Poteaujunetripreport

    Four vehicles left Austin, TX. headed for Poteau, OK., none of us had ever been there before but we heard the wheeling was great while at Claytom a few months before. The trail vehicles were a Toyota Pickup, Full size Blazer, Jeep CJ 5 and a Jeep CJ 7, all vehicles were locked front and rear with at least 35" tires.
     We stayed at the Black Angus Motel in Poteau, the owner is very 4X4 friendly and there is lots of parking for trailers. While making reservations at the motel we received the name of Tim Simms, a local four wheeler with an awsome Jeep, who was nice enough to show us the entrance to the trails on Saturday and give directions for our adventure, you'll here more of this person on the next trip to Poteau he was very helpful again.
     It was decided that we would go up grassy because it was going to rain and axle breaker would be impossible without winches, we only had one in the group, on the Blazer so he was our trail leader. The terrain is large rocks and clay like soil on rugged hills that also have ledges because of the large rocks that haven't came loose yet, once it started to rain the clay was very slick and gooey.      Grassy was a great run a couple of pull straps were used once it started to get a little wet but all in all everthing was un-eventful. It took us approx. 3 hours to complete this hill it is about a mile long. It started raining harder after we crested the top of the hill and we started into the woods back down the hill and this is what caused our first mishap. The Toyota decided on a level piece of ground with an embankment to the left and a ditch to the right, that he was going to go around a mud puddle in the middle to keep from getting the truck dirty. Next thing we know the truck was a little dirtier than it would of been if he would of went through it, of course it rolled into the mud puddle. After a strap was attached, the truck was pulled back on to it's wheels and we went on up the trail.
     We made one wrong turn and came upon a tree that crossed the trail and had to double back, this is where we met a couple of ATV's that gave us directions to keep on the trail. One way or another we missed another turn and started going down a deep rocky ravine which was about 1/2 of a mile long. At the bottom was a dead end there was a 25 foot deep dropoff and we had 4 vehicles in a line headed the wrong way. After several tries getting back up the hill it was determined that we were going to have to winch out because it was now very slippery from the rain in the rocks. It took about an hour trying to manuever the vehicles getting the Blazer in front because as you remember it had the winch, we know have spent about 8 hours in the woods the last 4 hours on this hill and where still at the bottom in the rain. It took another hour to get out of this mess and back out the trail the same way we came in.
     That night while at the hotel Ronny, one of Tim's body men at the shop, stopped by and told us that him and a friend were going wheeling on Sunday and would lead our group if we wanted. I didn't go because of slicing one of my boggers the night before and not having a spare but the rest of the group went out and had a blast in the rain. It rained on them for 4 hours on Sunday before they decided to give it up and start back to Austin.
     Before we even left Poteau it was decided that we would come back and Thanksgiving would be the best time so that we could get more time on the trails, you can read about this later.