John.M

4 daily drivers on 35s spent a half day at Adventure Offroad Park outside of Chattanooga, TN, this past Sunday. The park is owned by the same owner of Tom's 4x4 Superstore. They have spent a ton of time and energy improving the park this year since opening it.

If you are within a few hours, it is well worth the drive. There are trails for all different levels of rigs. We rode primarily blues. One blue should have been a black, as I couldn't see anything less than 40s making it up. I winched myself up it... In two places.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GQiMa87-K-c

ucfjeep

Nice video. Looks like some fun wheelin up there. Might have to make a trip up there one day.

tljk2007

I live in North GA and have been looking for more places to go. I have got to get a crowd together to check this place out.

sparkvast

Great effort posting that nice video here Thanks for sharing!

Jgstoddard

Great video! I live 45 mins from here and never been. May have to head down there if we have one more nice weekend.

tljk2007

Did any of you have lockers or need lockers? Do you need lockers on the blue trails?

John.M

Mine was the silver JK. I'm running an automatic locker up front, with a limited slip in the rear. The black JK Rubicon has the e-lockers. The other two JKUs had open front differentials, with limited slip rear differentials.

JK model Jeeps have a rather ingenious product called the "brake lock differential" from the factory. It in effect senses wheel slippage on an axle, and then applies braking force to that wheel, forcing power to the other wheel. There were several times when I was watching the JKUs start to spin a tire on an obstacle, and the BLD kicked in to drive power to the other wheel.

I say all that to answer - no - if you have a JK, you do not need lockers on the blues. Will it make it easier? Yes. But a spotter will do more for you than lockers. Make that a GOOD spotter. The guy that spotted us through most of the obstacles is my new favorite.

Here is a video shot by the guy behind me before I had my locker installed. You can barely see that my passenger front tire was in the air. I let the clutch out, and the tires started to spin. I was clutch out, just idling, and then the BLD kicked in, forcing power to the driver's front tire. There are other videos on YouTube that show how it works.

I love my front locker, though. I don't have to wait to spin...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZau48GRfb8

tljk2007

Thanks. That will help me talk a couple of guys into going with me.

tcdawg

Been there a few times, it is a really great park. Should only get better once some more rock gets exposed.

I know the blue trail you are talking about, 27. 39 or 29...one of those in that area, had a steep and wet uphill. Tough little trail for sure.

John.M

There are only 2 that I remember being really difficult - 30 and 31. On my video, around the 1:30 mark, is when I went up 31. I didn't have the clearance to manage the breakover on 2 of the obstacles.

Right before this, all I could see was sky. At about the 1:50 mark, you'll see where I teeter on my skid plates. The only thing that got me up was the winch. Upon watching this, I should have just let the winch pull me, and augmented by letting the clutch out a little at a time. I was trying to do the opposite, and only letting the winch work when I thought I needed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=B7TYHUfRpaA And this was the spot on 30 that made me say it was a very hard blue. Not steep, but big enough boulders to make it hard. There was evidence of a busted window at the bottom of this obstacle, where you had to turn to go uphill. It looked like someone slid into the tree sideways, and lost a rear window.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=x8-0xttMos0