And for the really fun stuff, I met my buddy at Windrock, TN last weekend and we had an absolute blast.
The first afternoon we ran about half of Trail 22. I barely got through the rock garden and up the hill right before the ledges, but my buddy couldn't get past the big boulders at the end of the rock garden and we had to bail. That trail is significantly harder than it was last fall. It was getting dark and we were trying to make good time, so no pics of the harder obstacles, but here's a cool poser shot on 22:
The next day we ran Trail 4, 83, and part of one other blue trail. Not a whole lot of challenge other than really sketchy off-camber ruts in what were nominally "easy" trails due to rain over the winter. Great scenery though.
I slid
hard into this muddy hole and into the side of the bank, and am very thankful I got the full tube bumper or I'd be doing bodywork:
And finally, the star of the show, Panther rock on trail 51. This was by far our favorite trail. It took most of the day to run, including a quick ride up to the "radar base" after my buddy broke his front driveshaft on the ledge right after the outlook (note the missing grille section *facepalm*).
I wish we had more pics, but we didn't stop much since it was just the two of us.
This was definitely the hardest I've wheeled that truck and I beat the crap out of it. I bent my t-case harmonic dampener, banged up all the OEM skid plates (had to beat the engine skid flat again haha), and left a bunch of dark graphite metallic paint on the rocks up there. All four wheels got a good bit of rock rash, so I'm glad the Level 8 Mk6s I'd ordered got delayed. Especially since after this trip it's apparent that I need skidplates more than new wheels, so I canceled the wheel order and have a full set of BudBuilt skids on the way. I also need to get some of eimkeith's lower link mount reinforcements, since mine took a beating this trip. A set of plasticsguy rear bumpstops are probably in order too.
Thankfully other than a few dents and dings I didn't have any real damage. My buddy, on the other hand, smoked the transmission in his Ramcharger, destroyed his front driveshaft and pinion yoke, and caved in his passenger door and rocker. Then his tow rig (05 3500 Cummins) lost the fan clutch and grenaded the rear driveshaft carrier bearing and rear U-joint ...twice. Thankfully most of the tow rig breakage happened at the campground as we were leaving, so I was able to stick around and help him get parts to fix it. The second time his rear driveshaft died, it happened about 6 hours from me, 4 hours from his house, ...and about 1/4" mile from the industrial site where his dad works. Dude is the luckiest unlucky guy I've ever met.
Both of us are dying to do it all again.
