Went for a drive with my buddy and his family loaded in my rig and after we had lunch around Gig harbor decided to head over to Tahuya State Forest, it's an orv/4x4 park just to take a peek and see what it's all about.
On the satellite map I had thought there was a forest road that ringed the harder sections of the park but there wasn't so I was only comfortable going about 100 yards in though quickly we found lots of people.
The trail in was mostly just gravel & slight mud but there were a couple decent sized mud puddles people could drive in. Hit a couple of embankments that had the X tilted far enough to make everyone giggle, few whoop-de-do's and fording enough of the puddles to get up to the door sills and throw some mud around.
The highlight of the park was watching some Jeeps & Toyota's trying to negotiate the insane rock climb and a couple of loose hill climbs that no one made since it was raining and slick. On the rock climb the first Jeep broke a u-joint & tie-rod, they fixed it on rocks and winched it up top. The toyota churned, bashed his quarter panels on as many rocks as he could hit and then got sideways on the hill because of too much skinny pedal.
As he bounced off the rock and got sideways you could hear a collective 'Uh Ooh' from the "experts w/ beverages" at the top of the run. Luckily he didn't go over and was able to back out.
There was a steep kind of rutted climb to the left of the rocks that I was thinking about trying and about the time I had convinced myself to try a slightly modified Explorer followed a Jeep up the trail and ended up breaking one of his leaf packs in the winding rut trying to get up. He backed down-barely-and as he was leaving there was a horrible squeak everytime he hit a bump and the body was rolling awkwardly. Killed my enthusiasm for trying it.
One guy asked when would he see the X go up and I said 'after 52 more payments; at least!'.
I'm glad we ended up being able to run by there when I had a car full of people that I was responsible for getting home as I'm sure had I been alone or been invited along with other 4x4's I would have gotten into trouble.
Most of the trails I saw were too narrow for the X...or at least too narrow for my liking. Even with sliders I think some of those trees are quarter panel/fender eaters.
Here's some pics: |