It's funny,
I rarely check this board anymore but this post peaked my interest in it again, I'm still deployed but we might go back into a 4 Runner again on my return, it's kinda in the air, but we both miss ours greatly, now to answer your questions.
The lighting on his time of day was horrible, it made some of those holes look worse than they are. If you do it in the morning, the sun is behind you and it lets you read the lines easier, further ahead, he had the sun at the wrong angle but it was good timing because it didn't blind him. Now as for following the tire tracks, it is fairly easy, but alot of that is blown away, you have to listen closely but you can hear his tires talking to him alot, your right at the edge of traction almost the whole time. What that means is that alot of the tire tracks are the "dust" for a lack of better word, if it's after a recent rain, there are still tracks, but not as much as I always assumed, different lighting will show you tracks all the time though. I would never run that without some type of traction control, or at the very minimum a good LSD.
I didn't have the problems with the holes as for goin around them, I just stradled quite a few of them but I didn't feel the need to keep going like him, I hit the top, and found the widest place to turn around, rmember T100's are practically full sized, I needed a wide spot to turn around, he didn't do his in the best spot, he picked one of the only really off camber spots to turn around, there are quite a few flat spots on the top to flip a bitch, granted, it's still a 6-10 point turn around but his area was smaller and off camber. Up to the point taht I went, I was able to stradle though, aired down 33's on 8 inch rim makes for a pretty wide contact patch and then the T100 is easily 6 inches wider than the Rubicon right off the bat, he could have straddled several of those holes but he chose the safest lines for his ride IMO when it came to the holes.
Alright, I'll get off my soapbox for now
Thanks for asking about it, it was a truly awsome experience and I will do it again, either in a Jeep or a Toyota I'm sure, I'm kinda brand loyal to those two for 4wd's now
I will hopefully get stationed around there again, if not, I'll probably do a trail run out that way whe nI get back to the states. The day I did it, there were about 50 other trucks out there, I"ve never seen it that dead, guess I always went with people? The entrance gets you because you can't see, then after that on the way up it's not bad, however, i was talking to myself like that when I was going up too, I had a CB instead of the walkie talky's like he had but it was very simular. I would recommend it to everyone, and the 4Runners are capable of conquering it easily in stock form, might want some better tires though, I was running BFG AT KO's, they did great.
