Ok, so the write up is a *little* late, but this was an amazing trip, so I feel I need to share anyways. The gallery has had the pictures/vids up from this trip since sept of last year, so you may have already browsed through them. I am putting the two days up as separate trip reports in hopes you will actually see the report from the second day. These trip reports sometimes get a little long winded, so I hope you’re still reading by day 2. It was *by far* the best wheeling I have ever done.

Day 1: EJC heads back to the Cadomin area. We had a pretty huge turnout this time around, so we split into two main groups for the wheeling. The other group ended up on an epic night-run-recovery-hell trip that took until 8am the next day or so. The Carnage was not nice to them. The Carnage knows no bounds. The Carnage is evil. I wasn’t on that trip though. I will include their breakage in the carnage report at the bottom of this trip report, but I’m not going to touch much on that run ’cause I wasn’t there..

I didn’t drive out with the main group on friday night, although I wish I had. We got to Edson, gassed up as usual, and tore off onto the highway again. The three of us that were “convoying” ended up with a present in the mail a couple weeks later. Damned photo radar got all three of us for roughly 11kph over the limit.. After another hour on the road, we stopped at the trail head to air down before hitting the trails. The wheeling trip started off a little quiet for my tastes, just cruising on some pretty simple trails. We had one guy with us (hotgarlicbreath) who was completely stock. GSA’s and all.. He did very well, and sure did his best in the stocker. We did find some pretty cool washed out hills to play on, which is a lot of fun. There’s a decent video in the gallery of me coming down one. After ripping around on some easier trails and doing a couple small mud holes and such, we headed off onto a trail that leads up a rocky climb that’s not too steep. Bill was leading the pack and was trying to find us some new spots out there.

The scenery was amazing and we soon came to a sort-of ledge that sloped down the side of the mountain, then quickly jutted back up as the continental divide (The Great Divide). If you’re unsure what that is exactly, check this out. It really was exciting to see it from this side. When you are up on the top of it (where the road passes over it, and there is a parking lot and a bunch of signs) you don’t really get to appreciate it the same way. You can’t really *see* the divide from up there and it looks like the road just goes downhill again after climbing for a while… big deal. Up here however, you can really tell it’s “The Great Divide”. Check out the picture here to see what I mean. It’s almost as if there was some sort of mistake when making the landscape and what was left was a huge cliff that runs through all of North America. Most of mountains out here are just a peak of some sort, not a cliff that runs for miles and miles. Perfect place for a poser shot of the group on day 1.

Shortly after seeing the continental divide, we found a steep hill to climb. We didn’t know what was at the top, so in true Bill-leading-the-pack fashion we headed up to see! The hill itself was not too bad, it looked worse than it was. When we got up a ways and around a corner behind the trees, we hit a dead end. Knowing we had to turn around on it made the hill look a lot steeper. It was quite the process, not knowing if your jeep can sit off camber that much without rolling. Bill was the bravest I guess, and he was the first to turn around. His jeep has got a 4″ lift with a 2″ body on 35’s, so I figure if he can turn around without tipping, the rest of us would be fine. It still felt pretty scary though I must admit. The image to the left shows the steepness of the hill quite well.

Later on in the day after a bit more trail running, we came up to a decent mud pit, and a really tough hill after it. Bill was sure he had been up it before, and assured us it went somewhere. It seemed to be a pretty well used trail so that seemed feasible. The climb was not easy though. The ground was a little damp, and our tires were fresh out of a mud pit which probably didn’t help. Bill locked up his axles, and took first shot. He tried a few times before making it up, which didn’t bode well for the rest of us. Dallas was the only other person in the pack with lockers (he has a Rubicon). The hill had a good size stump off to the left on one side, and a tree that had grown crooked and in the way of the trail. The crooked part jutted out into the trail at about windshield height. That meant you had to hop up or dodge the root, then get off camber and around the crooked tree to the right, then back to the left so your right tire doesn’t climb a tree trunk. all of this is done with a small wash-out in the middle of the hill. This video shows what I mean fairly good. The video is Bill going up.

Once bill was up Travis and Roger both went up without too much troubles. I guess watching others go first is a good learning tool. :) Then it was Scott’s turn. He tried a few times, and was losing traction trying to go right to avoid the root. The next attempt he tried to climb the root instead, and popped his front end up a tad. When it landed… kablammo! The front drive shaft snapped the ears off the yoke on the front of his transfer case. He backed down the hill and pulled the drive shaft so it wouldn’t wobble all over the place, and was able to get out in 2wd. Him and his wife hopped in with someone else, and we continued up the hill. Even Howard made it up (after many many tries) with his GSAs. He did however smack that crooked tree pretty good on the way up with his hard top, and he also dented in a fender flare pretty good, but a little muscle popped that right back out.

We all made it up. We made it up the hill to nothingness! There was a sort-of cliff face we couldn’t see from the bottom. It looked like we *might* be able to winch up it, but only a few of us had winches at the time, so the work was just not worth it. Flashbacks to earlier in the day started flowing in to my head, of turning around on a steep hill. This time however, we were *much* more crammed up there in a small space, and the hill was a lot steeper. I was last up the hill so I was able to back down a bit into a break in the trees and turn around with much puckering. At least if I rolled it I would hit a tree instead of tumbling over and over. Dallas didn’t have it as easy. He got half turned around, lost some traction and ended up wedged badly against a tree. There was no where for him to go without scraping the hell out of his soft top. We also removed the driver’s side mirror so that wouldn’t get ripped off. He was in a real bad spot, and needed to be held up with a winch from Bill’s jeep so he could drive off the tree without tearing his top. The rest of the group turned around with nothing more than extreme puckering like I did. Going down the hill wasn’t too terrible, but it was tricky too. Making sure you somehow hold traction so you don’t go sliding, while still maneuvering the obstacles that we already dealt with on the way up.

We headed back the way we came and went up to the hill I described as “one of the worst hill climbs I’ve seen” in my last report. Bill showed us how it was done, and went up the hill while the rest of us stood back at the “staging area” for the hill and watched in horror. It’s one of those hills that gives you the chills watching others go up it. It’s all loose rock near the bottom and once it climbs higher it gets much steeper, and the ground turns into loose shale. The shale is in huge chunks, some of which are not held down by anything. When you drive over them, some of them will shift and slide… Once you get into the steep shale portion, it splits into a Y. The way to the right is steeper, but has more shale ledges than the other side.. leading to a problem with your front end bouncing up and the possibility of tipping over backwards for a long roll down the hill. The left side has a huge dip that is on a steep ascent that you must dodge or you can’t climb the other side of it. If you make a bad mistake in this section you would likely be saved by the trees and wouldn’t tumble all the way down. Dallas was the only other jeeper brave enough to try the hill. He took one shot at it, got up to the steeper shale portion and started bouncing. Gaining reaction which makes a bounce because it’s so steep, losing traction while partially in the air, gaining traction and bouncing again, etc. When the bouncing started he tried to keep going forwards which is a mistake. He started bouncing off to the right a bit, and his front end started to swing over, which meant he might end up sideways on the hill.. this would be a roll for sure. He slammed on the brakes when his front end started to swing after a huge bounce and slid 5 feet or so downhill off camber a bit when he landed. He landed so hard on the last bounce that he crushed the sides of his bumpstops as they slammed into the bottom of the spring perch, and popped the stops partially out of their holding cups. We were all scared out of our minds, I can’t imagine what it would be like in the vehicle.. After he settled in place, we figured he should be able to start the jeep and roll backwards turning out of the off-camber and back straight down the hill. His jeep wouldn’t start though. No power to the gauges or radio… nothing. We ended up hooking Bill’s back end to a tree as an anchor and attaching a winch to the front of Dallas’ jeep to lower him down. The recovery took about 15-20 minutes or so and he was still shaking when he got out of the jeep at the staging spot.

That pretty much sums up day 1. There wasn’t a whole lot more wheeling done after that, Scott limped home in 2wd. Bill towed Dallas’ dead jeep out with much grunting and whining from his jeep.. and the rest of us got out with a few of the normal scrapes and such that come with wheeling. Once we got back to camp we investigated Dallas’ dead jeep syndrome. After much fiddling around with electrical stuffs we discovered that in his extreme state of ass-puckery he had kicked the wiring harness underneath his steering column, disconnecting the harness. We plugged it back in and she started up without a hitch. I’ll get day 2 up for wednesday’s update. Stick around for it because it’s a good one!

Travis: Throw out bearing in clutch wrecked
Dallas: Bend fender flare, crushed bump stops on right side of jeep
Howard: Bend fender flare
Scott: Blown front yoke on t-case

Carnage from other group:

Ian: Bent Tie Rod, bent rear control arm, ripped a hole in a tire, caved in hood, bent quarter panel
Tim: Ripped off fender flare extension, half ripped off fender flare, bend tub under passenger door, bend fenders and flares, bent t-case skid plate, bent bumper, crushed oil pan
Steve: Blown rear driveshaft and u-joint, winch cable snapped
Evan: Front axle shaft snapped
7 random blown beads

-Davin (Raskull)