PoteauThank2000TripReport

    Five vehicles left Austin, TX. Wednesday headed for Poteau, OK., this is the second trip for 3 of us and we are to meet another vehicle above Dallas for a total of six. The trail vehicles were a Full size Blazer (SuperPig), Jeep CJ 5 (RocknCj), Jeep CJ 7 (EconoJeep), Suzuki Samarai (Sammy), CJ 7 (AustinJeeper) and another yet unnamed CJ 7, all vehicles were locked front and rear with at least 35" tires, except the Sammy it had 33's and limited slip.
     We stayed at the Black Angus Motel in Poteau again and as always the owner was very friendly, I even purchased a set of bead locks from him that were for sale in the lobby, talk about a place to stay that is four wheeler friendly. The weather was the same as in June it rained on the way up and the forecast was for rain most of the weekend, does it ever not rain in Poteau.
     Thursday Thanksgiving it's just sprinkling and the ground is already very wet from the previous rains but we're going to go wheeling for just a while then have a great T'day dinner. Left the hotel at around 10:00 to go out for a couple of hours and run up grassy hill. This was the same hill that we ran last time in OK. and we remembered it had take us about 3-4 hours to get to the top and then we would just come back to town instead of going onward with the trails. We were able to find the trail head and everyone got out to air down and lock into four wheel drive, this is when we began to realize how muddy it really was.
     Grassy has four different hard areas with the final being by far being the worst when it's dry it is difficult when it's wet it's near impossible. The first area was made by three of our group and three had to use the winch to get up, this was the second time out for my winch and it got a work out. At the second level two were able to get up a third broke a u-joint before getting the winch and the winch was needed for the other three. It was at this time that we have been on this trail for nearly 4 hours and aren't quite halfway up, 2 of our crew decided to head back to start T'day dinner before it was to late and this left us with the SuperPig, RocknCj, Sammy and EconoJeep to finish.
     We met with 4 other wheelers here and talked awhile and decided to let them go by us, just like golf let the faster group through. They all had some built rigs, not much left with the Jeep logo hanging onto these vehicles unless CJ7 = F350. After talking with these guys awhile they decided that they would go up axle breaker and that would allow us to go up the easier grassy. Let's just say that we beat this other group back to the hotel, axle breaker got it's name for a reason.
     The section of trail betwee the second and third difficult areas are very scenic and made for a nice run even in the rain. The third section had some difficulties but we made it thourgh pretty un-eventful. The last and hardest section was downright scary good thing it was dark and cloudy to hide some of the trail. The EconoJeep hit this hill hard and made it but I'm still not sure how and/or if it could do it again. The hill got the better of our group by flattening one tire and breaking the outer axle of the SuperPig's Dana 60. We did get home but it was around 8:00 and way past dinner.
     Saturday it rained all day and we fixed vehicles to get ready for Sunday's run.
     Sunday and we're at it again, today we're going to go on Panel Wagon, no one has ever run this trail before but we got directions to it and off we go. It took awhile to find and we did go on one wrong trail but we finally made it. There is one very hard area on Panel Wagon and a couple of semi tough areas depending on your luck. This was a great trail until we got to the hard areas it did take some time to winch all the vehicles up through. The ruts were so deep on the hill that our rearends were dragging through and stopping the vehicles. Again we got lost toward the end of the trail and almost ran out of gas but finally made it back to the hotel after another 10 hours of wheeling.
     I would highly recommend wheeling in Poteau but be sure to be prepared if it rains you will need a winch and don't even think of going without full lockers and at least 35" tires.