Is the terrain suitable to bring a light trailer along? Will I be able to find you guys at night?

 

Hi Rugbyduck,

From what I understand the campground is accessible w/ trailer, but will confirm with 1BADJK tomorrow when I speak with him. We'll make sure you'll be able to find us. If need be, I or we will drive out to lead you in.

 

Hey All;
My wife and I spent the whole day searching for this GeoStash..

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/northwest-50/4-wheel-drives-geocache-august-oregon-9828/

No luck .. Got in some good wheeling and great pictures and thats it..
We couldn't find the stash.. Someone must have beat us.. Oh well.. It was fun..

I will get some maps and general info up for the trip either later tonight or tomorrow for the Fort Rock trip...

 

Any of you guys into Geocaching??

 

Its fun... Its better when you can find what your looking for..

 

Actually, that's one of the many reasons I bought my JK. I've never done it, but have read a little. You guys will have to educate me. Sounds like alot of fun.

 

Oh yeah, here's what I did yesterday, before the... ahem... damage. Went wheeling in the TSF. Suffice it to say, Trail 18 didn't do my JK any favors. Still it was a good time and nothing unfixable/irreplaceable was hurt.

Doesn't look too tricky, but a rock kicked me sideways and I missed the tree by inches. Note the folded in mirrors. I was told that there is usually at least a foot of water at the bottom to make it more challenging.

 

Sweet pic! No, it doesn't look too bad. Good thing you don't have a lift! What kind of other rigs were you with?

 

No lift yet, but there's plenty of vertical room when I do... Horizontal space, although it appears otherwise, is limited. Would have helped to have much bigger/better/mud tires though. Like the idea of having a bit more rubber as a buffer. That would have saved me a lot of grief!

This was the "easy" part of the trail.

The other rigs were 3 TJ's with 2-4" lifts and 33's. One of the trails, (#18 I believe) was where I suffered most of the damage. There's a "filter" there (read: really big, friggin' rocks as tall as the windows on my doors), 'bout 76" wide and JK's are almost 74" wide stock. Suffice it to say, it was a tight squeeze. Made it through the 1st few with no trouble, but wouldn't you know it... the last couple were what hung me up.

Had to make a choice: Try to back up or make it past the last little bit... The latter seemed better. I doubt I would have done as well if I had backed out of it.

Well, I learned a thing or two... They put those rocks there for a reason. The trail is really tight for a JK. Had to back up in a couple of corners so I could make them. The TJ's made them with no problem. Something to be said about being narrower... and they seem to have a tighter turning radius... Not sure about that 'tho.

All in all, it was a great time. Everything that got damaged can be repaired easily and I have to say that I'm surprised at some of the places my JK, with very stock street tires went. Will tell more of the story at Ft. Rock, but suffice it to say that the TJ guys I went with were also pretty impressed. And I have to say I have much more respect for Jeeps than ever before.

 

Here's a good map of the china hat area.. With good instruction of how to get there from Bend.. .. Except when the road forks you take a Left on the red rock road and about 4 miles down on the right there is a new camp ground with out houses and nice sites with fire pits, etc... If your pulling a trailer is all paved except the last 3-4 miles.. Which is a Red Rock Gravel Rd.. It does get a little washboarded.. But not bad..

http://www.oggslife.com/pics/chinahat.pdf

From there we can go up Pine Mountain to the Observatory.. We can got down to The Ice Caves... and don't forget the Ground Hog Play area.. Home of future Rock Crawl Championship...