Spring 2009 Trail Building Begins

The WI4WD Association Spring Fling was here this weekend. We did not have a large number of people, but made up for it by working hard and having lots of fun. The weather was beautiful, making for ideal trail building conditions. I had flagged off a new trail that will go from the trail head around the entire property to the north side. My flagging was more ambitions than our energy! We completed about 1/5 of what I had flagged.

We had decided that a new category "Orange" trail will be added. These are very tight and twisty with lots of opportunity for flex and off-camber sections. There was one very built up '08 'Yota Cruiser in the group and we had to use some creative winching and cable cranking to squeeze through. Extremely tight for that size... I would not recommend it. It is a good thing that Hannis is a good sport about pin stripes, etc. on a rig that new. :)

Orlin's clean early 70's CJ5 was impressive. I loved the healthy bass growl of the 401ci small block. You can hear it quite well on the YouTube video. With 35's and locked front/rear he kept up to the old Northwoods Overland CJ7 quite well. Of course the senior Hannis brought his TJ Rubicon which, with a short arm Rubicon Express lift, 35's and some other toys, walks through everything he points it at. Check out the air under his front left tire on the video (too bad the tree was obstructing a good camera shot). He took a hit to his hard top and left with some nice cracks.

Check out a video clip from this weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGJj0WPikFc&feature=channel_page

After polling together feedback and reviewing what last year's visitors had to say, here are our plans (roughly): we will add a new trail color, orange, which will be very twisty and technical woods trails, extremely tight for anything larger than a short wheel base Jeep. The orange trails will wind around in a large loop, crossing other trails. The yellow trails will be coordinated better to make a large loop around the premiter of the property (outside the orange loop). Each loop should take a good part of the day to complete. The red trails are yet to be determined but must be made much harder. We have been scouting the areas near each and will work on lengthening and making them harder.

Hope to see you this summer!!!