up though the hills, each rated for their level of difficulty... and of course I asked to be in the most extreme group.
“Who wants to take the foreign press guy?” someone announced and there was a slightly awkward moment when everybody turned to look at me with the word 'foreign' in their minds. But then a few hands were raised and I shook the firm hand of Christian Hummel who led me over to his stunning Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara Edition. If Jeep did Playboy then this would be a candidate for the centerfold. With just about every conceivable after-market product bolted on it looked like a catalogue demo vehicle... a few too many to list... I hopped into the back seat behind his son Cameron.

The trail started in a narrow river bed so narrow that just to get in we were pulling pebbles out of the bank with the wing mirror... and just like in Russia where they go out in battered old Ladas, someone broke down in the first couple of hundred metres... And just like in Britain everyone stopped to offer comforting words of mockery. Tyre back on the rim they continued and I ran along the trail taking shots of cross-axling and tyre walls screeching up the sides of the boulders deposited in the dry bed by some past torrential storm. “C'mon, Robb! Let's go!” Christian called and I was a little miffed not to be able to take photos. “But this ain't nothin' yet! This is just the road in!” he exclaimed.

A few spindly bushes and some delicate flowers were the only things growing in the desolate landscape but somehow a herd of wild donkeys could live out here... but it wasn't the landscape we'd come to look at and true to Christian's word soon it started to get serious. A washout against a cliff of solid rock meant that co-drivers had to get out and spot the drivers up the right way, close to the bank so as not to get a wheel in the wash and tilt the side of the roof into the rock... and straight away every diff-locker, rock-slider and fuel tank guard was in full use with Skyjacker extended suspensions stretched to the limit as the low-pressure tyres crawled over the huge rocks. The shorter Wranglers had an easier time getting over but with horrible squealing sounds the longer vehicles scraped their sliders. No one even flinched though. “That's what they're on there for,” Christian shrugged.

And then we finally got to the real section which was no more than a dried-out wash strewn with all sizes of rocks, some even as big as three of four feet tall. To get up the cars needed to drive over a square stone that came about half way up my thigh and then just around the corner there was an incredibly tight squeeze between a huge rock in the middle and the rough bank. I couldn't imagine how anything would fit but in their pristine vehicles, hardly a scratch on any of them, they lined up ready. The technique for getting through was to drive the front wheel a few feet up the bank with just enough lock on to keep the tyre in contact with the wall rather than the body work. The Wranglers inched up first, axles at maximum articulation, rear tyre squealing its side wall on the boulder while the front clung to the wall. The little Suzuki in the queue shot right up, the guy laughing at how easy it was and then it was Christian's turn in the LWB Wrangler... and the longer wheel base proved to be a bit of a problem... “Passenger! Passenger! Passenger!” the spotter shouted which translates to 'left-hand-down' but with the front wheel high up the wall the opposite rear caught on the big rock and the wheel spin made it slip down off the wall where it got wedged, the front wing twisting hard against the rock. “Well, we'll either fix it or call it a battle scar,” Christian smiled as the crew in the car in front came back with the most familiar piece of off-roading equipment; the tow rope.

Some other things I noticed... there were practically no stickers on any cars and each one, despite the severity of the route, was absolutely pristine. And there were no home-made improvements welded or bolted on; everything was straight out of a catalogue.

Each vehicle with it's particular wheel base, tyre size, suspension lift and weight had a slightly different way of inching up over the ledges of bedrock and small landslides where the rocky bank had given way. The Suzuki, good at sneaking between obstacles was too light to get enough front end grip as it broke over the top, the LWB Jeeps were harder to get around the tight turns and anything with less than 35 inch tyres just couldn't get over the stones without catching on the diff-guards. The best 'crawler' vehicle, or at least the one that had the easiest time getting up, was a locked Wrangler on 37s and the middle-aged guy with handlebar moustaches behind the wheel made everything look easy.

But then Christian decided to make it look hard. His friend Ken in his nice, but 'open-diff' Cherokee made it an impressively far way up unaided but needed a tow when he couldn't get over one particular lip of bedrock. Christian came back to help but the bounce from the strap got the rear diff got pinned on top of a pointy rock with the wheels helplessly spinning away the pebbles at either side. A Hi-Lift jack and sand-ladders just wouldn't give enough lift and the track in front was too hard for another car in front to pull them... even if he wanted to risk smashing the diff-casing. But like off-roading everywhere friends came together to help, rigging up a ratchet strap so they could Hi-Lift the wheel up enough to get the sand tracks underneath and devising a way to stop the stones they put underneath from being spat straight back out again and he winched himself slowly free.

Another thing that was a little different to what I am used to is the way that everyone was deadly serious about what they were doing, treating every obstacle with the utmost respect, spotters out front getting every wheel spot-on. Anyone who has ever been to a UK club event would be quite used to seeing the complete opposite!

Finally at the top of the trail there was a little excursion down the shaft of a 150 year old gold mine but it was the views across the valley that we all stopped to stare open-mouthed at. The late-afternoon sun highlighting all the creases and crevasses of the mountains with dark folds of shadows and the snow-dusted peaks reaching proudly above the thin wisps of clouds. It was absolutely breath-taking and also pretty amazing to think that we'd all actually just driven up!

The way back down was much easier, and much faster and we powerslid along the silty road kicking up massive roster tails of dust which looked stunning with the sun cutting through them. And then something that was in my experience peculiarly American... some had heard that there was a foreign 4x4 writer visiting and a little group formed around Christian's RV with everyone wanting to offer me food, drinks, hats and then a heated discussion arose about who would get to drive me back down to Los Angeles. I felt like an honoured guest and Grandma Hummel's home-made cookies were amazing” So too were the smores, which is American for marshmellows.

With darkness came the camp fires with the strains of Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top through the crisp air and it was a wonderful feeling to be accepted in the group with such honest hospitality. In off-roading it seems there that there are much more similarities than differences.

“It's about trying to keep alive the traditions of the Old West, coming to places the hard way and we like to keep the trails open like the settlers once did,” Mark said, the lines of his happy face flickering in the firelight. “But most importantly it's our way of seeing the real word. We all live too 'virtually' these days but out here in the rocks it's real life.” Again, words shared by many off-roaders around this whole world of ours.

Lastly, I would really like to thank Harry Baker and his lovely wife for driving me all the way back down into Los Angeles. Thank you so much for helping me not have to take another Greyhound bus!


Christian Hummel's Jeep details

2007 Wrangler Unlimited Sahara edition

-Upgrades:
Full Traction 6" Long Arm Suspension
Rock Hard Skid Plates
RIPP Super Charger
Dynatrac Pro Rock 44 Unlimited with RCV's CV Axels
ARB Air Locker front and rear
5:13 gears
35" BF Goodrich Km2's
Kenwood Stereo with touch screen and Garmin navigation with satellite radio
Aftermarket Rock Slides
Warn PowerPlant HP Winch
Uniden CB Radio
Jeeperman rear bumper with Tire carrier and Jerry can holders
Mopar front Off-Road Bumper with winch mount
Reid High Steer Knuckles
Rockrawler's Tie Rod, Draglink Flip Kit and Track Bar
Rock-Trac 4:1 transfer case out of a Rubicon (Sahara transfer case is 2.73:1)
Transmission Cooler from ORW (Off Road Warehouse)
Bush Wacker Flat Fendors

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Comments (4)

  • As you mentioned, its not all virtual nowadays, you have to get there to actually do it. Been to Moab, Rubicon, KOH with this rig. The people i met, the landscapes i have seen and the cameraderie i feeled, will never leave my thoughts again. Oh and i always had/have to travel to these places from Germany. ;-)

      4 years ago
  • Well done.

    Next time come to Colorado, and we'll show you the more casual hardcore... leave the downtown office early and go run a trail on your way home. Honey, you weren't coming straight home and you disappeared from "Find Friends" partway up Coal Creek Canyon! Where'd you go?

      4 years ago
  • Nailed it! Great article, way to show the rest of the world how we wheel in America!

      5 years ago
  • This is it!

      5 years ago
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