So me and the 6-month old JK finally made our maiden voyage to Rausch Creek offroad park in Tremont, PA. It never hit me that it is only a 30 mile trek from home, but that was a pleasant surprise since I plan on going back! In fact, this was my first “real” offroad experience ever and I thoroughly enjoyed it and can see addiction. I went with my brother and a friend who were also first timers at Rausch.

My JK is pretty much “stock” although I’ve outfitted by X model with Rubicon mud terrains, Rubicon sliders, TF quick discos, some extra skids (including evap etc) and a 1” leveling lift. I have a 2.5” lift in the basement and plan to go to 34s or 35s with some better gears someday in the next year. My brother has offroaded some before (4” lift and 31s on his YJ, but fully outfitted with armor, winch, etc. so he was set despite smallest tire size). My other buddy Nate had never had his TJ Rubicon offroad either since purchasing it maybe a year ago. He is stock other than some 32” mud terrains (no lift).

As for Rausch we hit mostly green trails (most of them actually in our 8 hours) with a blue or two thrown in by accident - I led most of the morning (figuring I'd be the first to turn my new jeep back if things got hairy) and then the other guys took over for the afternoon. Despite the various models and setups we had (more heavily modded YJ, stockish TJ Rubi, and stockish/Rubiish [no lockers but wouldnt have needed em] JK) we ran well together... Some of the trails were a cakewalk for all of us, but some of the greens I thought posed an ample challenge for our lesser modded rigs as well. I recall the 101 trail being a bit rocky and challenging but maybe that’s b/c it was like the 2nd trail we hit (I was thinking Offroad 101 would be simple – LOL). We started down the J-trail and that was tricky at top so we called that one off until next time also. Otherwise we hit all the greens and trail 1 and 2 which were labeled blue I believe and were a little challenging (bottomed more stuff out on those than any other).

Noone got stuck and needed rescued and noone broke anything serious (just some skid plate scratches and dings, etc.) although my brother had his clutch smoking on 101 trail. I think the rigs performed pretty well (and the drivers) for what they were and it was a blast!

Onto the pics!

1-5:
Most of these were on trails B, C, E – easy green trails with little mud holes and some smallish rocks:

 

6-10:

Same trails:





Poser shot on the 101 trail – I had to sneak around that rock on the left between it and a tree with about < 1 ft clearance – it was a little nerveracking…

 

11-15:



Waterhole on D was pretty fun the first couple times through…


Then my brother drove all the water out plowing through it… lol.


This one was pretty deep too…


Getting ready to head up powerline:

 

All going up the powerline – rocky but pretty easy other than one little tricky spot:







Near the top:


Final shot of the day right above the comp course overlooking the valley – a little dirty but all in one piece:

 

Its' ALWAYS a fun day at Rausch. Next time you want to go, PM me. I'm under an hour from there. Any reason...

 

awesome pics looks like a fun day at rausch i wish i was only 30 miles away it takes me about 3 and a half hours to get there

 

el campede - yeah it was definitely a fun time. Pretty easy to navigate ourselves even though some sign-age was missing...

and as noted other than a couple scratches on my gastank skid I made it out unscathed despite some tricky spots. Definitely not ready for challening blue or blacks yet but maybe after some modss mentioned... <evil grin>

Still was very impressed at where a 'stock' JK can get you... heck even my friend in the TJ rubi, who had the least clearance of any of us and said he was in 2wd almost the entire time made it around some places 95% of vehicles can't.... I don't think he ever had to use the lockers on the green/blues...

EDIT: definitely will PM you next time... its nice being < 1 hour away

 

x2 on the long drive.

Next time make sure you hit the J (J, J1) trails, they are a lot of fun and are easy.

thanks for the pics.

 

Yeah - J and J1 looked like a lot of fun... the offcamber section right near the top of J1 looked pretty serious and had me and the stock TJ a little iffy though.

I walked down the trail a good ways though and looked like it got much easier... but we just passed for this time and hit pretty much every other green trail you didn't need J to do...

looking forward to trying it next time and the 14 and 11 which you can only get to via J...

 

looks like a great time, glad u got to enjoy ur jeep. wish i was less than 30 mins away! i'm 7.5 hrs out