The Matrax is plastic... A strong aluminum sand ladder can also be used for bridging.

 

Aluminum is a pretty soft metal. Many plastics are stronger than aluminum for equivalent size/design. Aluminum also has a short elastic range so it not an ideal material for a bridge.

Design of tracks is very important for the strength to be able to hold the weight of the vehicle, maxtrax ^-^-^ shape is a good design. I am not saying other designs are not good, just maxtrax is a good design.

 

Indeed, pure Aluminum is soft, weak and easily corrodes, and is rarely used in its pure form. (The same goes for pure Iron vs Steel.)
There are Aluminum alloys which are strong and durable. Just see how Aluminum alloys hold up under stress in airliners.
I have Aluminum skid plates, which were moved from my previous Jeep to the current one, and have proven themselves for years.

In very low temperature, plastic becomes brittle. In hot weather it 'dries' faster and eventually looses its properties.
The plastic ones are typically shorter, which often makes them useless as a bridge.

A well designed Aluminum sand ladder easily supports a heavily loaded JKU and doesn't bend like plastic.
I've used and seen them used many times, including under heavier 4x4s than Jeeps.
They also provide better grip when wet, than plastic does.

Like other products, some are very good, some are "less than very good".
The best design for Aluminum sand ladder/bridge (in fact, any sand ladder/bridge), include down-sloped edges.

Here's a short comparison. Notice how the Aluminum with slopped edges does vs the rest --

 

Both seemed pretty good. Another concern of mine though is storage. Both the top contenders imo were the maxtrax and the angled sandladder, both take up space...

 

Yes, length is a drawback, unless using a roof rack.

 

It's a good idea to store whatever outside. I use two rubber straps to hold the Maxtrax on the roof rack. Accessible in a minute or less, no concern with how mucked up they are after use.

 

Mark, what camera and accessories are you using when you were standing outside your Jeep. That's quite an awesome looking set up.

 

I assume you mean in the Fall River Road video. Camera was a Canon 5D Mk III. I usually keep a Canon 24-105 L lens fitted to it since it has stabilization (other "normal" lens is a 24-70, but it isn't IS so I usually keep it hooked up to whatever body I'm using for still work).

Fitted to the flash shoe is a Zune H4N. The H4N has two built-in mics and two optional mics inputs for four channel recording. I just use the two built-ins. The H4N can record the audio to an SD card, but I connect it to the camera mic audio input with a special patch cable (a typical 3.5 mil audio cable will fit, but you need one with an L-pad built into it to provide proper impedance matching). Therefore I don't usually have to mess with audio synching during video editing.

Fitted to the back of the camera is a Zacuto Pro 2.5X eye loupe. For best, handheld video shooting, you definitely need to press the camera against your face to help stabilize it. So the eye loupe offers steadiness, and also makes it easy to see the LCD image.

 

Drove some of the Oklahoma Adventure Trail a couple days ago. We followed about an eighth of the route from near Stillwater to north of Pond Creek. Here are a few photos. The rest are in my public FB album here ...

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1&l=2fae647a22















We ended up with three bridges on the 02-05-14 published route being out, and one road so overgrown that we turned around (suspecting its bridge must also be out). However, detours around those areas were easily found and only 2-3 miles before we were back on the OAT. It was actually one area in particular where the trail follows a creek--we suspect that flooding in the spring may have caused the damage we saw. Should have a video up before too long!

The OAT route and current reports about it are available here ...

http://advrider.com/index.php?thread...-trail.836706/

 

I was able to get my road shower mounted and my trasharoo on in anticipation of heading out for expo east on Wednesday. Also opened up trailer and made sure it was all ready to roll. Ready to head out.