Trail Rides - DJGASTON.COM

January 1st, 2005

Grandpa Jim, my uncle Phillip, and I all took our Jeeps over to the park
for Tony's New Years Day get together. There were probably 20 rigs there;
several from my club (White River 4x4) and several from the Ozark Mountain
Rock Crawlers based out of Harrison. We had a lot of guests show up to
spectate and hang out. It was a great time but we did have some carnage!

Grandpa took the Scrambler instead of his TJ this time because he thought
it would handle the terrain better, being on 35 inch Swampers and all. I'm
sure that the Scrambler would've done well on the trails, but we didn't make
it that far. About 15 minutes after we got there, he decided he wanted to get
the front tires off the ground with his Scrambler, like he did with mine last
month. The only problem was, he hit the bank so hard that he literally jumped
his Jeep about 4 feet in the air, then landed nose first into the mud pit. The
Scrambler also stopped running and we never got it restarted. I had to tow
his Jeep back to the trailer and then he rode with Phillip the rest of the day.

The Scrambler ended up having a couple of broken fenders, a bent frame,
a busted rear shock, a broken muffler mount, and the engine wouldn't restart
because a single wire from the electronics came undone from it's harness.
So now he is going to run flat fenders on the Scrambler and get the frame
straightened out in town, and it should be ready to play again.

The famous jump! It went much higher than this!

This is our little group that wheeled together. Cody in the red Scrambler,
Phillip in the white Commando, and me in the blue Scrambler.

Here I am using my winch to help another Scrambler out. I had to back up a 4+
trail to get in a position to winch him up the hill but Scramzilla did fine!

Here is a cool shot of Phillip doing a hillclimb with his Commando. The hill is much
steeper than it looks. Keep in mind that pictures never do the real thing justice!

This is Grandpa's Scrambler minutes before he killed it. He was having a good time!

Me and Justin are going up a new trail. I had a hard time with this obstacle
because my motor is not running good right now, not getting enough fuel.
And everything is very slick, it's hard to get traction. Pictures don't do this
obstacle justice!

Okay I finally made it after a few tries. The Jeep prevails!

He were are coming back down... see, the rocks are pretty good sized!

Sorry, that is all the pictures I have of this trip. I was too busy driving to
take many pictures, plus my wife didn't go. Stay tuned for more pics soon!