Terlingua, Texas March 23-25

Longhorn Ranch - Big Bend Country

I heard about this event several months before, thought it would be a good chance to get out of town, do some good wheeling, see some incredible country and meet some new people. A friend of mine, Tim Sage, also expressed interest to attend. So we decided to make a weekend of it and started getting prepared.

3/22 Thursday

I took the day off but Kelly could only take a half day off, so we ended up departing Austin around 2pm. Tim was flat towing his Wrangler with his Grand Cherokee, and left around noon. We figured we would eventually meet up on the road, since he would be going a bit slower then us. Kel and I got out of town without incident, met up with another Austin local Jeeper about half way there, and passed the last 2 hour leg of the trip by chatting on the CB. We arrived in Fort Stockton around 8pm, Tim and his girlfriend, Kristen, were already settled into the hotel, we went to Subway for some dinner, talked a bit, and went to sleep early knowing we had a 2 hour trip left to Terlingua in the morning.

3/23 Friday

Woke up at 5am, bright-eyed, and ready to hit some trails. The drive south to Terlingua was nice, we got to witness a beautiful desert sunrise, and with no traffic on the single-lane road, it made the drive even more enjoyable. I had been having problems with my transfer case and had took it into the shop earlier that week to have it checked out, the guy there said "well.....I think I fixed it", so not feeling very confident that the job was done, I was going to sign up for a 2 rated trail. But after being coaxed by Tim and one of the trail leaders, I ended up signing up for a 3-4 rated trail, hoping my t-case was in order. The event was to start at 8am, and we knew we would be cutting it close, luckily we arrived just in time, was able to sign up for the trails we wanted and before we knew it, we were aired down and getting dirty. 15 mins into the run, big problems. Tim was behind me, we were situated in the middle of our 8 truck group, all jeeps, except for me. Things were going good, all of a sudden, I hear the tailgunner, Steve, call over the CB, "the YJ back here has a problem", knowing Tim was the only YJ behind me, I knew right away it was him. Turns out he blew the front drive shaft, so it looked like he would have to go the rest of the day in 2wd, until we got back to camp and work on a fix. So we continued forward, Geoff, our trail leader, recommended Tim go in front of me, with another TJ in front of him with a winch, just in case. No more then 10 mins later, we hit a sandy area with a rock shelf to crawl up. I stop to watch Tim make it safely up in front of me, all of a sudden, "SNAP", rear drive shaft gone. They decide to leave Tim's truck there to be picked up later that afternoon, so we unloaded his rig and Tim and Kristen hopped in with us. Unfortunately for us, that wasn't the end of the carnage, as I was making my way up a rocky 2' shelf, my front passenger tire comes down hard on a rock, next sound I hear is "ssssssssssssssssssssssssss", nope not a snake, but my tire emptying it's contents. We put a spare on and were on our way once again. This was not a good day for BFG's, our tailgunner ends up slashing a tire also, all in all, I heard about 6 BFG tires falling to the rock gods. We make it back to camp around 1 pm, Kelly and I decided we should look for another tire, so we go check into the hotel to make some calls. Tim and Kristen go along on the afternoon run, also swinging by there rig to strap it back to safety. Tim and Kristen end up getting back to the hotel later that evening , bringing back with them some horror stories on the trails that others relayed to them.

3/24 Saturday

We all wake up early and decide it would be best to leave my rig at the hotel. Since we could not find another spare tire we didn't want to risk another tire, so we left it there and hop in Tim's tow rig, the Grand Cherokee, and head to the camp to take an easy run. End up taking a wonderful tour of Big Bend park, even getting a chance to throw some rocks over the Rio Grande into Mexico. After our 200 mile trail ride through Big Bend we head back to the hotel to rest and play on a rock shaped RTI ramp, before heading back to camp for the BBQ, raffle and live music.

3/25 Sunday

We all woke about around 9am, pretty worn out from this weekends events. So we decided to head back home. The ride home was uneventful and we arrived home around 10pm. This trip was definitely well worth it, some of the best terrain I have seen. We said good-bye to our friends, Tim and Kristen. And I fall asleep thinking about the MOAB trip coming up.

 

See Pictures from the event