gasiorv
I'm a new world samurai, and a redneck nonetheless
Original poster
Supporting Member
Ride of the Month Winner
Wheeling Trip at Northwest Alabama Ride Park in Russellville, AL. A few of us decided to try out a new offroad park in Alabama for Father's day weekend.
Arrived Friday night after the park received A LOT of rain in the previous days and about an hour before we arrived. A Lot of rain.
Arrived around 7pm and after finding a relatively dry spot to camp and getting my 2WD pickup unstuck in the parking lot we headed out around 8:30pm to do some wheeling.
Right off the bat we found what we were going to be dealing with all weekend. Wet, Muddy, and slick (very slick) conditions. Really worked the jeep hard to get up the Powerline Trail which is right at the parking lot. With the excessive wheel speed and rpms required to get up the powerline hill, I was sure that the heat soak issue was fixed. We then headed to the top of the mountain to try and find some more rock vs Mud. At that point my jeep started mis-firing and went into limp mode (I think). This was not the typical heat soak issue where it would just shut down and not start up until it cooled off, it was misfiring but still running. Got it back to the camp (luckily it was mostly all downhill and didn't' require any major power/rpms). I brought my old PCM with me because when I drove my jeep to work the days leading up to this trip, there was a few times when the CEL started flashing (indicating misfire) but the jeep ran perfect and when I got home there was no codes stored. So I had a hunch that there was an issue with the PCM but couldn't figure out what and since I didn't change PCM because it was bad but changed it because I was just throwing every possibility at it, I knew my old PCM was most likely still good. I went ahead and reinstalled the old PCM and it fired up and ran perfect the rest of the weekend.
We headed back out Friday night around 11pm and wheeled to about 1:30am. We found a few good trails and there was plenty of winch cable pulled.
Sat morning:
We headed out and found a great creek trail right off the bat, it was tight and technical and all rock and running water, my kind of trail. At the very end of the trail, it was a steep muddy hill to get out. The clay was so deep and so slick that we had to winch all the way up, hindsight we should have just figured out a way to turn around and run the creek back down. We then found another good rock trail, but no traction was found, I had to winch twice to get up. After a few more muddy hill climbs and bouncing it off the rev limiter to make it up, we headed back to camp for lunch and to hook up with another buddy who was arriving at 2pm.
At 2pm we headed back out, 2 Jeep TJs, a Toyota based buggy, and then some random guy in the parking lot in a SxS asked to join. We hit a few really good rock trails and we hit some not so good mud trails and we finally came to this trail called Keegan's Way. I was leading and hit it and since I never seen this trail before I actually made it (1 in a million odds and will never make it again). The toyo buggy also hit it hard and made it. We then walked down with tree strap in hand to help the other TJ winch up and that is when I realized how freaking hard the trail actually was, there was 3 ft vertical steps after step after step in a vertical part of the trail, etc... The only saving grace is that the trail is relatively new so there wasn't any undercut yet, but a few of the holes dug out due to previous attempts were deep. I am not sure how I made it, but I will take it. Since I know how the trail is now, I will never make that trail again and I am not even going to try. We winched the other TJ up and then it was the SxS turn. He couldn't even get up to the actual hard part and after 4 or 5 attempts we yelled at him to stop and asked him if he had lockers (Nope), did he have a winch (Nope). How do you think you are going to make this hill (I just need a little more air in my tires). I said, Nope. He ended up turning around and heading back to camp, we did see him later and was happy to see that he made it back with no issues.
At the top of that Keegan's way hill we had a celebratory beer and snack and then headed off to go see the back side of the park which is supposed to have some caves you can explore. As soon as we started rolling the sky opened up and it dumped rain for about 45 minutes, water was running down the trails and every ditch, creek, ravine, etc... it dumped a lot of rain. We got to the bottom of a trail and came to T intersection. I stopped to look at map to see which way to go (Left), but I also looked right and something caught my eye. I yelled back that we were going to go left but I was going to go right to check something out. Heading right up the trail after pushing through some branches there was a 4 dr JL in a deep, deep water/mud hole, with the drivers side door open. I got out of my jeep and walked up to the edge of the water hole and sure enough there was people in it, the water was fender high, and the cab was full, they were sitting in the jeep drinking cocktails, in the water. I yelled to see if they needed any help and they said that the did but that they were so stuck that the previous group wasn't able to budge them. I asked if the previous group was SxS and he said yes, I told him that we will give it a try since our winches were probably rated a little higher and we had some extra weight. For the next 30-45 minutes were worked on getting them out and it was an experience that can only be told over a beer, these were some weird people who never should have been out there, not sure if they were just intoxicated, if they were tripping on something or what, it was weird. Anyway, we got them out and told them the easiest way to get back to camp and sent them on their way. We never saw them again, so I assume they made it back.
We then did some trail riding on the back side of the park where the caves were, it was OK, SxS would have a lot of fun back there, but it wasn't that great for us. We got back to camp around 8pm and had dinner. We then headed back out around 10:30 and found a great trail called Otto's Loop. Otto was the name of the guy who cut in all the trails that we actually had liked there so we felt we had to go hit the trail named for him. It did not disappoint, it was the hgihlight of the weekend, awesome trail. Very tight and technical and had some waterfall type climbs but nothing too steep. Got back to camp after hitting a few more cruising trails around 1:30pm
Sun Morning we decided to pack up and head home since we were out of dry/clean clothes. Once home, it took me a few hours just to powerwash the outside and underside of my jeep, still need to do a few hours of cleaning on the inside. It was a muddy mess.
Jeep:
The only issue that I am having is a long crank after the jeep sits for a while. When it is cold and has been sitting for a while it fires right up (so thinking it is not fuel regulator check valve) and if I stall it or turn it off and start it back up immediately it fires right up even when it is hot. But if I turn it off and let it sit 15-30 minutes it does a long crank and then will actually fire on the 2nd or third turn of the key. Any suggestions, let me know but I have new CMS, CPS, fuel pressure regulator, ignition rail, and plugs are relatively new. I may go ahead and change the injectors (possibly one is leaking during that time) and the plugs again. But other than the long crank, it never heat soaked, it ran great.
Park:
It is definitely geared more towards SxS and trail hiding and hill climbs. There are some cool rock trails and there is probably a few more that we missed, but not enough for me to choose to go there again. If I was invited to go with someone to ride there for a day and it had been dry leading up to it, I would probably go and enjoy the day, but I would not be the one to choose to go there. Hawk Pride is 30 minutes closer for me and so much better in my opinion that it wouldn't be worth passing Hawk Pride to go here. BUT, I am happy there is a new park and I am hoping that over time it gets developed a little more.
Arrived Friday night after the park received A LOT of rain in the previous days and about an hour before we arrived. A Lot of rain.
Arrived around 7pm and after finding a relatively dry spot to camp and getting my 2WD pickup unstuck in the parking lot we headed out around 8:30pm to do some wheeling.
Right off the bat we found what we were going to be dealing with all weekend. Wet, Muddy, and slick (very slick) conditions. Really worked the jeep hard to get up the Powerline Trail which is right at the parking lot. With the excessive wheel speed and rpms required to get up the powerline hill, I was sure that the heat soak issue was fixed. We then headed to the top of the mountain to try and find some more rock vs Mud. At that point my jeep started mis-firing and went into limp mode (I think). This was not the typical heat soak issue where it would just shut down and not start up until it cooled off, it was misfiring but still running. Got it back to the camp (luckily it was mostly all downhill and didn't' require any major power/rpms). I brought my old PCM with me because when I drove my jeep to work the days leading up to this trip, there was a few times when the CEL started flashing (indicating misfire) but the jeep ran perfect and when I got home there was no codes stored. So I had a hunch that there was an issue with the PCM but couldn't figure out what and since I didn't change PCM because it was bad but changed it because I was just throwing every possibility at it, I knew my old PCM was most likely still good. I went ahead and reinstalled the old PCM and it fired up and ran perfect the rest of the weekend.
We headed back out Friday night around 11pm and wheeled to about 1:30am. We found a few good trails and there was plenty of winch cable pulled.
Sat morning:
We headed out and found a great creek trail right off the bat, it was tight and technical and all rock and running water, my kind of trail. At the very end of the trail, it was a steep muddy hill to get out. The clay was so deep and so slick that we had to winch all the way up, hindsight we should have just figured out a way to turn around and run the creek back down. We then found another good rock trail, but no traction was found, I had to winch twice to get up. After a few more muddy hill climbs and bouncing it off the rev limiter to make it up, we headed back to camp for lunch and to hook up with another buddy who was arriving at 2pm.
At 2pm we headed back out, 2 Jeep TJs, a Toyota based buggy, and then some random guy in the parking lot in a SxS asked to join. We hit a few really good rock trails and we hit some not so good mud trails and we finally came to this trail called Keegan's Way. I was leading and hit it and since I never seen this trail before I actually made it (1 in a million odds and will never make it again). The toyo buggy also hit it hard and made it. We then walked down with tree strap in hand to help the other TJ winch up and that is when I realized how freaking hard the trail actually was, there was 3 ft vertical steps after step after step in a vertical part of the trail, etc... The only saving grace is that the trail is relatively new so there wasn't any undercut yet, but a few of the holes dug out due to previous attempts were deep. I am not sure how I made it, but I will take it. Since I know how the trail is now, I will never make that trail again and I am not even going to try. We winched the other TJ up and then it was the SxS turn. He couldn't even get up to the actual hard part and after 4 or 5 attempts we yelled at him to stop and asked him if he had lockers (Nope), did he have a winch (Nope). How do you think you are going to make this hill (I just need a little more air in my tires). I said, Nope. He ended up turning around and heading back to camp, we did see him later and was happy to see that he made it back with no issues.
At the top of that Keegan's way hill we had a celebratory beer and snack and then headed off to go see the back side of the park which is supposed to have some caves you can explore. As soon as we started rolling the sky opened up and it dumped rain for about 45 minutes, water was running down the trails and every ditch, creek, ravine, etc... it dumped a lot of rain. We got to the bottom of a trail and came to T intersection. I stopped to look at map to see which way to go (Left), but I also looked right and something caught my eye. I yelled back that we were going to go left but I was going to go right to check something out. Heading right up the trail after pushing through some branches there was a 4 dr JL in a deep, deep water/mud hole, with the drivers side door open. I got out of my jeep and walked up to the edge of the water hole and sure enough there was people in it, the water was fender high, and the cab was full, they were sitting in the jeep drinking cocktails, in the water. I yelled to see if they needed any help and they said that the did but that they were so stuck that the previous group wasn't able to budge them. I asked if the previous group was SxS and he said yes, I told him that we will give it a try since our winches were probably rated a little higher and we had some extra weight. For the next 30-45 minutes were worked on getting them out and it was an experience that can only be told over a beer, these were some weird people who never should have been out there, not sure if they were just intoxicated, if they were tripping on something or what, it was weird. Anyway, we got them out and told them the easiest way to get back to camp and sent them on their way. We never saw them again, so I assume they made it back.
We then did some trail riding on the back side of the park where the caves were, it was OK, SxS would have a lot of fun back there, but it wasn't that great for us. We got back to camp around 8pm and had dinner. We then headed back out around 10:30 and found a great trail called Otto's Loop. Otto was the name of the guy who cut in all the trails that we actually had liked there so we felt we had to go hit the trail named for him. It did not disappoint, it was the hgihlight of the weekend, awesome trail. Very tight and technical and had some waterfall type climbs but nothing too steep. Got back to camp after hitting a few more cruising trails around 1:30pm
Sun Morning we decided to pack up and head home since we were out of dry/clean clothes. Once home, it took me a few hours just to powerwash the outside and underside of my jeep, still need to do a few hours of cleaning on the inside. It was a muddy mess.
Jeep:
The only issue that I am having is a long crank after the jeep sits for a while. When it is cold and has been sitting for a while it fires right up (so thinking it is not fuel regulator check valve) and if I stall it or turn it off and start it back up immediately it fires right up even when it is hot. But if I turn it off and let it sit 15-30 minutes it does a long crank and then will actually fire on the 2nd or third turn of the key. Any suggestions, let me know but I have new CMS, CPS, fuel pressure regulator, ignition rail, and plugs are relatively new. I may go ahead and change the injectors (possibly one is leaking during that time) and the plugs again. But other than the long crank, it never heat soaked, it ran great.
Park:
It is definitely geared more towards SxS and trail hiding and hill climbs. There are some cool rock trails and there is probably a few more that we missed, but not enough for me to choose to go there again. If I was invited to go with someone to ride there for a day and it had been dry leading up to it, I would probably go and enjoy the day, but I would not be the one to choose to go there. Hawk Pride is 30 minutes closer for me and so much better in my opinion that it wouldn't be worth passing Hawk Pride to go here. BUT, I am happy there is a new park and I am hoping that over time it gets developed a little more.
. I’ll post up a few when I get home today.
