My 2nd trip out to the Alberta Safari Park. Last time I was out was a couple years ago, and in the winter.. so this was a different experience for sure. We got into lots and lots of deep mud, everyone got stuck at least once, and it served as a great shake-down run for o-min’s new lift and my new locker (it performed amazingly!). The weather was scorchin’ around the 30’s (celsius), so we all got a bit sun burned I think.. I did for sure.

First off I’d like to thank Lee for having us at his park. It’s always a treat to chat with Lee. He’s always very accommodating to the wheelers on his land. He offered us a newly sharpened chain saw to cut up some fire wood, free camping for the weekend, leg of lamb for dinner, two canoes for putzing around on the big pond, and the thickest mud you can find in Alberta! He’s got a Unimog that he plays around with, but he hid it this time (how the hell do you hide a Unimog?) so Steve wouldn’t steal it again. Steve and Lee are good friends, so don’t take that “stealing” the wrong way. :P

Ian was the first to get himself in trouble. We went along the right-most path just past Bill’s Gate where the RTI ramp resides. Along side that there is a trail they not-so-appropriately named the Ant Hills. The hills are as big as a jeep, and the mud holes in between the hills are about 3-4 feet deep right now. They will change with the weather of course, and it’s very dry out at the park right now. He dropped off the ledge into the first hole and found himself stuck before he even got to level ground, headlight deep. I *really* encourage you to check out the recovery video of this one.. Octavian pulled way too hard on him and would have caused him to roll if he had not kept pulling. It was pretty funny to watch Ian’s face!!

We puttered around the park for a while on the green trails. Funny thing about that though, the “green” trails are so muddy right now that only a couple of the jeeps were able to get through them without winching. I guess that’s what happens when you get a little rain, lots of traffic and good shade from the surrounding trees to prevent drying. Kyle (Cyborg) made it through ok with a few attempts, but I didn’t have the same luck. I dove into the first hole and my skidplate and diffs brought me to a halt real quick. From there I couldn’t move forward of backward and was winched the rest of the way. This budget boost of mine simply is not tall enough for these well-worn trails. They are broken in by rigs on 33’s to 37’s and up all summer.

We followed the green trails all the around the park to the two toughest hills at the park. One is called Widow Hill, and the other much tougher one is Lee’s Loss. Widow hill is fairly steep, but it’s a straight shot right now, not chewed up and dry.. so our whole group made it up without recoveries. Lee’s Loss is a little different story however. It’s basically impassible right now due to the way it throws your rig off to the side. Eric (Brink_) did a real nasty backwards roll there a few months back on his custom linked/stretched TJ on 42’s. Check out that link to his summer upgrades thread. :P

A little later we came up to Rocky Canyon (I think that’s what it’s called). It’s a short technical wash-out section that has lots of off camber climbing. A spotter is a great help, and due to it’s dry nature right now I was able to crawl through it down and back up. The new locker performed amazing and really shines in this type of terrain. With one wheel off the ground quite often, it’s nice to know you will still move when you want to. The one low part of this section had a little bit of mud in it, and after quite a few of us taking this optional course it was worn down enough that Steve in spite of his 35″ boggers was not able to get out. He pulled a winch line and was out in a jiffy. There is a nice filming platform about 7 feet above the area that was built for Lee’s yearly Tough Trail Challenge (Not to be confused with the Top Truck Challenge put on by four wheeler mag each year). The platform netted me a few cool videos of the obstacle.

We headed back to camp for a bite to eat and a beer or two. A few of us got fired up about trying Bill’s Gate and headed out to give it a shot. Three of us ran it down first because that’s easier.. once we had got that out of the way we figured we needed to go the much more difficult way, up. Steve was first and got through the first flexy part, over the big logs, around the off camber turn, and up to the last obstacle. The last part is a huge jeep-wide, 12 foot high V with a little mud at the start to slick up your tires. I hopped in his jeep for this part and he immediately says with a grin on his face over the sound of the air conditioning running full blast “Just let me know if it’s to cold for you”. We had some troubles straddling the V because the entrance to the last hill is muddy and flexy. It wants to toss you to the right side, passenger side down. It puts the jeep basically on it’s side with the passenger side window a few inches from the ground. We tried a few times, and got the jeep to go the other way, with the same results on the driver’s side. We ended up winching out.

Travis tried and had the same troubles. He was real close to getting out and ended up pulling up mostly past the tough part but a tire dropped into the V near the top. This chucked the passenger front tire into the air and he was unable to move. We pulled him out from there. I decided I better give it a shot because Travis and Steve were open front/rear. I got into the same spot as Steve and Travis near the end and blew a bead on my first attempt at it. I started out the day 1t 8 PSI and lost a little somewhere and likely around 3-4. Definitely too low for obstacles that require a little ramming. It was a little disappointing because I really wanted to see if I would be able to get the right line with the locker in the rear. While being pulled out with my blown bead my passenger side dug in a little too much and it bent my passenger side fender downward. Not a real big deal I guess because I plan on flat fendering it later.. but it’s a cosmetic thing that kind of sucks for now. *shrug*

We headed back to camp and spent a few hours in the sun. We had a keg for the event, and cooked hotdogs. A few of us headed home that night (me included) and the rest stayed over night. There is guys from the club wheeling again out there tonight, but I figure a badly pushed up t-case skid plate, a bent fender, and a blown bead is enough for one weekend.

I heard tales of people going out onto the pond later in the canoes and tipping eachother over, but I won’t confirm those allegations. :) Thanks EJC for a great time, and thanks again Lee for having us! Travis just got back from the car wash as I write this.. he says he just spent $50 and the jeep is still not very clean. I told you it was the thickest mud in Alberta! Have a peek at the Alberta Safari site, and make a point of going out there if you live close enough and haven’t been yet. It’s well worth the small amount he charges.

Ian: Two blown beads (man you are a pro at that these days!)
Davin: Pushed up t-case skid, bent passenger fender, blown bead

-Davin (Raskull)

What an awesome day! Edmonton Jeep Community headed out for one of our first major trips of the season. Mind you, we tend to wheel all year around anyways, ’cause wheeling in the snow is so much fun. Most of the group left friday night for the Rocky Mountain House/Prairie Creek area. I had to replace the u-joints in my Dana 30 axle shafts so I did that on friday and drove out saturday morning. We were on the highway by 7am and got to the campsite at about 10am. A couple minutes before our camp site I saw some jeeps down in another camp, so I pulled in to see if it was EJC. Turns out it was the Trail Seekers out of Red Deer. They all had huge rigs, easily 36+ tires on all of them. There was even a huge yellow YJ on 44″ boggers.

Once we got to the camp site, Alex (my winch bit- er.. passenger) and I set up the tent and unloaded everything but the essentials to cut down the weight for the trip. There was too many people there to take on one trail without causing some long waits, so we split into 2 groups and ran two different trails. Our group was equipped with a winch on every vehicle, which turned out to be a necessity later on in the trip. We also had Pat with us, and he brought his Polaris Razr. He did quite well all day only needing a winch once. He had done some work to it though including new agressive tires, and a custom snorkel that can be seen in this picture.

As you can see in the picture here, it was *very* wet out. The woods all around us were damp and in may places slightly flooded up to a foot or so of water. The ditches all had little rivers in them, and the mud was just awesome! Big Bear is a tougher trail, and when you run it frontside, it has one extremely tough climb with 2′ to 3′ high rock ledges to climb up. Because of the weather we ran it backwards, so we would be going down those ledges instead of up and the trail becomes somewhat easier.

Nothing like getting into trouble right at the beginning of the trail! It was raining, and probably had been raining for at least a week or so out there. The first small hill we came to was washed out pretty good. I got excited right away because I love to get into a bit of trouble, and a slippery wash out is always good fun. Technical wheeling at it’s best. Mark was first to go up and decided to take the crossing route. He stuck to the left side as far as he could and tried to cross the rut in what looked like the best spot. He managed to get one wheel down into it but couldn’t pull himself out from there. Out came the winch and he was free in no time.

I was next and decided that it would be easier to straddle the wash out all the way up. Here’s a video of my valiant-yet-futile attempt. I made it farther than the others trying to straddle it which is good I guess, but it gets to slippery and wide to pass with a straddle I think. I ended up slipping my back tire into the gap and tipping over to what felt like almost rolling the jeep. Out came the winch cable from there, and I was at the top with Mark without any other troubles. Travis was next, and he tried to straddle it as well. The same fate was due for him, and he slipped into the muddy rut, and needed to winch out. He slipped in the other direction though, and ended up winching to the starting side, then tried to cross the gap like Mark did. He did very well though, and almost made it across the gap, but needed to winch like the others. Much of the same happened for each and every person. Shane got real tippy as you can see in the picture above. The rut was fairly deep and managed to swallow his 36″ TSL SX tires easily.

We encountered a couple more small washouts farther up the hill that didn’t provide much trouble. At the top of the hill the trail turns left and heads towards Big Bear. The scenery on this trail is incredible! Especially on a day like today with a bit of rain. It creates a mist that is just thick enough to make everything look real wet yet still allows you to see quite far into the distance to the next big hill. Big Bear is a rocky climb full of shale rocks anywhere from fist size to half-basketball size rocks, and it has a few shale ledges near the top. We were going backwards (down Big Bear), so the ledges were enough for a bit of pucker factor, but as long as you were on the right line they didn’t provide any troubles. Pat was going down first and could not make it down the ledges without rolling forward due to the very short wheelbase of his Razr. We hooked a winch line up to the rear of his machine as he went down to help out and he did fine. The rest of us slowly crawled down without any troubles. It was pretty scary though because it was so wet out. This made the rocks quite slick and you didn’t always have perfect traction. When a tire drops off the ledge you skid for a bit before you gain normal traction again and that made it interesting for sure.

Once we were at the bottom, Steve (who was riding with Mark) told Ian he should see how far up Big Bear he could get. Ian took the challenge and headed up the hill. He did well all the way up to the real steep part where the rock ledges start. Once he hit that point and started to climb them, he blew a bead on the rear driver’s side corner. Now he was stuck there on the ledge with three wheels. Hiroki (his passenger) hooked up his winch line and they winched up the ledges and put on his spare tire. They finished the climb, turned around, aired down the spare and came back down. Coming down a steep hill, looking across the valley at the climb back up the other side is an odd thing. It makes the hill you are looking at on the other side seem a lot steeper than it really is. When we got to the bottom of Big Bear though, the hill back up wasn’t bad at all and we all climbed up it without issue.

We went up and down a couple more non-puckering hills before we came up to a large ice formation over top of a small stream. Looks like there was a ton of ice here during the winter, and it had not yet fully melted. It was overhanging the stream and looked to be a couple feet thick in some places still. We needed to cross here, but in order to do so we would have to climb the ice ledge and cross on top of it. Mark took a few attempts at getting up but the ledge was obviously very slippery and was more than half way up his tires, so he could not climb it. Each of us had to winch up the ledge and we carried on from there. When on top of the ice Travis broke through and dropped his back tire a foot and half down into a hole. No big deal but it made things a bit more interesting for the others coming after him.

A bit later we came up to a tough descent. It was another washed out hill and we all straddled it on the way down. It was a tough one because we were constantly battling, trying not to slip into the wash out. We all managed to do fine though, and no one slipped in. The wash out weaved all over the place, left and right, so you would need to adjust left and right on the way down as well. Right at the bottom of the wash out the trail splits off into two directions. Straight ahead the bypass, and to the right there is the aptly named Rut Hill. Brink_ from EJC (check his awesome build thread here) flopped his jeep on 42’s here last year. Steve nonchalantly mentioned over the radio that if any of us wanted to try going down it we could go ahead. Just knowing Eric rolled here last year was enough to prevent any of us from trying it. It was even worse now because of all the rain as well. We took the bypass around it and met up at the bottom of Rut Hill. Once we were at the bottom Travis decided to see how far up it he could get. Here’s a video of that. I won’t say too much about it aside from the fact that it really shows what his new RE 5.5 LA lift can do. Keeping all his wheels on the ground really allows his tires to do what they do best. It will be cool to see what it can do when he gets his 37’s on there. Colour me jealous! It’s tough parking in the garage next to him every day. :P

After Trav was done putting on his show, we all had to turn around to go back up the bad wash out we just came down. It was so slick down there that two of us couldn’t get turned around at all. We ended up going down the trail another 75 feet or so and turning around on a flat section of the trail. The trouble was we couldn’t get up the extra section either and had to winch back to the bottom of Rut Hill. We made it past there and made our way back to the wash out we just came down. Turns out going up it was a *lot* tougher than coming down, and everyone needed to winch the entire way. Travis was first to go up and he has the tough task of figuring out the best winch points. The winch up was pretty scary, and there was a few points where the only thing holding you from rolling backwards was your winch line. It all went smoothly and no one flopped or rolled their jeeps. It took about 2 hours, maybe more to get everyone up.

Once up the hill we headed back in the direction towards Big Bear, and turned off in another direction a bit before. This headed back towards the trail head through a different route. It lead through some wet areas and some simple trails, and ended up at a very muddy stream crossing area. It looked like a war zone, and it was easy to tell that there had been lots of others here this season. Lots of tracks going off in many different directions to try and find a way across the stream and mud holes. Travis dove in first because he had a snorkel. He made it fairly far but ended up getting stuck in the last hole. Mark was next.. He got through the 1st part and dove into the second stream and instantly got stuck. Buried up to his door panel on the passenger side. Steve was quick to open the passenger side for a picture and we heard Mark yelling at him to shut the door before the water started gushing into the cabin. It was really funny! Ian headed off in a different direction seeking his own way through. Ian made a valiant effort and flung mud all over for a good 20 minutes passing from hole to hole on his trek to the exit. He eventually got hung up on a large log that prevented him from passing farther. Shane ended up getting in front of him, and used his winch to pull the log out first, then Ian. Ian had done all this with his passenger side window open and the door panel and seat in the jeep were both swimming in mud. We winched out Mark, and we both got through the same spot he was just stuck in, through a better line.

On the last pull of the day my winch controller gave up the ghost. It would no longer make contact spooling in, so I guess I will have to re-wire it. Once we were all through the muddy section, it was a short easy climb back up the trail head where we had left Pat’s Truck. He loaded up his Razr and we headed back to camp.

As I said earlier it rained all day. It was nice enough out that it was not cold at all, and a sweater was all you needed though. The weather for wheeling was awesome, but it’s not so fun for camping. It was extremely mucky and wet all day so even the simplest obstacles were a little tough. Overall through it was an absolutely amazing trail, and I loved every bit of it. The views off the mountain ledges with the mist from the rain is just breathtaking. It’s unfortunate that the camera’s don’t really capture it like I hoped they would, but please have a look at the entire gallery here. There are some really awesome photos in there! In the video sub-album there’s some cool videos too. I’d like to thank Steve and Mark for the trip. The Big Bear trail is definitely one of my favorites, and I can’t wait to go back again in dry weather and try going up Big Bear! I’d also like to thank Alex (Thinko) for riding along with me. Was nice to have some help with the winch and picture taking.

Ian: Scarred tire, popped bead, winch malfunctioned and started spooling on it’s own, breaking his synthetic line
Davin: Winch controller shorting out. UPDATE: Solenoids gone in winch, controller is ok

-Davin (Raskull)