MadXJ Mid Winter Run, February 23-24, 2001
Land Between the Lakes, Turkey Bay OHV Area
(Page 2 of 3)
The Afternoon of Friday, February 23, 2001
From the hill climb area, we followed a small quad trail up to the crest of a tall hill where we took a break for lunch. The sun was shining brightly and the temperature began to warm up. Here is a good picture our XJ's.
Matt wanted to try and make "manifold burritos". Technically speaking, our burritos were "valve cover and fuel rail burritos". When we put the burritos on the exhaust manifold, they interferred with the throttle cable. We stuck the burritos between the valve cover and fuel rail. The valve cover is hotter than the fuel rail, so this method requires that the burritos are turned once during the cooking process to ensure even heating. We cooked them for 1 hour of trail running up and down hills, and about 1/2 hour at idle. This picture was taken as Matt and I enjoyed our burritos hot off the valve cover.
After lunch, we continued heading down the unmarked trails. Scott decided to try another small quad trail and ended up getting into a little trouble. After dropping down between two ridges, the trail seemed to end. Scott inched forward into what looked like a small drop off. After about 3 feet of leaves collapsed underneath his front tire, he leaned over and got his right rear tire off the ground. After some manuevering and stacking logs underneath the front, driver's side tire, Scott managed to back out of the hairy situation.
We made our way down to the lake shore where Scott and Hunter took a few minutes and skipped some rocks across the surface of the water.
Now it was my turn to lead, and I picked a narrow and off camber quad trail that dropped down into a little valley. It did not look all that challenging, but the ground was very, very soft. As I approached a tricky spot that was off camber with trees, I hesitated a little bit. My hesitation proved to be the beginning of big trouble. The ground was so soft that any attempt to accelerate simply sent my XJ sideways down the hill into a tree. While the tree kept me stable, it put a nice dent in the front fender and I was lucky to escape without any broken windows. We ended up using every bit of 80 feet of log chain, two hi-lift jacks (one with a jack mate installed), and a 20 foot tow strap to get me out. We had to high lift me sideways off the tree, and then up the hill. Once I had cleared the tree, Scott K hooked up with his 20 foot tow strap with another 30 feet of log chain and pulled my up and out of the valley. Total time from stuck to recovery was about 1-1/2 to 2 hours.
Getting my XJ out of the valley basically brought Friday to an end. It was getting dark and we decided to head back to get some dinner. On our way out of the woods, some guys on quads stopped us and asked if we could pull a Toyota out of a mud hole. To paraphrase Scott K's enthusiastic response, "you never pass up a chance to pull a Toyota out of a mud hole!" Scott let me have the honors since I wanted to try out my brand new 30 ft Masterpull Tow Line.
Well, that was it for Friday. We had a full day of off roading and everyone was ready to relax a little bit. Click here to go to the next page and see some pics of Saturday, February 24, 2001 at Turkey Bay OHV Area.
