Worst Off Roading Mistake You've Made

One time in band camp…

 

God, you sound old after telling that story. Now I picture you like this when someone asks you what it was like when you were young:

 

Yeah, I think the incident happened back in 85 or 86.
You must be a young pup then? You and @icebear should hang out and do dumb young person things together!

 

I can't. The terms and conditions of my parole state that I cannot associate with people who once owned Kia's.

 

LOL!

At least you are on parole!

I'm still "incarcerated" in the State of California! I'm not willing to parole myself to a better State because two out of three of my kids still live here until they decide to parole themselves elsewhere too!

 

Careful, suggesting two young dudes hang out and do dumb young person things together may be illegal again in some states

 

Amen. Now when we head out we have everything covered. It’s always better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

 

So how did you get out of that situation. That snow looks deep and you had no brakes

 

Oh!!!! The horror! Someone put raptor lights on that poor 4runner.

 

Long live raptor lights!

 

Yeah the brakes were gone since I open up both circuits. The other 4wd Ranger pulled me up the hill. I was in low range and just geared down on the downhills to keep my speed in check. Called for a tow to the Ford dealer where a buddy worked and got it fixed.

 

Who the hell did this jump? Is this real or photoshop?

 

Worst off roading mistake I ever made... was in a Nissan Altima on the west side of the Rockies (first mistake). My buddy and I were headed south out of Bozeman for Salt Lake. Thought we'd take some backroads and found a "scenic byway" (second mistake). Sounded fun. We'd take some photos on the way. Looking at the distance figured it'd be an hour or two drive depending on how fast we went.

"4WD recommended" but whatever. We chatted with some folks at a little parking area that said we'd be fine in the Altima (third mistake). And off we went.

It was a nice flat dirt road at the head... about 15 minutes in, a super fine dust started percolating into the cab. You could see it coming through every joint in the dashboard, through the vents, and up through the shifter console. It was awful. Ok, we slowed to a crawl.

Half hour later the dirt road turned into rock lol. And it was no longer flat. Ok, we'll just take it even slower. And then I had to get out of the car and lay in front of it to make sure we could clear obstacles. Lots of close calls. It went on and on. Hours. One of those deals where you get in so deep that you can't turn around and just hope things get better (4th mistake).

It was amateur hour. 4runner woulda been just fine but the Altima clearance made it quite the adventure. 8 hours later, we made it to the other side.

 

^
So you were "fine". Just like those folks said.

 

I saw it posted somewhere and it linked to this guy's profile - it's farther down around 2020.

https://www.instagram.com/_jacksonjenkins/

 

Worst I ever made was backing down a soft hill on a finger with lake on either side. This was in an LJ. Rear passenger slipped off the trail and popped drivers front up past knee height. My foot was on the brake and it happened so fast I had the shakes. Thought that rig was gone gone. And I was alone. Supposed to be an easy out for camping a couple nights and back again. Luckily I had enough service after a 30 minute walk down the trail to get in contact with my local off road group and a good dude drove out and gave me a good tug. The camping was awesome after that. Live, wheel, learn.

 

Amen. I live by the same rule......I am going to screw it up once, maybe twice but I will learn from it.

 

I had a car battery explode in my face - by the grace of god the acid had already leaked out. Wear some safety glasses folks, it can happen. It was like a shotgun blast and i froze up all i remember think was.......damn, did that really just happen? Now if i even jump start someone, i stand away from the battery

 

Not a mistake but near crap my pants moment. I took my 9-year old son to off-road park (KS Rocks) last summer. We were having a blast navigating green (beginner) trails in our 4th gen Sports Edition 4wd 4Runner. Somehow we lost track of trails and ventured into densely wooded area of the trail where backing up or returning was not an option. I'm sure you can see where this is going Yes, about half a mile along that trail sky opened up and we were facing near vertical black diamond hill with no options but to go for it in near stock 4th gen. Somehow we made it down before fear could set in My 9-year old said it was fun and we should do it again some day!

 

Buying a (new) 91' S-10 Blazer. I was younger and dumber.

 

That sounds like Toyota Jamboree to me. Once you commit, there is no turning around. Come on Texas , you mark it a beginner course and you have to navigate (floor it) up a hill AND at the very top of the hill are two trees that you have to squeeze through. Texas off roading is not for the faint of heart. The key though was great people around you who would help you navigate and guide you. Texas does not play around off roading.

 

Our women are pretty hot too.

 

That's for sure!!

 

22 year old me and an extremely nice looking girl, who was completely feral, took off for a trail run in my 2 wheel drive Ford Ranger. Our preparation consisted of grabbing a bag of Doritos, a case of beer and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. It was Sunday afternoon and I had to be at work (100 mile drive home first) at 0700 Monday morning. We headed into the hills, (the El Paso mountains for the socal people) and had a great time, going too fast, drifting through the turns, spinning donuts, etc. The sun went down, we climbed in back and continued the fun while finishing up most of the drinks in the cooler. At about 3 am we woke up and realized I needed to get headed home/to work. We were about 5 miles from the nearest paved road, and this was before cell phones were available to normal people. As I was turning around I backed into a washout, the back wheels of the truck were a foot off the ground and we couldn’t push it forward at all. We started walking towards the road, stopped to fool around in the dirt a little more, finally got to the road as the sun was coming up. Literally the first vehicle we saw on the road was a guy we knew, he said jump in, and we went back to get my truck. Pulled it out with his truck and hauled butt back towards civilization. Called work right when I was supposed to be showing up and told the owner I would be a couple hours late, took a 10 minute butt chewing on the phone, fooled around one last time and took off for work..

When I finally got to work Monday at about 10 I was filthy, tired, hung over, tore up my truck, hadn’t eaten for 24 hours and was about as happy as I’d ever been before, or since.

 

Big money! Probably a couple grand, for a semi.

 

Had a '72 Chevy pickup, 38" treads, very modded engine(small block Chev.), big lift.. etc. After having a few soda pops, decided to drive up a small creek, we knew we could climb up the bank to get out upstream, on our journey we discovered the beavers had built a dam since we had been in the area, it didn't look that bad, so decided to crawl over the dam after several attempts, and when we got over it the water got quite deep, like coming in the closed doors deep, (bad seals) luckily it was only a couple hundred feet to the place where we could climb out, a few days later I had a dry interior, had to change the diff. grease, (front and rear) and life went on, that truck would only get me in trouble if I decided to point it in that direction!

 

lmao, you prioritized correctly.

 

This was in 2023 with my Tacoma in Holly Oaks off-road park in Michigan. I crawled up the steep rock face here (high traction surface). Over the top, there was a ditch that I couldn't see and completely swallowed my left front tire. The left corner of the bumper hit the ditch ledge and pushed into the fender. Judging by the mark on my grille surround, the bumper actually bent farther on impact, but sprung back to its photographed position. Lesson learned: walk the damn obstacle even if you drove through it successfully in a previous year.



Damage:





The damage didn't dampen the fun for the rest of the trip though. Still had a blast at Silver Lake