Nothing Special's 2023 SMORR Trip

[Gary Lewis]

That video says it is private and I can't see it - other than the thumbnail, which does look interesting but not too scary.

[Nothing Special]

Which video were you looking at, part 6 or part 7, Rocky Road?  Both show as "unlisted" when I look at them, which means that anyone should be able to watch them as long a they have a link to find them.  So maybe try again?

[Nothing Special]

Well, I'll give it a shot with another video.

Curly Wolf is a trail we did last year.   Looking at that video before this trip I decided that I wanted to take a crack at the right side of the hill that some of the others struggled up last year.  In the end I never even put tires on it this year, but a few others did, so here's the video of them.

Rocky Road (in the last video) gave the first flop of the trip, and it was pretty minor.  Jeff flopped on Curly Wolf.  No video of it because I was the only one watching him at the time and I was right up against his Jeep as it went over.  I was easily able to step back and not get caught, but I wasn't taking video.  There is a still picture after the fact.  Fortunately Brian had just driven to the top (most people were watching him rather than Jeff at the time) so he was in a good position to winch Jeff back onto his tires.  No real damage done.

And if anyone notices something different about Alan's Jeep in this video (or Fuzz's in the next), they decided to swap tires this day.  Alan tried Fuzz's 33x12.50 ATV tires and Fuzz used Alans ~30" skinny military non-directional tread tires (NDTs).  I can't say that I noticed either Jeep having different capabilities, but Fuzz was noticing the 1.5" reduction in ground clearance, and Alan commented on how different they felt as they slipped against the rocks.

[Gary Lewis]

Well, the Rocky Road video is now working.  Dunno what the problem was.

And I agree with you, it is rocky but not a road!  But I'm not sure I agree "to aim your diff at the rocks to move them out of the way."  

[Gary Lewis]

And I do see the tire difference on Alan's Jeep.  But I'm not sure "Now swap tires and do it again" would be very scientific.  No way to reproduce the line - although I'm sure that was said in jest.  But I'm not sure he'd make it with smaller tires.  

[Nothing Special]

I'm not saying that's good advice, just that if you want to follow Jeff that'll get you on the right line!


I don't know that he'd have made it on the smaller tires either.  But I've learned not to bet against either Alan or Jeff!

[Nothing Special]

Here is the last of the videos I'm not in.  Puppylicker is another trail the group did last year.  I didn't make a video of that trail, but I did give this link to a video Alan posted.  I hiked it to refresh my memory of why I wasn't going to do it.  And from 15:20 to 15:50 Dale shows and I explain why I didn't!

The third and worst flop of the weekend was on one of the earlier obstacles.  Kevin (who banged up a fender last year on this trail) launched up a ledge pretty aggressively.  No one got video of it, but after making it up the ledge he climbed the bank on the left side of the trail and kept his foot in it, making it about 30' up from the ledge before flopping over.  His engine developed a new "tick" after this, so he parked it at lunch, hoping to not do any more damage before he could look at it at home.  there is footage of the recovery.

Wade donated the thumbnail picture for this video with an enthusiastic attempt at the most difficult obstacle on the trail!  And actually I'd have been OK with tackling that one.  I may well have winched (and certainly wouldn't have exhibited the reckless abandon Wade showed!), but I'm pretty confident I could have made it up one way or another without damage.  But it was the last obstacle that I didn't see a safe line, maybe even with a winch.

And Alan had a little trouble with his borrowed tires here, getting a flat an losing the bead on his right rear.  Fortunately Fuzz was carrying a spare (a lot of these guys don't), so that wasn't a big problem.

[Nothing Special]

And this brings us to the end of the trip.  Almost everyone had to leave either on Saturday or at least early Sunday morning, so it was just Dale that stayed to run a few more trails with us.  Dale has a very capable vehicle and will try very difficult things if he has the right... encouragement (aka peer pressure?).  But on this morning he was in pretty much the same mindset we were, try to have some fun, but don't do anything too crazy at the end of a good trip.

So we decided to run Bronco Buster, a trail we had done in past years.  It's a long, winding trail that goes down into the valley and then climbs back out.  And at the bottom of the valley it intersects with several interesting trails.  So in the bottom we played around on the interesting stuff, but (to use the word from earlier) not with a lot of commitment!  So nothing too exciting in this video, but it was a nice way to wrap up the trip.

[Gary Lewis]

"And that's why I didn't want to do it."  Yes, for sure!  Those guys have what I'd call "trail buggys" and rashes are to be expected.  In fact, if it doesn't have some then maybe you aren't trying hard enough.

But that's not what I have in Big Blue.  So I don't want to attempt things that will get him those rashes.  But I do like watching to see what others can do and what kind of equipment it takes to do it.

However, it isn't just equipment.  I think I'd have backed off after going flying like Wade did.  Instead he went right back at it.  

[Gary Lewis]

I agree - nice way to end the trip.  Much more my speed, although still more than I could do.  

But I didn't see if or how you got up at 6:30.

And I agree that Dale's rig is quite capable.  It seems to crawl up things easily and has a lot of articulation.

Nice trip and documentation.   

[Nothing Special]

Yes, Wade can be entertaining!  Actually most of these guys are.  I've enjoyed watching their videos before I met them, and I've really enjoyed getting to be with them while they make the videos!  (Lesley has a shirt that says "make the story you want to tell")

As to how I got up that?  They say "no pics or it didn't happen!"  Well, there were no pics...  What I was trying there was the bypass to the waterfall Dale was attempting.  What I actually ended up doing was the bypass to the bypass.  It's pretty much a dirt road on the other side of that tree that's just to my left in those shots.  So that's how I ended up ahead of Dale when he eventually drove up the (first) bypass.

The thought was that we'd drop down into the trail just above the waterfall and continue up it.  That's what I did on this same trail last year.  But even that is a little bit... spicy.  So with no one really looking for much of an adventure we went back the way we came.  (and earlier in that video from last year Dale did make it up the waterfall, as did several others)

Thanks for watching!