Trip Report:
Left for York PA to stay with some family on Friday evening. It would normally be about a 2 hour drive but with the traffic on the beltway and the rain it pushed it to closer to 3. No matter, we arrived in without incident. The first thing I noticed is when it is loaded down the suspension no longer feels "squishy", and bumps on the highway don't upset it near as much as they used to, most notably there is no more bottoming out when going over dips etc. Saturday morning I woke up around 6, had breakfast and hit the road solo while my wife and kids enjoyed seeing her aunt and uncle in PA. I arrived at Rausch Creek Off Road Park around 8:15am, and promptly found the group to meet up with, and we all started prepping the rigs to convert from street to trail. Given that my manual hubs STILL haven't arrived(thanks Race-Mart for telling me they weren't in stock when I ordered...), and I haven't bought my rear disconnects yet, the only item prep I had to do was to air down. I decided to take the Grabber AT-2's down to about 17psi for this run.
After what seemed like an eternity of ******** chat and prep(in reality was probably 45 minutes), we hit the trails. Boy, was it slick out there. There was approximately 1ft of snow that was being melted and re-frozen by the rain that was falling. In our lineup there were 2 JKU's, an XJ, an xterra Pro 4x(sweet rig...), what once was a TJ but now more resembled a buggy, a chevy K-5, and a couple other wranglers as well. I was originally worried about how my lowly pathfinder would hang, but those concerns were quickly washed away. It seems that tire choice in these conditions was fairing far more important than lockers, ground clearance, or gearing, as my pathfinder was having no issues in sections that some of the more modified rigs were either getting stuck in, or almost getting stuck in. In fact, at one point we had 4 out of 9 vehicles stuck in the snow, and shockingly I was not one of them!(yet). I should also mention that aside from one other driver I probably had the least experience driving off road out of the bunch.
After this a group of the more modified vehicles took off to run a rocky black trail, and us lame fellos decided to trek on the green until the trail met back up. Well, along the green trail there was a section called the "quarry" that looked like an easy downhill slope leading to a very mild looking uphill rock section that would bring you back up to the main trail. Needless to say, this was too tempting to resist. Going down was uneventful, but what I didn't see(or adequately check out), was that the rock hill was totally covered in ice. Needless to say, that didn't work, so back up the snow slope I *tried* to go. After rocking back and forth I had adequately built up ice blocks on each side of all four tires, so out came the sledge hammer. Once I sledged all the ice apart, I was able to get moving again. Lots of skinny pedal combined with 4 low and the shifter in 1 got me back up the hill, just as one of the Jeeps was starting to descend out of pity to winch me back to the group. It should be mentioned that the Xterra followed me down but with the locker and 33" duratracs did not have any of the issues I did trying to get back up...
So, once we were all back into one main group again we trekked on uneventfully up until the next blue-black section, and myself, the buggy like TJ, K5, xterra, and one of the modified wranglers decided we were going to try to tackle it. Within 50 feet of the trail head the modified Wrangler was stuck, and we also realized that there was about 2ft of very loose snow on this trail hiding some very large rocks and boulders. The xterra, K5, and I all decided to bail at this point. Unfortunately for me and the Xterra, it involved making a very precarious 3 point turn, at which point I realized that whatever traction I had to go forward down the hill was non existent when I tried to back up. I left the hill attached to the TJ buggy, and the xterra was able to turn itself around with lots of very careful spotting.
The last trek of the day involved a very fun blue section that everyone was impressed I was able to get up without being winched, as it gave the lifted K5, one of the 2 door wranglers, and a stock JKU quite a bit of difficulty to get up. In fact, the stock JKU had to be winched up ultimately, and unfortunately on the way down jumped out in front of a tree and dented his rear fender(the sad part is this is a brand new 2015 still wearing temp tags...).
Overall I am absolutely ecstatic with the way the pathfinder held up, and so was everyone else I was with. On of the jeep guys asked if I had a butler in the back after looking at my leather interior, wood grain and seat heaters
Unfortunately due to the rain and freezing cold conditions I did not get many pictures(and quite honestly the ones I have are terrible), but I've attached what i've got none the less.
Lessons for next time:
Seat cover for the drivers seat
Spare sox and shoes(ended up with soaking wet socks and shoes)
Duck boots
Bring Towels
Left for York PA to stay with some family on Friday evening. It would normally be about a 2 hour drive but with the traffic on the beltway and the rain it pushed it to closer to 3. No matter, we arrived in without incident. The first thing I noticed is when it is loaded down the suspension no longer feels "squishy", and bumps on the highway don't upset it near as much as they used to, most notably there is no more bottoming out when going over dips etc. Saturday morning I woke up around 6, had breakfast and hit the road solo while my wife and kids enjoyed seeing her aunt and uncle in PA. I arrived at Rausch Creek Off Road Park around 8:15am, and promptly found the group to meet up with, and we all started prepping the rigs to convert from street to trail. Given that my manual hubs STILL haven't arrived(thanks Race-Mart for telling me they weren't in stock when I ordered...), and I haven't bought my rear disconnects yet, the only item prep I had to do was to air down. I decided to take the Grabber AT-2's down to about 17psi for this run.
After what seemed like an eternity of ******** chat and prep(in reality was probably 45 minutes), we hit the trails. Boy, was it slick out there. There was approximately 1ft of snow that was being melted and re-frozen by the rain that was falling. In our lineup there were 2 JKU's, an XJ, an xterra Pro 4x(sweet rig...), what once was a TJ but now more resembled a buggy, a chevy K-5, and a couple other wranglers as well. I was originally worried about how my lowly pathfinder would hang, but those concerns were quickly washed away. It seems that tire choice in these conditions was fairing far more important than lockers, ground clearance, or gearing, as my pathfinder was having no issues in sections that some of the more modified rigs were either getting stuck in, or almost getting stuck in. In fact, at one point we had 4 out of 9 vehicles stuck in the snow, and shockingly I was not one of them!(yet). I should also mention that aside from one other driver I probably had the least experience driving off road out of the bunch.
After this a group of the more modified vehicles took off to run a rocky black trail, and us lame fellos decided to trek on the green until the trail met back up. Well, along the green trail there was a section called the "quarry" that looked like an easy downhill slope leading to a very mild looking uphill rock section that would bring you back up to the main trail. Needless to say, this was too tempting to resist. Going down was uneventful, but what I didn't see(or adequately check out), was that the rock hill was totally covered in ice. Needless to say, that didn't work, so back up the snow slope I *tried* to go. After rocking back and forth I had adequately built up ice blocks on each side of all four tires, so out came the sledge hammer. Once I sledged all the ice apart, I was able to get moving again. Lots of skinny pedal combined with 4 low and the shifter in 1 got me back up the hill, just as one of the Jeeps was starting to descend out of pity to winch me back to the group. It should be mentioned that the Xterra followed me down but with the locker and 33" duratracs did not have any of the issues I did trying to get back up...
So, once we were all back into one main group again we trekked on uneventfully up until the next blue-black section, and myself, the buggy like TJ, K5, xterra, and one of the modified wranglers decided we were going to try to tackle it. Within 50 feet of the trail head the modified Wrangler was stuck, and we also realized that there was about 2ft of very loose snow on this trail hiding some very large rocks and boulders. The xterra, K5, and I all decided to bail at this point. Unfortunately for me and the Xterra, it involved making a very precarious 3 point turn, at which point I realized that whatever traction I had to go forward down the hill was non existent when I tried to back up. I left the hill attached to the TJ buggy, and the xterra was able to turn itself around with lots of very careful spotting.
The last trek of the day involved a very fun blue section that everyone was impressed I was able to get up without being winched, as it gave the lifted K5, one of the 2 door wranglers, and a stock JKU quite a bit of difficulty to get up. In fact, the stock JKU had to be winched up ultimately, and unfortunately on the way down jumped out in front of a tree and dented his rear fender(the sad part is this is a brand new 2015 still wearing temp tags...).
Overall I am absolutely ecstatic with the way the pathfinder held up, and so was everyone else I was with. On of the jeep guys asked if I had a butler in the back after looking at my leather interior, wood grain and seat heaters
Unfortunately due to the rain and freezing cold conditions I did not get many pictures(and quite honestly the ones I have are terrible), but I've attached what i've got none the less. Lessons for next time:
Seat cover for the drivers seat
Spare sox and shoes(ended up with soaking wet socks and shoes)
Duck boots
Bring Towels
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