[78Buford]

I drove ahead, turned around and came back to drive up the steep part. Cliff and Superman had tried to climb it before me. Superman changed lines several times, but was able to get up the right side of it (when looking at it as I was). Cliff kept bottoming out, and was within a fraction of an inch from rear yoke and driveshaft damage before he stopped, backed off, and drove around. I approached from the far left/middle region, and had to reverse once, as my front bumper prevented me from climbing it. I got the nose up on the rock, and barley rubbed the driver side rocker panel on the rock……pretty steep to cause that to happen. I allowed the 460 to grunt the big pile up onto the rock. Driving off, I took my time, and even posed a few times for some suspension (well mostly frame) flexing. I got out, and had a couple people take pictures of Pete driving the Ford on the rock. I later asked Pete if he had ever driven a vehicle with a bench seat, and a column shifter. He thought about it for a while, and believed that he had…..at some point. “Dirty Peter” as I called him throughout the weekend, made an obscene gesture with his finger towards Jamie in one of the pictures, and I’ll be looking forward to see how they turned out.

We all turned and headed back the way we had came in. We had to drive through a deep muddy hole that had a pretty nasty climb coming out of it. Going in, we simply dropped the passenger side into it, and gave it some throttle. On the way out, Brad stopped once, reversed, and hit it a little harder, quickly climbing out. I idled though with minimal hassle, Jamie may have went around the hole, and I believe that Superman did as well. Cliff generally tries anything within reason with his CJ on smallish 33’s, and was almost through the muck when his clutch pedal went limp. I gently tugged Cliff out of the hole, and onto relatively dry ground. Cliff quickly diagnosed the problem as a clutch linkage part that had popped out of place. Jamie assisted him, and the two went to work fixing the relatively minor problem.

It was decided that Brad and I would run the entire trail back to the start to pick up Howard and Jim, who were to meet up with us at 1:00 pm. We traveled the mile or so back to the trail head. We met up with Jim, his wife, and two children in the yellow ’74 Bronco, and Howard and his buddy in the Sammy. We discussed what to do the rest of the day, and I quickly piped up that I wanted to run Widowmaker today. Jim gave me an odd look, but did not have a problem with doing it later in the day. Brad surmised that “Roy just wants time to be able to fix the Ford after he breaks it…..so he can get home.” “Yeah, we’ll see about that……fawker,” is what I thought, but I kept my trap shut…..for once.

We headed back through the Nature trail, and on one sharp turn/rocky climb, I banged the front diff (hard) off a rock. Pete was shaking his head laughing at me, saying something to the effect of, “Dumba$$, you put your tires on the big rocks and drive over them……you don’t run your axle straight into them.” Pete was talking smack indeed…….but I had to agree with what he had said. The front diff observed to be unharmed by my ignorance. We met back up with the group, and they had just finished up with Cliff’s Jeep. We headed on out of the Narrows, and started the fairly long scenic/not too challenging drive through the woods to get to Widowmaker.

The sunny skies had darkened up, and this observed to be an ominous sign of what was to about to take place.

Chapter # 6: Widowmaker

We were at the trailhead of Widowmaker. I suggested to Pete that it may be best if we followed someone, preferably Jim in the Bronco because he had ran Widowmaker before. Pete said, “Fawk that dude, you’re driving, I’m spotting, and we’re going to get this pig through Widowmaker…….and it’s going through first!” What the hell, might as well go first and see what happens, I thought. Pete jumped out and began spotting me through the tight section that leads to Granny’s Hatbox. We arrived there a few minutes later, with Brad and Jamie close behind. Cliff was spotting Brad for certain, and possibly Jamie as well. I could not see what was going on with the back end of the group. A few of us approached Granny’s Hatbox, and looked for a decent line. I figured that I’d be best by starting at the far right, and pointing left, going up the rocky mess at an angle. Pete advised me to hit it straight on. He was standing up on top of it, giving direction. I immediately put my front tires in good position to climb, but when I went to proceed, my front bumper hit, and I slid left off of a large rock, causing me to reverse. This happened twice, before I managed to pull the front end up onto the rock pile. After pausing for a moment, and getting the OK from Pete and a couple others who were watching, I gave the 460 about ½ throttle, and the rear 42’s hit the rocks at the same time. I felt it jerk to a halt, and I stayed on the gas. The truck grunted it’s way over the rocks with several items in the bed flopping up, hitting the ratchet straps that holds them in place, then settling back down. One plastic box that holds my large reserve of spare motor oil did a somersault, and landed upside down. Part one of the mission was accomplished.

I pulled ahead several yards, and let the engine run with the auxiliary fan on. The fan is in front of both trans coolers, and with my poor crawl ratio, I knew I’d be stressing the C6 on this technical trail. Brad went next, and tried a few times a little further to the right (when looking at the obstacle head on). He came to a halt each time when his passenger front tire falling into a hole. Brad reversed and tried a slightly different line. Soon after, Brad had the nose up on the rocks on the right side, turned left, and the rear of the Blazer followed. Brad had conquered Granny’s Hatbox as well.

Jamie went next and was having a lot of problems with his spring shackles hitting rocks. I felt that he risked tearing his leaf springs off the frame. Pete said he was more worried about Jamie breaking an axle due to having to “drive jerky” because the lack of super-low gears, and having a manual trans. I spoke up and told Jamie, “If it was me, I wouldn’t keep trying……it’s a long way home.” After thinking about it for a moment, he agreed, and moved out of the way for Jim.

Jim is the only person to have completed Widowmaker (to my knowledge) in this group. I have the tape of when Jim did so in the fall of 2003. At the time, he had his 36” IROKS, but he was without bead locks. Jim noted that the trail looked to be worse, because of the large rock that had fallen on the left side…..it was now part of the obstacle one had to contend with. From what I understand, it used to be easy to drive up to the Hatbox, and it was now more difficult to get the front of one’s rig to the large pile of rocks. Jim tried several different lines, and his rear bumper kept catching on a rock, stopping his forward progress. Jim was able to get his driver side front tire up against the rock, but it was a 3’ climb, and the beefy Bronco could not get up it. Jim suffered some rear quarter panel damage, and may have broken a shock mount on the passenger side front. Jim decided that it wasn’t his day, and backed out of the way.

Howard gave a few attempts in the Sammy, but quit after it looked like it wasn’t going to happen. Cliff gave several attempts at the far right (when looking at the obstacle from the driver seat) and his leaf springs would hit the rock preventing progress. Howard and I stacked some rocks because Cliff was trying hard and with 33’s a little help couldn’t hurt. Cliff (with the 3 speed manual) began to smell burning clutch, and backed away from the obstacle.

Mike in the Superman Jeep with 36’s, 4-1 T-case, long arm suspension, etc observed to be the most well equipped (on paper) rig for rock crawling in this group. I’d say Jim in the Bronco would be a relatively close second. My Ford would likely be way at the bottom of the list. Anyway, Mike drove up to the Hatbox.

Mike tried several lines, and repeatedly had trouble dropping the passenger front tire in a large hole. At one point, the TJ looked like it might roll onto the driver side. I observed Mike’s girlfriend to have a concerned look on her face throughout the ordeal. From what I remember, Mike spent the most time of anyone trying to get up the obstacle, but his perseverance paid off, and he managed to get the TJ up Granny’s Hatbox. The rest of the group decided to go run some other trails and meet up with us in an hour, because as Jim said, “You guys still have a good hour finishing the trail.”