So I went to Iron Range OHV park in Gilbert MN this weekend! What a cool bunch of Jeepers! They were having an event called "Crawl 4 the Cure". They have the better part of a whole campground rented out and most people got to the campground on Friday. We didn't get there till early evening on friday, so we didn't get out on the trails on friday but I did get my rig regestered and teched by the Ranger at the park. All the tech inspection consisted of was a sound check and if you have GOOD fire extinguishers. Friday night they had a BIG BBQ on quite possibly the biggest Webber style charcoal grill I have ever seen! had to be about 5 feet in diameter. Just before we got to the BBQ/Party tent, one of the guys in the MN Jeep club got married!
It was a realy cool party atmosphere, and EVERYONE was great! I really felt like I was at home there. Great group of people!!! We all hung out around a campfire talking jeep till late.
EARLY on Saturday morning we got up, discoed, aired down and headed out to the Park. There was a dirt road that went straight from the Campground to the park entrance. Once inside we all got into our groups and headed out to the trails. My Host for the weekend was Rick Manis from ORO. I can't thank him enough for all that he did for me! The guy even let me stay at his house last night! He introduced me to damn near everyone at the event ant there was around 100 to 125 jeeps there!
The Park is an old iron mine, so the dirt is rust colored and gets EVERYWHERE!!!! Most of the rocks are very brittle shale that at times sounds like your driving over broken glass. The other rocks are very similar to what is at Rausch Creek in PA. The trails vary from roads you could drive a civic on, to stuff that guys in coilover hydrosteer buggies with 49s couldn't get through.
My group stayed on mostly medium blacks. Really cool trail system.
Here are the pics of Saturday's ride:
Saturday night was the BIG party night! They had Dinner donated by Famous Dave's BBQ, If you've never had this before, you need to try it! I know they are in NJ there is one in Hillsborough. There was an awards ceremony for Some of the big contributors and for the Rigs. Best, ugliest, engineering, etc. Than the Raffle. They had a 20 foot deck trailer completly covered with donated raffle prizes! The raffle took a solid 2 hrs! The also had a raffle to win a really nice custom built YJ.
Early sunday morning it started to rain. And it didn't stop till 3 or 4 in the afternoon. So the trails were a MESS!!!! Ton of fun!
Here's Sunday's pics:
There is a BUNCH more pics on my photobucket
HERE. I have a bunch of good video's of the last obstical on a trail called High Voltage. It is a sieries of 18-20" diameter logs layed across the trail on a slope and they are backfilled with dirt looks a lot like a staircase and each step is specifically spaced to challenge the common wheelbases. On saturday, I saw three people break HARD. Sunday it was covered in mud and even more difficult! I'm working on uploading them so if they arn't there yet try back another time.
Right now I'm in Sioux Falls SD on my way to Rapid City. Gonna see if I can wheel there some, but not sure yet. From there I'm Going to meet up with the whole ORO crew at the Run 4 Fun in CO. More info on that later!
I'm making my way Pretty nicely. I am near St. Paul MN today, I stopped at Off Road Only today to see waht it is that they do. Really cool group of guys, I was amazed at how much actual labor goes into making their parts! There is ZERO autimation and ZERO CNC operations! All of their stuff is made inhouse on Manual lathes, mills and saws! There are only a few small things that they outsource. They invited me to go Wheeling with them tomorrow through Sunday! So I will have some more interesting pics after that.
