[78Buford]

I found this in the members section of Ohio4x4. I just scanned through it....I did mention meeting the Yellow Toyota. I tried to paste it in it's entirety, but there is a 10,000 character limit per post....this is 53,000+ characters....I'll have to break it up. I wrote this on 3-28-2008:

Slade KY Trail Report March 24-26 2005

Chapter #1: Getting There.

I left the house at 9:15 am Thursday morning. I met Jamie (afastfour) in the green YJ and Pete (Lugie) in a clean red 2wd Ranger at the #100 exit on I-71 South around 10:30 am. Jamie had been there a while and had breakfast before Pete arrived. Lugie’s Ford was in need of motor oil and his hood release had broken earlier that morning. A Ford in need of oil would be a recurring theme over the next few days. Lugie fixed his hood release problem, and gave the Ford the needed transfusion.

Lugie and Jamie commented on my “Mad Max” doors as each side now has four strips of ¾”x 1/8” thick tubing, and three strips of 1” x 1x8” tubing welded onto the stock doors. Far from pretty, but I was hoping it would keep the doors from crushing in so easily. I had to retighten my passenger side rear D70 hub bolts due to them not having loctite on them. We tightened them down, and headed south.

Jamie was concerned that the 4 cylinder YJ would not be able to keep up with traffic on the hills we would soon encounter. I told Jamie that we had left way early, and not to be in a hurry……and that my Ford wasn’t exactly Speed Racer with the 4.10’s, 42’s and 2 bbl carb. Jamie led, I followed, and Pete brought up the rear. We all BS’d on the CB about vehicle mods, the terrain of KY, and I got a kick out of listening to Jamie and Pete begin their weekend of insults towards each other. I was laughing aloud on several occasions. We stopped across from a Pilot truck station, and after we fueled up, we proceeded to have the Ford weighed on the scales. After the kind staff at Pilot advised Pete “You can stop pushing the button,” I discovered that the big piled weighed 7140 lbs, with me in it. Figure an extra hundred pounds of camping gear over “regular club ride weight” but still it was pretty porky. It should be noted that Pete guessed the truck would weigh 7200, before I handed him the slip. On we went.

We stopped for gas a couple more times, and for bladder relief a couple other times. Pete commented that Jamie had to urinate about as often as a woman. Jamie retorted that it was due to medical reasons, and suggested that Pete go have sex with himself, using different terminology. Jamie and I also managed to calculate fuel economy on a couple of occasions. He was getting about 17.5 mpg. During one 95 mile stretch, the Ford consumed 8.5 gallons, making it 11.0 mpg. I was expecting about 8.

We arrived in what I believe was Winchester KY and picked up some more camping grub. Jamie grabbed a pack of fancy hot dogs for nearly $2.00. Pete and I were looking for the cheapest food products we could find, sharing stories of foul items we had consumed in the past. When I met up with Jamie in the line, he commented, “You bought more hot dogs?” I advised Jamie that being the savvy shopper that I was (cheapskate) that I was able to purchase three packs of “Meat Dogs” for 59 cents, which was still cheaper than his single pack of “fancy dogs.” Jamie returned his wieners, and bought some cheapies.

Chapter # 2: Scouting A Couple Trails

We arrived at the trails before we went to the campground. It was approximately 3:30 pm at this time. We did not plan on running any trails on Thursday, but I wanted to see the start of Widowmaker (Granny’s Hatbox) in person before we went to the campground. Pete had advised that it was much better to stop on the way down, rather than setting up camp, and backtracking 15 miles of pavement. We arrived at a relatively remote location that Pete had camped at on many occasions. Pete parked his Ranger and jumped in my Ford. He took us to a steep gravelly-rocky hill that he figured we could climb in 2wd. With 30 lbs of air in the 42’s, we didn’t make it very far. Jamie put his YJ in 4wd and crawled up the hill. Pete assisted in putting in the drive flanges, and we idled up the hill. Pete showed us “Moonshine” off to the right at the top of the hill. Moonshine is a knarly looking muddy, rocky climb that runs up a deep ravine. If one were to back down carelessly, one could go over a hill, seriously wounding one’s rig and or body or worse. Two days later, Jim, Brad, Howard, and I would be the only people to try Moonshine.

The terrain looked a lot different to Pete, as a new power line system had been installed in the past several months, making much of the previously dense forest look relatively barren in comparison. After mild backtracking, we came to the creek where Widowmaker starts. With the tires aired up, the ride was very rough, and I stopped the Ford in the creek, and the three of us walked upstream about 100 yards and noted that the rocks kept getting larger. When we arrived at Granny’s Hatbox, Pete observed the trail to have two distinct different features than the last time he had been there. For one, a large rock on the far left (that looked impressive, but was not something that people ever drove up) had fallen to the bottom, and was now an obstacle on the trail that did not use to be an issue. Also, there was about one foot of water at the bottom of Granny’s Hatbox. Pete stated that he had never observed there to be water in this area……that it was always dry. I remembered Mike Lambert always telling me that Widowmaker was a “dry creek-bed full of large rocks” so Pete’s story made sense. My stomach felt a little antsy with both anxiety and anticipation to see if I could drive my truck over the trail that many experienced wheelers had said would not be a good idea to attempt it. Would I have enough gearing, enough power, enough ground clearance, etc. I pestered Pete quite a bit asking him questions about my chances. Pete’s basic advice: I had a decent chance to make it up Granny’s Hatbox, but there was one section further up the creek-bed that he feared that the truck “simply may not be able to fit through………stock width Jeeps rub both sides of the tires fitting through…..I just don’t know if it will fit through there.” I gave it one more glance before turning my back on it, and we walked back to my truck and Jamie’s Jeep.