Tuesday, May 25, 2010

XJ List Spring Fling

This past weekend Janice, Jenny and I attended the XJ list Spring Fling in Harlan, KY. The off road park in Harlan is my favorite of all that I have been to so far. It has over 7000 acres and over 200 miles of trails.

This weekend, rigs form our group conquered the infamous Lions Den. This is short but extremely challenging trial with shear drops and very narrow passages.

Josh has been building his XJ for the last six months with this trail in mind. And all his work paid off by making it through with just a few scratches on his well designed roll cage.

Jenny got quite a scare after she conquered Rail Bed with her new Lock Right Locker. AS she chose the narrow exit form the trail she slipped her front wheel off the ledge as was dangling about eight feet above a huge boulder. I quickly stabilized her with a winch line form my Jeep while the others put straps in place and Neal Hoover brought up his rig to winch the other end.

After some careful maneuvering, she was back on solid ground with only a leaking power steering pump as damage. She was very grateful to all who assisted her.

Several of the rigs ran Profanity. Jenny's Power steering was really acting up so those of us with her made sure she made it out the main trail and met back up at Middle fork. Evan drove her rig back down the rather scary trail to the campground as she was having trouble steering withe failing pump.

Evan loaned Janice his BMW and she and Jenny headed into town to fetch a new pump while Evan and I pulled the old pump. We had it off well before they got back. But when they got back we realized that we needed a pulley removal tool to make the swap complete. Evan and I went back into town to get the loaner tool. Armed with eh proper implements, we finished up the swap just about dark and settled in by the campfire.

The next morning we headed up to see the vista that the group had discovered the evening before while we were working on Jenny's Jeep. On the way there, Evan broke a transmission line. We were able to pool supplies from the group to make a trail repair right on the spot and continue on.

We had lunch while we enjoyed the beautiful view. I warmed some hot pocket meals on the intake manifold. We also posed for a group photo there.

We then made our way to the lower rock garden to play around some more.

We ended the day with steaks and potato boats cooked over a wood fire. Campfire conversation continued well into the night.

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