First Sunday Monthly Ride at the Zion Grove Location of Paragon Adventure Park
I have a few pics from my run at the Zion Grove location of Paragon. Wow, did I have a ball. Added some dents to the Troop, sliced the side wall of a tire . . . but I am getting ahead of myself.
Here are some shots at the staging area. Notice the happy dad running after his daughter in the center of the photo. (Mom was working in the trailer.) The line of rigs behind them are waiting for the Level 1 (stocker) run. Here is a link to some photos of the Level 1 run that were posted on the Paragon Site.
Here is the group waiting for Level 2 (lightly modified).
Kyle took out the Level 4 (heavily modified) group himself. I didn't get any pics but here is one on the Paragon site.
If you are interested in seeing more here is a link to some on the Paragon forum. According to the tread, previous Level 4 runs resulted in lots of damage.
Paragon
has about 5 color coded trails, but the codes are not related to the levels. It
is up to the guides to piece together routes to keep the group interested.
Around 8:50 or so, Kyle and the Level 2 Group leader, Tim, discussed the route
that we would take based upon the rigs that showed. Kyle suggested some route
on a trail called Bear Claw that would be more interesting than the one they
took the day before. Tim was a bit skeptical, but Kyle said that it wouldn't be
a problem with good tires. He pointed to the Jeeps several with 35s. Then he came to the Trooper. I chimed in, don't worry
about the Trooper. So they didn't!
The first trail was very tame. Basically, it was a run down a ridge
weaving through the woods with some small rocks. Tim made sure that
everyone could handle these easy obstacles before we tried anything more
difficult.
This was a good thing as the Sami had clutch trouble and had to
retire. This left the Trooper in the group of Wranglers.
Here is the group waiting for Tim to return
after he escorted the Sami back to the staging area.
The most interesting part of the trail was the off camber driving, which few of us had much experience with.
Then we went over to Bear Claw, the route that I wasn't worried about. Basically, we weaved back and forth through the woods over a series of rock obstacles.
Tim was great and spotted us over the difficult stuff, but my tires were just too small. I'd go up over a rock but would bounce off the frame or skid-plates once the front tires came off of the rock.
The Jeeps with the 35s had no trouble.
At one point, a TJ also running 31s got hung up and had to be recovered.
At another, I came off a rock and got hung up with the rear wheels up against the rock and the front dif up against a stump. Tim said the obvious, that I was between a rock and a hard place. His Bill Burke solution was to jack up my rear with his hi-lift and put some flat rocks under my rear tires. This allowed me to back up and clear the stump. COOL. Unfortunately, no one took any photos.
Oh yes, I sliced a sidewall clearing one of the rocks and ended up changing a tire on the trail. And, I fell asleep at the wheel . . . it was hot and I was reaching for my water bottle . . . and slid off of a rock. Luckily, a nice tree caught my driver's side front door and stopped me. A six year old boy had to take this photo to show his friends.
Here is the winged
Trooper going over one of the fairly easy obstacles.
The next shot of Bear Claw is from another group, but it shows the type of terrain that was very difficult for the Trooper.
With the mild 1.5" lift and small 31" tires, I had to be careful not to straddle the tall sharp rocks. The trails were too narrow to go around them. So, I had to drive right over them. The problem was that I often didn't have a good exit and ended up banging something once my front tires came off of the rocks. Thankfully, Isuzu knew how to build solid skid plates!
To
illustrate just how much I enjoyed the ride, when I got home my wife
told me that she "broke" the shower and couldn't turn it off. I just
smiled.
This was a good ride! My only regret was that I don't have photos of Tim
recovering the Trooper with his hi-lift.
