It was one of the llllllllllllooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssstttttttttttttt days on a trail I have ever had! We must have sat on guardrail trail for 3 hours. We hit the trail head around 1:30 and hit pavement around 9:30. It was fun but getting a bit hairy.
Yeah Chris put me to the task of never letting him go back to Tellico when it's raining. I think I may have to hold myself to that as well. It was just way too sketchy and I got stupid with the gas because it was so slick.
Will, your Jeep is amazingly capable in it's current configuration, so it must be good driver skills and knowing your ride. You did a nice job Friday. Sorry to hear about the problem Saturday. We all do the same thing: push it til we find the "weakest link". After a reasonable effort, I want to pull a line and move forward with no harm done.
Is there a club "standard " on when to offer or pull out the winch line?
Sometimes it's a pride issue which I really don't fall victim to much. (Mike hooked me on a good phrase at River Rock last time, "Will... I ain't got nothing to prove this weekend." haha) For instance, as soon as I broke my U-joint I did what I reasonably could to get up the Helicopter bypass and then stopped. Ben turned around at the top and winched me up and I didn't even have to ask. He knew I wanted it as soon as I stopped trying to gas it up the slippery hill.
Then when we had to go down 3 to get off the mountain it was pouring and I heard there was a nasty ledge we had to go down. After dealing with my axle and deciding to leave it out I didn't wanna screw up anything else, so without even seeing the ledge I had already decided to have Chris hook to me from behind and control my descent down a nasty incline.
When time is not an issue and it's all in good fun we like to let people try whatever they feel they're capable of. If you're having trouble guys will almost always offer a winch and you don't have to take it, but most times that's a hint ;D When you're holding up 30 rigs like all the guys at Guardrail on Saturday, it's a good idea to just try it a few times and then let a few people by, or else you'll keep a lot of people in the same spot all day. :
I'm usually pretty good with stopping before I break something and bumming a winch line. This time I was just being stupid and pushing my Jeep too hard. I didn't take it easy and try to crawl up a ledge because I watched Chris try that before me and fail so I knew I couldn't do it. I did the only thing that would have gotten me up it in this situation but it was a little too much and I knew better, but lesson learned right?
Thanks for the generous comments! The next time I see those trails I should have about 4 more inches of clearance at the belly, a lot more protection, and my own line to pull ;D Jeep season is summer for me. I actually have a little money.