Nothing Special's 2023 SMORR Trip

[Nothing Special]

Early this month I had the opportunity to go down to southern Missouri for the third time to meet up with people with even older 'wheeling rigs than Pluto, my '71 Bronco.  Here's a link to the trip last year, and now that I have most of the video done I'm finally starting a thread on this year's trip.  Lesley joined me again this year, and again we spent parts of three days at SMORR (Southern Missouri Off-Road Ranch), but this year we went down a day earlier to meet a smaller group at Rush Springs Ranch, another privately owned off-road park.

We got to Rush Springs Ranch around noon, and headed out on the trails for the afternoon.  We started off meandering around on the access roads and in a "playground" before hitting our first trail, Hangover Hollow.  This was a short trail with a dry waterfall as the main obstacle.  This ended up being the place Pluto got his first significant body damage (I don't count the rockers I replaced or the rear quarters as significant).  At 4:30 you can see a smooth fender, at 4:45 you see Pluto rock to the right, and at 4:53 you can see it's not so smooth  (you get a good view of the dent at 5:30).  It was still a fun trail.  And I haven't decided what to do about the dent yet.

[Gary Lewis]

Yep, I see when it happened.  But I am amazed at what you can go through or over.  I guess dents are badges in that case?  They are going to happen when you push it that much.  

[Nothing Special]

Badges, yes.  But of honor or shame?  I guess that's in the eye of the beholder!

By the way, I forgot to mention that I'm using a new video editor now.  I was using Adobe Premier Elements, now I'm using Movavi Video Editor.  Both are relatively low-end applications (and priced accordingly, which is why I use them!).  I couldn't get the audio and video to sync up on one clip in Adobe, even though it was fine in the original file.  After a little internet searching on how to fix that, what seemed like the best option was to not use Adobe.  I've been using Adobe for over 10 years, and now Movavi for about a week.  I'm liking Movavi quite a bit better.  It seems easier to use, it processes the clips faster and it keeps the audio and video in sync.

And I think it's giving higher quality video as well.  It's not perfect, but I'm glad I switched to it!

[Nothing Special]

Our second trail on Thursday was called Boulderdash.  After hiking up it just a little ways I decided to opt out.  "Waterfalls" are bad enough obstacles when you like your sheetmetal.  "Can openers" are out of bounds for Pluto!  And Boulderdash had a couple.  Alan and Kevin decided to give it a go, but after seeing Alan fight his way up Kevin decided to back out, literally.

Along with the trail Alan was fighting his battery which wouldn't hold a charge.  That was giving him issues with his starter obviously, but also his electric front locker, the air compressor for his rear locker and his winch.  We even needed to pull the battery from Kevin's Jeep and carry it up to jump Alan once!

After getting up the trail Alan drove down the bypass to rejoin the rest of us.  Turns out the bypass was very washed out and pretty challenging, especially after his engine stalled and he couldn't get it restarted!  After coasting into a pretty precarious position (11:07 n the video) we decided we had to hook to the back of his Jeep and pull it uphill.  Not being able to get behind him, I pulled up as far as I could and ran my winch line to a snatch block and back to his Jeep.  This ended up being a good time to have a wire rope rather than synthetic, as the tree we had to hook to was over a hill, so the rope was cutting into the gravel trail.  Not too bad with wire, but pretty hard on synthetic!

I'm not actually publishing this video as I'm not really in it, but I did load it into YouTube so I can still share it.  But you won't see it if you go to my channel.

[Gary Lewis]

I think they can be either badges of honor or of shame.  Big Blue sports one on his tailgate that is a shame since I backed into a tree just turning around on a dirt road.  But Pluto's ding was gained while trying a very difficult section of trail.  Big difference.

As for Boulderdash, we can't see it as we get Video unavailable, as shown below.

But on the synthetic vs wire, I carry a cover to put on the cable if it encounters something like that.  And I've been known to use my floor mats as well.

[Nothing Special]

Try the video now.  I had it as "private", thinking I could share it, but apparently I have to list your e-mail and you have to go in through your Google account for that to work.  Now I have it as "unlisted".  It seems like that should make it viewable if you have the link, but still not show up on my channel.

As to protecting the winch rope, it was in the gravel for about 15' each way, so that would be a lot of floor mats!

[Gary Lewis]

Yep, that worked.  Man, that had me cringing the whole way!  But the bit about coming down was especially bad.  

But I see what you mean about the cable and gravel/rocks.  Yuk!

[Nothing Special]

Our final trail on Thursday was called Slippery When Wet.  And I'm told it's always wet.  The main obstacle is a chute that looks like it should be easy to just drive up the middle.  But it isn't.  Alan (who's been on this trail many times) said the "right" line is to put your left tires in the center and run the right high up the side.  But not so high that you flop onto your left side.  Actually it's not as bad as than makes it sound.  But it wasn't a "gimme" either.

[Gary Lewis]

I didn't cringe quite as much on this one, but a bit early on when the Pluto script looked like it was endangered.  And, at 2:00 your exhaust looked quite rich when you re-started.

But other than that, I was amazed at how y'all could go up that trail!  

Oh yes, I forgot to say I  caught that "I'll keep the camera rolling in case you do" in the previous video.

And, I like the sections that show up in the progress bar with this editor.  I can go back to specific places easily.  

[Nothing Special]

The "chapters" is a YouTube thing.  I've had that in videos before.  At the end of the description you put times for the breaks and headings for the chapters.  I like that it helps people skip what they don't want to see, or go back to what they do.

Pluto is carbed, and that definitely shows up in restarts at times!  But he really does work well overall, so "improving" him with fuel injection isn't even on the wish list.

[Nothing Special]

Well that wrapped up our time at Rush Springs.  We camped there that night, and on Friday morning drove to SMORR.  After setting up camp and eating lunch we headed out on their trails for the afternoon.

This first video is another that I'm not putting on my channel.  There was a "little" climb off to the side of the road we were taking to our first trail.  Jeff and Dale decided to "put some tires on it."  Neither expected to make the climb, they just wanted to see what they could do.  The rest of us just watched!

[Gary Lewis]

Yikes!  That looked precarious!  But they got farther than I would have guessed they'd get.  Those guys and rigs are good, but I think I'd rather be a bit more cautious.

[Nothing Special]

I think there were 7 vehicles in the group at this point.  5 of us agreed with you!

[Gary Lewis]

Having built it I don't want to tear it up.  And, I'm not the most "out there" person.  I like being reasonably safe and it takes others to coax me into doing risky things.  

[Nothing Special]

Yeah, that was the problem!  But even with the peer pressure I still have some self-control!


After that short diversion we got to what turned out to be the main trail of the trip.  Double Whammy had a lot of obstacles, and with a large group (I think 9 rigs by now) there was always at least one thing to watch.  I ended up stopping half-way up a ledge to wait for some people to spot for me (you can see Pluto sitting in the background once or twice).  The result of all of this was a complete lack of "flow" to the experience, so that's what this video is too.  I decided to leave everything in chronological order rather than lump all of the videos of each vehicle together, or trying to show all the footage of the first obstacle before moving on to the second.

This was a tough trail, and a couple of the obstacles (including that ledge I mentioned, the ledge in the thumbnail by the way) were things I wouldn't have tried alone.  But especially after watching others ahead of me, there wasn't anything here that looked likely to do body damage .  That's really the best kind of trail, a real challenge but not much anxiety!

Spoiler alert, I did end up winching to get up that ledge (Fuzz did too, in the red Jeep).  The added width of Pluto over the stockish Jeeps kept me from doing exactly the line they did, and my small tires compared to the not stockish Jeeps kept me from just muscling over like they did.  Or another way I've heard it put is "I just ran out of talent!"

[Gary Lewis]

Wow, some of those Jeeps make it look easy.  No overhang and lots of ground clearance as well as travel seems to help a lot.  But others of you were hitting and that makes it hard to get over things like that ledge.  The noises had me wincing - not winching.  (But there's no shame in winching given how hard that was.)

And statements like "Just a bit more commitment" had me laughing.  But y'all seem to work together well and everyone gets up in his own way.  

[Nothing Special]

Yeah, that's a phase you hear with this group a lot!  Along with  "a little more mo" (short for momentum).  And a couple people were being encouraged to hang their left foot outside the Jeep.  That was to keep them from pushing in the clutch just when they were about to pop over (but they obviously thought they weren't, so they were trying t stop).  It is a fun group!

[Nothing Special]

I said that Double Whammy was the main trail for the trip.  At least that was true for me.  That was around 4:00 on Friday, and the 'wheeling for the rest of the weekend was definitely anticlimactic.  In fact, I don't even have any more video of Pluto until from Sunday morning.  That's not to say we weren't doing anything, just that we weren't doing anything that was both hard enough to be worth getting video and easy enough for me to attempt.  But other people were still doing some pretty crazy things, so it was still fun to watch and help spot.  These next four videos are ones that I won't be publishing to my channel because I'm not in them, but I'll share them here if anyone is interested.

This next one is the least interesting.  The entire group (including a couple of people less adventurous than me) was meandering around on some mostly easier trails when Jeff (who was in the lead) drove past a sing identifying the trail, Cheap Trick, as a 5 rated trail.  I can do SOME of the 5s at SMORR, but not everyone in the group will.  A little farther along Jeff and Alan had started down a STEEP hill.  At the bottom Jeff said "I don't think this is a 3 anymore" (he hadn't seen the "5" sign).  So we decided to turn around.

Jeff was at the bottom, so he turned around easily and worked his way back up.  Alan had lost his power steering belt part way down.  He was able to sort of salvage it and get it back on (but fought it slipping the rest of the trip), but that meant he still had quite a bit of challenging hill ahead of him.  He opted to turn around on the hill rather than go all the way down and have to go all the way up.  I don't think I would have made that choice!  But I did choose to record his effort in case he did anything exciting, like roll over!  He didn't, so the video isn't as much... fun as it might be.

Then as we were driving out on Pee Wee Crossing the trail is rutted out on alternate sides, which makes it kind of interesting as you are leaned heavily one way and then the other.  We decided to try to hold the phone level in the Bronco and show what that looked like.  It probably doesn't look like much, but I decided to throw it on the end of this other "not much" video.

[Nothing Special]

After that pretty lame video this next one is a bit more interesting, even including the first "flop" of the trip (Alan at about 10:30 in the video as well as the thumbnail picture).  As flops go it was pretty lame, with a rock catching him before he went all the way on his side.  A couple people were able to push him back on his tires.

Anyway, this trail is called Rocky Road.  It's certainly rocky, but I'm not sure it's a road!  Kenzie (my dog) and I got to ride up this trail with Jeff on my first trip here in 2020, and I knew this wasn't going to be one Pluto would be doing!

[Gary Lewis]

I agree, I wouldn't have tried to turn around there.  But he made it w/o too much fuss, so it made for an interesting video.

As did keeping the camera level and letting us see the lean back and forth.  However, I think I could do that trail.