Trip report Helen
Finally! After months of problems with the Range Rover I finally got to reap the benefits of such a luxurious off-roader! On that note the Range Rover really did do a great job this weekend, I was slightly nervous putting up to this big of a task untested in the wild yet. It seems to be running slightly lethargic and it’s making a little bit of noise so I ordered spark plugs which will get swapped this weekend. I think one of the plugs fowled when the injector was stuck open. No check engine lights or warnings though. Only other fault I’m running with currently is an intermittent camera fault (big whoop) and a tire pressure sensor fault which is due to the defender wheels running a different tpms sensor than the l322 did.
Anyways, let’s get on with the details of the trip.
Friday was a late start. The wife got home late from work and my buddy that was hitching a ride ended up being even later. Luckily Adam ended up heading to Helen Thursday night and secured us a camp sight. We headed out of Greenville and met up with Tucker, who’s got a D2, over in Clemson. A quick gas up, some last minute groceries, and some Chick-fil-A then we were on the road. We stopped just before the forest road, aired down and made our way into the forest. It was about 1030 before we even hit gravel. Within the first 1/4 mile we rolled past a gnarly D110 sitting along the river with a guy camping out so we stopped and made some quick conversation then kept heading towards camp. We ended up seeing a few owls on the way to camp which was also pretty cool.
We finally rolled into camp about 11ish. A quick pop of the tent and a beer and we were sitting by the fire roasting hot dogs talking rovers. The temperature this trip was absolutely something to brag about. I have to say it was the most comfortable I have ever slept due to the temperature.
Saturday everyone got up pretty early, we made a solid breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and packages with coffee before packing up camp and hitting the road. We made our way to
Trey Mtn after only 1 wrong turn.
Trey mtn was pretty dry compared to the last time I was out there. We ended up running a few of the washed out rocky sections a couple times. The very rocky section coming down to one of the forks that takes you back to Helen we got held up by a Jeep Jl unlimited trying to make its way down the rocky grade, all 3 rovers walked down it like it was just a speed bump lol. It’s incredible how capable these vehicles are and how nonchalantly they do it. After that section we came up to an area that’s deeply rutted and normally underwater and we saw a baby black bear which was pretty neat.. It was bone dry today so we decided to flex it out and play around in this area which was pretty fun and also a great opportunity to see how much clearance the Range Rover had. After some flexing and messing around we headed down the mountain back to Helen for an ice cream break. We split up and the wife and I as well as Tucker in the D2 headed back into the woods to find camp, Adam took his kids out tubing and planned to regroup at camp.
We rolled up into a different camp spot that I had actually stayed at before in the disco. We set up camp and just chilled out until Adam rolled in.
Dinner was chicken Stirfry with noodles on the flat top which was pretty good, not my proudest camping meal. This evening is the Strawberry moon so the group decided to hike up the closed forest road next to camp (which I’ve hiked before) up to the top of the mountain we were camped on. The top is extremely interesting, it goes from a heavily wooded area to a large green clearing of wild flowers and green onions. From there we had a pretty good 360 view of the surrounding mountains to watch the sunset and the moon rise. The strawberry moon was pretty dang and we couldn’t have picked a better way to catch it. As the sun set and the moon came out the fireflies came out in full force. They were everywhere in the field. It was quite the site to see! We made out decent in the dark back down to camp where we finished off the night with a poor man’s banana foster and some freeze dried crème brûlée, which was absolutely delicious, and some s’mores. Saturday was top notch!
Sunday the rain rolled in around 5am and sprinkled up until about 730 so no one was in any rush to hop out of bed. Eventually we all got up intermittently and started packing up camp. Once camp was packed up we made another big breakfast and headed off. Tucker left early before breakfast, Adam and I rolled out together which we planned to stop and air up in Helen then run by a favorite coffee shop of mine outside of Helen called sweet water coffee house. Their honey mocha is absolutely amazing.
I usually like to wind down a camp trip with some coffee or something, gives you a chance to come back to reality a little but also getting the chance to sit down with the team allows the group to discuss the good and the bad from the trip, gear needs vs wants, personal feeling on the overall direction of the trip, and to kick start the planning process of our next trip. Overall this was an awesome trip and I’m looking forward to doing more with the Range Rover!
You can also check out the video from our trip with the link below
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