Lbl ii
Spent Labor Day with my family at our favorite nearby spot, The Land Between The Lakes.
We started the day checking out the Elk and Bison grazing area. You pay $5 per vehicle to drive through this huge pen that has a paved loop through it. They say don't get out of your vehicle if the animals are within 200 feet. We never saw any elk, but these bison are huge and despite their lazy demeanor, they can be aggressive. My boys thought they were so cool. I thought, "Mmmm...bison burgers..."
From there, we decided to stop by Turkey Bay, the OHV park. I beat on our 4Runner pretty good there. I was sure I dented my aluminum skid plate, but it seems to still be intact. Smacked and slid on my sliders, too. I'm thankful for ATRAC, otherwise I'd probably be stuck in one of a few mud holes. Most other people riding those trails were on ATVs. We saw one Jeep and one Hummer H1 on what had to be 40s.
Some poor fellow forgot his bumper.
We stuck mostly to the primary (read: easy) trails with a few exceptions. I don't have any footage of the hairier stuff we did...the tougher trails are so incredibly narrow, there was no room for my wife to stand to film us. Here's a primary trail:
The kids still thought it was awesome.
After bottoming out in a couple mud pits:
From there, we aired back up and headed to our favorite beach.
Man, am I going to have a mess to clean up.
Trip stats
Total distance: 242.3 mi.
Trip MPG: 17.1
Stuff broken: nothin
Not bad for 90 min of highway each way and the rest of the time spent in 4Lo.
I also have to say, people forget how capable the SR5 platform is. I have a very mild lift with minimally aggressive all terrains aired down to 22psi. I went through a couple spots that other people at the park thought I was crazy to do. I was walking a mud hole planning my way back through the other way after coming through it once already. A guy on an ATV saw me looking at the mud pit with my 4Runner behind me and said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. You'll get stuck for sure." I told him this trail ends behind my 4Runner, I already made it through once, and I have to go back through to get out of this dead end. He sat and watched, and I know he was expecting me to get stuck. I kept speed up and let ATRAC do its thing when I started losing traction. Got through no problem. Smacked my aluminum RCI skid plate a few times going through it, but no dents!
Not looking forward to the time it's going to take to get all the mud out of the undercarriage. We had a fun day, though!