That statement is the beginning of so many campfire stories! I’ve been guilty of saying it more than once. It’s like I know better, but just can’t resist. Let’s say that we’ve been out on the trail all day. Regular folks would be ready to head back to camp, but what’s around that turn up there or look at how fun this trail looks on the map, let’s go check it out. I can hardly resist the temptation! Yes, I might’ve been down that trail last year or maybe even last month, but the trails are always changing. Maybe a tree has fallen across the trail that we can climb over, or a big rock rolled down onto the trail. It’s the constant search for the unknown and unexpected that draws me in like a strong magnet. I always want to see what is around the next turn or over the next hill. Even driving a slightly broken rig doesn’t diminish my desire to go explore. If it still moves under it’s own power, it’s game on let’s go! I usually can’t or won’t stop until everything is broken. How about you? Are you the “just one more trail” guy/gal or do you know “that guy/gal”?
For me, trail riding isn’t all about conquering the most difficult obstacles; it’s about exploration. It’s about going where I haven’t gone before and seeing what I haven’t seen before. A wanderlust that won’t be quenched until my time on this earth is up. I’ve had many adventures in my life, and I hope to continue to add to my plethora of stories for many years to come. Here is a small taste of the many adventures I’ve been fortunate to be a part of.
There was one year when my friend Scott and I were up at the Iron Range Off-Road Park near Gilbert, Minnesota. This was back when we used to drive our trail vehicles six hours on the road to get to the trail. We had been camping in Gilbert for most of the week and were scheduled to head back Sunday. That morning before heading home we thought it would be a good idea to hit the park just one more time to get some pictures. We were in a section of the park that looks like the moon’s surface. Scott told me to give it a little gas as I climbed a small mogul. Well, I hit the gas too hard and proceeded to launch my Jeep in the air with all four tires coming off the ground. Going up was ok but the landing was rough. The front axle hit the ground hard enough to bottom out and it broke both my front brake hoses off causing a substantial leak and the loss of my brakes. Sunday morning, no brakes, and we needed to be back home by the end of the day. We did some creative part searching and found some brake hoses from a Chevy pickup that would work and made it home by the wee hours of the next morning.
Years later, Scott and I were up at the Iron Range off-road park again. We were still in the era of when we would drive our trail vehicles to the park during our annual September trip. Which we have been doing for about 25 years. We like to explore the park and complete many of the easier trails during the first part of the week and save the harder trails towards the end of the week. This year was no different. This time we attempted the Money Talks trail. This trail is a black diamond trail with a minimum of 33” tire requirement. Money Talks is a trail that has evolved and morphed over time. It runs through a low area of the park and rain levels, beaver activity, and the number of trucks using the trail can have a noticeable effect on the condition of the trail. This was a wet year with minimal trail traffic. The trail was very muddy, and had the consistency of a truck eating swamp monster. Shortly onto the trail we came to the first significant obstacle. Mud and rocks on the left and large buggy rocks on the right. Well, the buggy rocks were out of the question for our mildly built vehicles, so we headed left. What we discovered was a large gatekeeper rock at the end of the mud pit that was proudly proclaiming “not today chumps!” We found ourselves in a predicament. We couldn’t go right because the buggy rocks were up there on the hill snickering at us knowing we didn’t have a chance to make it through there.
We’re too “smart” to retreat, so the only option was farther left and over a dirt berm. What we didn’t know was that just over the dirt berm was the lair of the truck eating swamp monster. He was hiding just under a grassy bed of “you might make it this way.” We proceeded with high hopes of success just long enough to thoroughly and completely get both of our trucks buried to the frames. We spent the rest of the afternoon winching my Jeep through the mud pit.
Scott’s truck was another story and decided to level up on the destruction scale by trying to use his radiator fan as a mud propeller. Unfortunately, it didn’t help move the truck, but it did bend forward far enough to cut a fan sized circle into the radiator. My winch wouldn’t move his truck without his truck helping, and we couldn’t run his engine anymore because of the coolant leak. We knew that we had to deal with the damaged radiator in some way, so we removed it from the truck while it was in the loving embrace of the swamp monster. It was getting dark by this time, and we decided to hike out to the trail head carrying the damaged radiator. I’m sure I could hear the swamp monster laughing at us on our way out. Thankfully, my brother was in the area with another vehicle that remained drivable. He rescued us near the trail entrance sign, and we headed back to camp to develop a plan to free our vehicles from the lair of the Money Talks mud monster. Locating a replacement radiator for a 1978 Ford pickup proved to be challenging. None of the parts stores could get one within a reasonable time, so we had to get creative. We stopped by the plumbing department at the local L&M Fleet store and picked up some acid flux and solder. Back at camp, Scott worked on crimping and soldering all the damaged coolant passages in the radiator.
Thankfully, only one core of the three-core radiator was damaged from the fan contact. After several hours of crimping and soldering, the radiator was leak free again. Not wanting to place all our hopes and dreams on a redneck engineered radiator repair, we headed to the local selvage yard early the next morning to locate an unmodified radiator. We found one and headed back to the park to battle with the swamp monster again. We installed the “new” radiator, adjusted the engine fan, and rigged up my winch for round 17. Well, the “new” salvaged radiator lasted for precisely 2 inches of forward progress before mud propeller annihilated it completely. We removed it again and decided to use it as a base for the high lift jack. Trail tip, a radiator makes a terrible high lift base plate. The high lift pushes it down into the mud like a cheese grater and turns it into a huge ball of heavy mud. We adjusted the fan blades again and installed the original redneck repaired radiator back into the truck. We eventually did get the truck released from the clutches of the swamp monster and finally completed the trail as mud covered victims more than victors. Curious note that our redneck repaired radiator is still in that truck and has been holding strong for more than twenty years.
Fast forward in time when I was older, but not much smarter… Scott, Wade, and I were up wheeling at the Iron Range Off-Road Park again. Yes, this is the same Scott as in the previous two stories. He seems to be a part of my most memorable adventures. We had a great day wheeling, and my only trail damage that day was a broken and removed front driveshaft. Meaning, I was down to rear wheel drive only. Most people would have quit since the vehicle was half broken, but it still moved so it was good enough for me. Here is where I may have had an error in judgement as I was trail leading at the time. I took us down the trail called On the Edge. Which is a trail cut into the side of a hill and is about the width of one vehicle. The trail goes downhill so only having rear wheel drive wasn’t an issue until we came to a fork in the trail. Left goes up a steep hill and right turns downhill into a seemly pleasant trail. I chose the right fork that travels down into Sauna Rocks which happened to be a black diamond rock crawling trail. My descent started out good until I got bound up in the rocks and broke my rear driveshaft too. I was stuck at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the rock bed with two broken driveshafts. It took quite a bit of creative winching and pulling to get the Jeep out of Sauna Rocks. Then, we had to figure out how to get the Jeep back up on top of the sketchy hill and out of the park. Our choices were to drag it the wrong way up On the Edge, the wrong way up Roller Coaster, or up Yo-Yo Hill. All three choices will make a person pucker. Both On the Edge and Roller Coaster are narrow one-way trails and Yo-Yo Hill is steep with two switchbacks and loose rocks. We decided the lesser of three bad choices was backwards up Roller Coaster. The only way to gain enough traction to pull the dead Jeep uphill safely was to daisy chain Scott’s Tronco and Wade’s Bronco together in front of the Jeep. So that is what we did and the three of us proceeded backwards up the trail to the top of the hill.
All I could do was follow along tethered to a couple of lunatics climbing up a narrow hill, hoping we didn’t run into another group traveling the right way down the steep trail. We made it and they decided to do donuts in the field at the top of the hills as fast as their trucks would drive in celebration! I was just along for the ride hoping I wouldn’t die that day.
See what I mean about “just one more trail?” It always leads to a great story! Life is too short to always be reasonable and responsible. Go ahead and drive that one trail you have been dreaming about. There’s adventure to be found just around the next corner. Go ahead, I dare you. What are you waiting for? Aaron Bjorklund
Bonus story:
There was one time when Scott and I were exploring a local gravel pit down in Southern Minnesota, blasting through the mud and sand in the low spot of the pit. He was driving his Ford Taurus at the time, and I was driving my Jeep with my young daughters in their car seats in the back. We were having a great time until I found the spot that was too deep for me to cross. I buried the Jeep to the frame and no big surprise; the Ford Taurus was not enough vehicle to get me out. The winch kept dragging it into the pit with me. We had to load the girls up in Scott’s car in search of a heavier winch anchor. We found someone to watch the girls, since their mom was working at the time, and headed to Scott’s parent’s house to get their 15-passenger van to use as a winch anchor. By the time we made it back to the gravel pit it was dark and had started raining profusely. The bottom of the pit, where my Jeep was properly stuck, started filling up with rainwater. At first, winching to the van wasn’t working as my winch was dragging that into the pit too. We had to park the van sideways and anchor the winch to the middle of the vehicle frame. By that time the rain only increased in intensity, it was lightning all around us, and tornado sirens started blaring. The water in the pit was getting very near to the bottom of the jeep doors. It was our last chance to save the Jeep. We started winching and it pulled the van sideways about three feet before the tires dug down in the sand and the Jeep started to come out of the mud pit. We survived the adventure and I survived a very unhappy ex-wife when she got home from work.