Saturday morning rolled around quickly. I awoke with a mumble as Jason and Norah arrived in Norah's new 2001 black Quad, along with their neighbor's son James. A short time later a Jeep Liberty rolled down the drive, signaling the arrival of the SCORE Jeepers.
Hellos and rig inspections take place. Before too long everyone is airing down and firing up their engines.
Let the carnage begin!!
The F-150 was first into The Pit - followed by a Wrangler and a Cherokee. Bets were made on the odds the F-150 would lose its front license plate! To my knowledge the plate never fell off.
Unfortunately there are not very many still photos from The Pit that afternoon. More images were taken of the waterfall. However some undeveloped rolls of film may yield more images at a later date. There are however, an abundance of MPEG's on the BBQ Video Page.
Pit side highlights include the F-150 smoking its clutch nice and toasty. After that - the Ford was not run through the mud againheh. Adam did some powerful sideways thrashing around and around in The Pit - with James riding shot gun!
Chris Quonce - owner of the green Cherokee, took his brother's red Wrangler around for a rather rough ride in the wet muck. Yielding along the way - some very unhealthy metal crunching sounds. Rob's Jeep would earn the nickname "The Axle Snapper" later in the day - for obvious reasons heh.
Dakota was performing 2wd runs with 12 foot high rooster tails. The large nubby treads on his Thornbird tires, more than adequately flung large hunks of mud in all directions.
Jason Yates made a few passes through, once dropping the nose of his Dakota well into the water. A maneuver that would eventually claim his engine. He sucked in just enough water to stall the truck and leave it struggling to get out of The Pit's death grip. The liquid damaged the internals of his engine. Upon returning home he found that he had burned up pretty much all of his oil.
The 48 Willys CJ-2 was very impressive considering its stock nature. The tires on the little Jeep however, were of little use - even aired down. They were too hard and gave very little in the way of traction. This year was much different for the Jeeps than '01. No Jeeps required recovery from The Pit in '02. The only Pit extractions were on Friday, twice being me, and once being Adam.
Just before we headed back to The Barn for lunch, I had the privilege (or should that be misfortune?) of riding shot gun with The Adam Blaster as he bolted around the mud, and made successful back and forth passes in 2wd!
The BBQ part of the 4th Annual DML BBQ took place upon returning to The Barn. The grill was dragged out and pressed into service, with Adam at the controls. Burgers and dawgs were devoured with little hesitation! After eating and freshening up we started out for the waterfall. More carnage awaits!
A line of Dakotas and Jeeps head down the side of the airstrip with Adam taking the lead. A call comes across the radio alerting us to some problems with a couple of the Jeeps - it seems they have no electrical power! The mud had taken its toll on the alternators of the Cherokees. Tweety Jeep was also having some gear shifting problems.
I relayed the message across the CB to the others Jeepers. Ed informed me later, that the message I put out on the CB, was immediately followed by the raising of many Jeep hoods around us!
After a little while more - the caravan finally began moving. We worked our way over and up Slippery Hill, and through Pine Forest, and into the ravine.
Dakota fell nose first into a rather large hole down by the bottom of the waterfall and it was interesting watching him get back out heheh. Don Metrick was the first to reach the bottom of the slick rocks and proceeded to take his teal Wrangler right up - and after only a minute - was at the top and had scaled the falls!
Looking to be the next up the falls, the red Wrangler came in next. After a few attempts the Jeep started bouncing up and down like a bucking bronco. This proved to be too much for the differential locked rear axle, and a sharp metal snapping was heard. At first it was thought that only a c-clip broke. However after Rob jacked up his Jeep and popped the diff cover - it became obvious that the axle had twisted right off. The wheel/axle/brake assembly was walking right out of the axle shaft. Recovering this Jeep from the ravine, and back up to The Barn later, proved to be a challenge.
On the heels of the Axle Snapper - we had Paul with the 48 Willys. Reaching the top was just out of grasp - literally - for the tires on the Willys. He lost traction and had brake fade. Slipping back down the falls - the Jeep landed with a thud - and wouldn't restart.
"You're the next contestant on "Break Your Jeep!"
Up next was Scott with his Tan wrangler. He got a good start but became off balance. Don attached his winch cable to Scott's front end preventing him from slipping back down. Scott made it up and over under his own power.
With all this going on - its no shocker that Adam would be the next to attempt the lower waterfall. A few attempts later - Adam's truck found scraps of traction, aided by his limited slip diff, and powered up over the top much to everyones surprise!! There were mutters of "this is a bad idea" when Adam first started up.
What's that? Sounds like Dakota's exhaust rumbling up. The Thornbirds rolled their way over to the falls and minutes later - there were four, count em FOUR, rigs at the top of the previously unconquered waterfall. What a sight!
Everyone successfully winches down the falls and the trek back to the barn begins. For some this will be more difficult than others. The majority heads back to base, with Jon, Dakota, and a few others staying behind to help, and film, the recovery of the wounded red Jeep. At first Don was riding along side to the right - pushing the wheel and axle back into the shaft - with his front left tire. When they reached the exit to the ravine - it was clear they had to improvise something else. What they managed to do was winch the rear of the red jeep up to the front end of Don's. The hanging axle was secured with a tow strap. This was very effective. Steering was accomplished by the front wheels of the red jeep - while Don held up the rear.
Not the best way to achieve a 6x6 off road rig!
