Nothing Special 'wheeling at Windrock

[Nothing Special]

My niece was getting married in Kentucky, so we decided to piece together a vacation that would include the wedding.  With 'wheeling being such a big part of our vacations we definitely wanted to see what we could fit in there.  Windrock Park is a little outside of Knoxville Tennessee.  I'd heard a lot about it and seen a bunch of videos ("Bleepin' Jeep" is a pretty big YouTube channel, he's based in the area).  We were able to get campground reservations right at the park, so we had the 'wheeling figured out!

Jumping to the conclusion, Windrock is definitely my least favorite place I've gone 'wheeling.  It was still good (even a bad day of 'wheeling beats a good day at work!), but I won't be going back unless I have a guide who knows the area.

The biggest problem with the area is also the biggest positive.  It's huge!  That can obviously be a great thing, but it also means you need to drive a lot between fun areas.

We got there around noon on a Sunday, so after getting camp set up we headed to the trails!  The trail map had trails listed as green (easy), blue (moderate), black (difficult) and black/red (most difficult).  We decided to start with blue until we had a feel for the ratings, so we started in from the main entrance on trail 2.  We pretty quickly confirmed that blue was not enough challenge for us.  But it got us to black rated trail 16.

Trail 16 had some fun challenges.  We also ran into a couple of families in Jeep Wranglers, so we were able to watch them for a little while (until they left us behind).

One unfortunate (from my perspective) issue was that many of the challenges were in the form of deep ruts where my 33" tires wouldn't reach bottom. Here's a picture of one such obstacle.  The only way to stay out of the ruts would be to ride the right bank, and that looked like more lean than I wanted to risk.  But in this picture you can see my front diff plowing pretty heavily, and both front tires just kissing the ground.  It was soft dirt and I was going downhill so I was able to drive through this.


But I did drag the driver's side in the dirt pretty good here.  Fortunately Pluto didn't sustain any significant damage, but you can see the mud he picked up dragging the upper hinge and rear view mirror on the ground.


This next little climb ended up being the first of several times I "got to" use Pluto's winch.  Shortly after this picture was taken I ended up with the rear diff on the uphill side of a rock.  I needed to back up to get a little momentum, but both back tires were in the air so I couldn't back downhill.


After going about 1 mile we were at a place where blue rated trail G10 intersected trail 16.  With dinner time approaching and about 5 miles of trail 16 before the next escape route we decided to bail out at this point.

That was the first of three days at Windrock.  I'll pick up the other two days as I get a chance.

[Nothing Special]

On day 2 we started in on the same blue trail 2 and went to where we had gotten off trail 16 the day before.  We still decided not to start down the rest of trail 16.  With the deep ruts we were seeing we figured it wasn't a question of "if" we would get stopped and have to turn around, but "when".  So instead we ran black trail 17 in the same area.  This gave another "opportunity" to exercise the winch.  The ruts in this picture lifted my tires off the ground again, so the winch was the only way to get up the hill.


We then made our way across blue trail G1 and green trail G5 to get to a loop on trails 82 (black) and 83 (blue).  82 gave us our third chance to use the winch.  In this picture Pluto had all four tires tring to climb damp rocks at the same time.  I MIGHT have been able to drive up it, but after a few unsuccessful attempts I pulled rope.


From there we started down black trail 35.  That was fun for awhile, but not challenging enough for Lesley to get out and walk, so no pictures .  But again we ran into ruts that were too deep to navigate on 33s.  So we turned around and finished the day a little early heading out another exit on part of blue trail 22.

[Gary Lewis]

Yikes!  That looks more difficult than I'd want to tackle.  But you obviously made it.  I'm anxious to see the next episode!

[Gary Lewis]

So, are you upgrading the tires?  Or staying away from ruts?  Or planning to "pull rope" more often?

[Nothing Special]

What was it that looked more difficult than you would want?  The first picture?  If so, I agree with you!
 Obstacles that lay you on your side aren't really what I want to subject Pluto to.  I hit both mirrors against the ground at least once.  That's not a recipe for keeping sheet metal straight!  Fortunately I wasn't laid over very hard in any of those instances and fortunately '71 Broncos are pretty thick skinned.  But this isn't really my cup of tea.  Again, not my favorite 'wheeling venue.

And more on that...  In most videos I've seen the Windrock trails are wet and muddy.  It was dry when we were there.  There were a few puddles, but for the most part water wasn't an issue.  But when big tired rigs drive on these trails when they are wet, there will be tire spinning and deep ruts will get cut in the mud.  Now it was dry dirt, which is a lot easier to navigate, but the ruts are still there.

As far as what I plan to do in response to this, no, Pluto's not getting bigger tires.  The 33s that are on him are a pretty good fit for the kind of 'wheeling I want to do with him.  Plus Lesley has said she won't climb into him if I put any bigger tires on!  As it was, I would've turned around sooner if the ruts hadn't been soft dirt, so winching out didn't seem like a terrible option here.  But in general I don't think I'll do a lot more of this type of 'wheeling with Pluto.

(and it looks like I might have been posting day 2 while you were replying to day 1, so don't miss that second installment above)

[Gary Lewis]

You are right, it was the first pic!  

That's way beyond my experience level, beyond my desire, and beyond what I want to subject BB to.  No way do I want to get anywhere close to hitting the mirrors on the ground.  So I understand why you don't want to do it either.

As for the 33" tires, I'm with you there as well.  My son suggested 35's for BB, but I told him the 33's are "just right".  Tall enough to get over about anything I want to tackle, and about the tallest his mother is willing to climb over.  Plus 35's would make 2nd gear starts harder and hurt the MPG even more.  Just right.

And yes, I was posting when you posted #2, but I went back and read it.  So I'm caught up.

[Nothing Special]

After 'wheeling only about 3 hours on day 1 and 6 on day 2 we had pretty much exhausted the black trails that were reachable from the main entrance (except for the 5 miles of trail 16 that we still didn't really want to bite off).  So we found another entrance on the map that showed where we could pick up trail 30.  After getting a little los...  er, temporarily disoriented we found it, but it had been blocked.  So we found another entrance that went in to trail 28.  But that went up a private driveway with lots of "no trespassing" signs.

Back at the visitors center we had seen stickers that said "we survived trail 47" or trail 15 (both red/black trails).  We knew we weren't earling those stickers, but there was also a "we survived trail 22" sticker.  We had already done about half of that trail (blue).  And even though Lesley had dozed off (yes, literally) on that trail we decided that if it was worth a sticker we could try the rest of it.  So we went back to the main entrance.

For the most part it was a pretty easy dirt road.  But it did turn out to have a couple fun rocky sections that I think deserved a "black" designation.




That still only took a couple of hours, but on our way out we passed signs that said "to wind mills".  We decided to see what that attraction was all about, so we went up green trails G37 and G2 to what turned out to be a couple of modern wind turbines.  For midwesterners who see huge wind farms along the freeways frequently it wasn't really that big a thing, but it was a nice drive on a nice day with the top down.

That pretty much wrapped up Windrock for us.  Again, it seemed like a good place, but we really needed a guide to help us get to the type of trails we wanted to run if we were to spend more than a couple days there.  Not at all sorry we went, we definitely enjoyed it!  But not planning a return trip either.

I do have some video that I still need to put together, so I'll be posting that when I get it ready.

The next day we drove Pluto to Great Smoky Mountains National Park for a day of sightseeing.  Unfortunately this turned out to be our one rainy day of the trip (well, other than day 1 of our drive home in the motorhome), so the views were a lot less than spectacular.  But it was still a nice day.

On Thursday we drove the motorhome from Knoxville up to a campground near Louisville KY, then drove Pluto back to Lexington where my brother moved a couple years ago and spent the evening with him and his family before driving back to camp.

Friday we drove Pluto to Mammoth Cave National Park.  That turned out to be a really nice day.

Saturday we drove back to Lexington in Pluto to take a hike with my brother's wife and daughter.  Then drove back to camp to get ready for my niece's wedding (different niece than we hiked with!  the wedding was Lesley's side of the family) which was on her farm not far from our campground.

Then Sunday we started the drive back home.

Altogether we put over 800 highway miles on Pluto, not counting the 2100 miles we towed him with the motorhome.  So a lot more non-'wheeling than 'wheeling on this trip, but we knew that would be the case.  Like I said at the beginning, this was a vacation of a lot of different things pieced together.

[Gary Lewis]

That sounds like a good trip when you don't know about slapping the mirrors on the ground.  And I think I could do those rocky sections in Big Blue.

But even with the mirrors bit I'll bet it was a good trip.  You got to spend time with several family members, do some 'wheeling, see Mammoth Cave and the Great Smoky Mountains, and just have fun.  

[Nothing Special]

It was a very good trip.  It's funny because there wasn't really any one part that was so special.  But put together it was one of the best vacations we've had!

[BigBrother-84]

Nothing Special wrote

It's funny because there wasn't really any one part that was so special.

Who says this?

[Nothing Special]

I think my screen name is appropriate for me

[Nothing Special]

I got the video from this trip done.  There's only one video from the entire trip since we didn't do an awful lot.



A few things to note through the video.  Right at the start you hear Lesley's sorrow as we smacked the first mirror.  Luckily only some minor cosmetic damage to the "back" side of the mirror (if the front is the reflective side).

Then at 1:06 you see what a perfect job she did snapping a still pic at exactly the right time!  The first picture in the first post in this thread shows my front diff sitting on the ridge with both front tires in the air.  In the video at 1:06 you see how short it stayed like that!  And yes, that gave me a pit in my stomach until I was able to check and found no real damage!

At 1:46 I hit a rock with my rear diff as I was climbing an obstacle.  I backed up and got around it, only to set the diff on top of the rock!  That left me with both back tires in the air, for the first of several winch-outs.

And speaking of winch-outs, that one (at 3:17) went really easily, but I was surprised how hard it was to winch over the ledge I was stuck on at 10:05.  The cause is pretty apparent in the video, but I didn't notice until I went to turn my front locker off after getting everything put away.  Turns out it was already off!  I'd turned it off to try to free up the steering so I could get the wheels pointed straight (you can see that fight before 10:05 in the video).  And then I forgot to turn it back on.  I always promise myself that I won't be "that guy", but I broke that promise.  If the locker had been engaged the right front tire would've been turning and it would've climbed the ledge rather than just being pulled into it by the winch.  Oh well, maybe I learned that lesson now.

[BigBrother-84]

Bob, looking at your pictures I can imagine the special trip it could be.

But looking at the movie, hard feelings, my heart can't stop bleeding on hearing at each grind, creak and squeak!

[Nothing Special]

I've told this before, but once when I was coming off a trail in Moab someone asked me "What does it take to 'wheel a collectible vehicle?"  My answer?  "Don't think it's collectible!"  I paid $6000 for Pluto (a LONG time ago!) for the purpose of building him into a good compromise daily driver, family Dairy Queen run and as serious rock crawling as I could do given the other requirements.  I've pretty much nailed my original goals, so I'm going to use him!  I try to be relatively nice to him, but this is why I have him!

[BigBrother-84]

You're right, I share your point of view about the fact that a truck that lives as a museum piece should go... in a museum.


And I am sure that Pluto is more than happy to take a rough ride in this kind of trails, with his Master!

[Gary Lewis]

Sorry to take so long to reply, but I've been busy at the church building.

Anyway, I appreciate the video as I can get my serious rock-climbing fix vicariously.  

No way, Jose, would I attempt that.  Not that I'm too worried about hitting a mirror, but those rocks and trees sticking out to crease the side of the truck are just too worrying!  And the tracks are way too narrow for Big Blue.

Lesley is getting really good at the camera work.  That video is great.  However, in one segment it doesn't show you connecting the winch and the winch cable isn't easily seen, so it does get a little amazing how Pluto gets over some of those rocks.  

Seriously though, it really is amazing how you and it can do it.  And even though I can see how having the front locker engaged would have helped when winching, it was still remarkable how well you do.  

And I agree with the idea that it isn't a museum piece.  Use it!  (I just don't want to use it to quite that length.)

[Nothing Special]

What, you mean you have a life outside of this board???  Seriously, no apologies needed.

This is actually Lesley's first time using her cell phone instead of a video camera and an SLR still camera.  She got a new cell phone last winter with the intent of getting a good camera so she could quit lugging the SLR around.  She's really liking the ability to tap the screen and get a still picture in the middle of taking a video (that's how she got the picture with the diff sitting on the ridge, but in all honesty, catching it that perfectly was mostly luck, she didn't know what was going to happen, just that it was looking like a good picture).  There was a bit of a learning curve as she didn't get any useable video or pictures on our first obstacle, but she did great on everything after that!

And I mentioned this above, before I had posted the video, but these trails definitely pushed my comfort zone too!  I don't want to be dragging Pluto's mirrors on the ground ever again if I can help it!

[81-F150-Explorer]

We have some county roads like this in the mountains here.  Haven't seen a serious road crew in 50 years etc... The county still fights to keep them open for 4 wheeling though.


Loved the video.

As for not wanting to abuse you vehicles I agree. Know the vehicles limitations, respect that, and the vehicle will give you years of service and fun memories.