Latrobe Pennsylvannia
Click on any picture to see a full size picture:
Here I am exploring Wesco
Mining lands in Latrobe PA. Notice the winch
at the end, this picture is actually after I winched it to safety
Here is Rick Masters. The first
picture is part of the bad trail I mention in the trip report
Next he is attempting the mud pit. He almost made it.
I went up to Latrobe PA to meet a fellow I met on the offroad list named Rick. Who drove a stock 95 YJ. Rick is a member of a private club that owns 750 acres of old mining land, used mostly for motorcyle riders. This was going to be a 2 day trip with a sleep over in the club house. We got to Latrobe that morning late, unusual for me but it happens. After all the intro's, my wife Susan and I, to Rick. Sorsha the Four-Paw-drive-doggy, quickly made friends with Ricks' two dogs, Molly the English sheep dog and her 3 month old son Mortimore. It was time to get a few supplies and off we went to the club house. What a fancy clubhouse it was too. Electric heat and hot water, a refridgerator and a wood stove. This was living high on the hog for Susan and I, as we usually primitive camp. We tossed our gear inside, grabed a sandwich and off we went.
The trails are mostly mild but scenic, about a 5 out of 10 rating, but we were exploring. Rick had never seen all the trails. The first nasty obsticle was a long steep, loose, uphill climb which I did not make due to traction loss and no lockers. I was slipping and rocking, and it was getting down right obvious I would not be able to pull this off without trying to go cowboy. I opted not to risk a dangerous roll so I backed all the way down and tried twice with controlled momentum before taking the trail off to the left, 3/4's of the way up. That in itself made me a bit nervous, as it was a 90 degree turn which I made into a 45 of course but the trail was very loose so anything could happen. Rick then explained he never has made it to the top.
We continued our adventures for the day, taking trails where we didn't know what to expect. We were mostly concerned with turning around as the trails were very narrow, some turning into motor bike trails. After a long down hill trail we ended in a dead end. Well, not really there was a trail on the left. This is going to be hard to explain, but the trail to the left was super narrow at the beginning and got too narrow in 100 feet for the D90. The trail in front was do-able with some downed wood removal, but I saw a no tresspassing sign ahead that led me to believe we would be leaving club grounds. Now the problem. Drive backwards for quite a while or turn around? Well, I would have to use mirrors due to the lock boxes in the rear, and Rick didn't seem too psych'ed to back out either, so we tried to turn around. I had Rick park in the best location, as he had a stock Jeep YJ and My D90 has excellent suspension modifications. So I jogged my way into the tight trail to the left, over some real bad cross axled ground work. This was actually pretty cool as I got to show off my suspension. Rick seemed impressed. I was just missing trees and having to jog back and forth to actually make it into position to back onto the original trail. Ok this was not so bad. Backing out was a bit tight and I just cleared my right roll bar and then into an off camber section while backing up, which is where it all went wrong. This was furthur into the bad section of the trail. What I did not notice was this section. It was covered by leaves and mud was slippery, shallow. An off camber section. Well, you can guess what happened. I got myself very off camber, and while twisting out, the rear slipped sideways and put me in a position that was dangerously close to rolling. Well, I tried one more time, and now it was definite; to go any furthur would mean a roll. So Rick hopped on the rock sliders and hung from the roll bar, while my wife pushed on the opposite side. This allowed me to extracate myself from the now sideways but stable vehicle. Sorsha the dog just looked at the rig like there was something terribly wrong with me for not walking. She may be right. Luckily, I had just finished moving the winch selenoids prior to this run and I was able to winch the rig out safely. I could of course continued to try and drive out, but this may have led to unnecessary vehicle damage.
Next came Rick. Although he had the safer and easier turn around, he did have a stock YJ and quickly got cross axled. This allowed us to practice our highlift extracation proceedures and after 15-20 minutes we were back on the trail. We explored the beautiful scenary for about another hour and broke for lunch. After lunch we did a nice steep, loose, hill climb which did get my adreneline going, but of course that is the fun! It required a little momentum and a quick left hand jog around a big rock step three fouths of the way to the top. Anyone who has done any steep hill climbing will tell you, having to turn left and then right 3 feet while on a steep loose hill, is not something you enjoy. Both of us made it up with Rick using a little more speed than I did, which made his ride look allot more fun. Of course Susan and Sorsha The-Four-Paw-Drive-Dog remained at the bottom and walked up. They were obviously entertained. (Just some thoughts from the wife while watching the above antics: Oh my God, will he tip? Is he nervous? Can the truck handle it? Why are we doing this again? Is the first aid kit up to date? Boy I'm glad I'm not in there with him, I'd make him a wreck. Wait! The truck is handling it! It's doing really good! It's going to make it! It made it! It made it! Alright! That was great! That was fun! Hey do you think if I ask him he'd go up the hill again?) After some more scenic rides we called it a night and went back to the club house.
The night was cold and very windy and we wanted to use the wood stove. Well, we were about to discover that this was not going to work. The smoke kept blowing in and smoking us out! We tried everything we could think of before realizing that it seemed to be related to the wind. We went outside to discover the bend in the smoke stack had rusted causing the stove pipe to no longer be connected to the piece coming out of the wall! This left the piece of straight pipe coming out of the wall facing right into the wind. Ug. OK, so know put out the fire. No problem Brian, lets turn on the heat! Ok we go to the breaker box where I discover a sign saying do not use heater, shorted out. Well, no heat tonight! Luckily we came prepared to camp outside. This is exactly why I am always prepared!
Well we drank and told stories till late night and then off to sleep and dream about more four wheeling.
Next morning ...
Now, to play in the mud! There was a motorcross track with nice
deep mud holes and moguls. I ran off to twist around on the steep
mogals, as I love to show off my suspension. Then Rick showed me
his favorite Mud hole. It was a very deceiving mud hole it looked
pretty shallow to me, but when entering the hole you notice
quickly that your nose is pointing down at a nice angle. Turns
out the mud hole was about three to four feet deep. Well, we
played in the mud for a while, then off in search of more
adventures!
Up, up and away! We were looking for something a bit more challenging. We drove for about 2 hours, enjoying the scenery of tree covered mountains, as far as the eye could see. Then Rick says; "Ok, Brian you lead for a while" Yes! Suddenly my psyche was thrown into gear. Rocks, give me rocks. Well low and behold my rock insticts found a nice down hill trail with big rocks and ruts. This was going to be a very technical trail for Rick, and I was happy he was up to trying it, as he was new to wheeling. I did of course explain the risks to his vehicle and he was still a go. Gotta love the guy! Down we went! I was trying to get all twisted up so I took the harder lines and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Rick took the easiest lines which was the only option, but this was by no means easy for him as the trails are tight. We worked our way to a more difficult, rocky, steep descent, with mogal obstacles. We were having fun now! Near the end of this trail it got real nasty with big sharp rocks to the left and off camber sides and trees to the right. The last obstacle was a, well, whoop-dee-do type obstacles, which makes it very hard to see the trail till your over the whoop-dee-doo, and already into it. There was a big rock to the left, too big for a stock rig to go over, and then a quick drop into a deeply rutted trail, requiring a hard left to stop the rig from rolling, then stradling the rut. It then opens into a nice mud hole, with two routes to exit the trail. One, a very steep, approximately five feet tall and almost straight up hill that ended on level ground. Or two, a hard left while in the mud hole, which is more like a shallow muck pond, than a hole, to climb onto level, but deeply and numerously rutted ground. Rick got to really work on his technical thinking to get around the rock. He then had to work fast to get down to the next obstacle But a need to turn down to avoid rolling then proper tire placement to straddle the rut and then down. He did great. he took instructions from his ground guide despite his instincts to turn uphill. Don't get me wrong, I needed to do some thinking and driving here as well.I had alot of fun here, and in the end took the route going straight and up the steep hill, which actually took two attempts. Well it was apparent there was no way Rick could climb out of the mud hole at the end, due to his older bald street tires, so he tried a left out of the whole and you guessed it, he got good and stuck. He turned a bit too left.
Rick wanted to try and use the High Lift Jack to winch out of his predicament for practice. Not wishing to miss an opportunity for learning, I was only too happy too show Rick how to use it as a winch. However, not using one as a winch in a long time, I no longer carried the length of cable needed to attach the jack to the tree strap. We tried, but without the proper length cable, we had to join 2 tow straps. I explained to Rick the proper method of threading the straps and using a rag in the middle so the straps would not tighten too much to undo. Now most of you already now what happened. The tow straps stretched too much for this to work. well, after a half an hour Rick gave up realizing he needs cable or chains, and I winched him out. Well, we were tired, it was 4pm so off we went to pack up and leave.
I had alot of fun and plan on doing another trip with Rick in the very near future
Brian Bonner
The Irish Rover