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 Jeepin.com Hot Springs Run 2005 by Jason West |
Saturday morning We explored some of the more scenic trails and overlooks over in the northwest section of the park, then headed back into the main part of the park to run some harder trails. First up was Don's 101 which had a little bit of everything thing, living up to it's "101" name. After that a few of us were calling for rocks and more challenging trails, so Billy took us over to run the Gorge and Canopener. The Gorge is rated a 3-diamond (the park uses a scale of 1-5 to rate the trails, one being the easiest, 5 being the hardest) and offered up a lot of fun uphill boulder and ledge crawling.
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Our group got split up a bit after running the Gorge, and some of the more built rigs went on to run Canopener. Canopener is rated a 4-diamond and was very similar to the Gorge, only everything was bigger and there was more of it. We were almost to the top of the trail when Frank (aka: "Frank99XJ") came down on his factory gas tank on the point of a big rock. Almost immediately his engine started sputtering and cut out -- Frank's gas tank skid had gotten pushed up into gas tank, closing off the fuel pump pickup.
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The trail was too loose to strap him the remaining 100' to the top of the trail, so out came the winches. Billy headed up the recovery effort, and after about 3 hours and 3 different winches (mine just up and quit for no apparent reason) Frank's dead XJ was finally up the rest of the trail and towed out to the front of the park. After it was all said and done I think Billy's face was about as red as his TJ from all the work!
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Now it was Frank's XJ's turn on our trailer as we carted him back to the KOA. The remaining crew that stayed at the park after we left with Frank's rig went on to run the Ultimate Adventure trail, Slammer, and a few others I think before calling it a day. After examining the damage to Frank's gas tank skid plate, we decided to pull it off in the hopes that the tank would pop back into shape and let the fuel pump work again. 30 minutes and 6 stubborn bolts later the skid was off and the engine was running smoothly. Had we only known it was going to be such an easy "fix" we'd have just pulled the skid on the trail and saved everyone a couple of hours of work in the heat!
That pretty much concluded our Hot Springs trip. Sunday morning everyone packed up for the treks home.
The group's carnage list includes:
- 10 ring gear bolts in my D30 (8 had backed out, 2 sheared off)
- Frank's gas tank skid
- One valve stem got ripped out
- I think a CJ broke a hub
- Couple of aux lights got broken out
- My winch just up and quit working while I was trying to winch Frank
up the top of Canopener. It started working again later on that day, but
it's got a short somewhere I think. It was pulling so many amps that it
partially melted one of my battery terminals though, DOH!
- Someone broke a motor mount, or LCA mount, or something, and had to
have it welded back up.
- And probably some other carnage I'm not aware of...
We got off really lucky because most all the carnage turned out to be minor, and easily repaired (especially my ring gear bolt snafu and Frank's "dead" fuel pump)
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The park has come a long way since we were there in spring of '04 for our first annual run. The wooded camp ground area is HUGE now, they've got water and electrical RV hook ups, and the bath house is very nice and I think it's got heat and AC now too. Clyde and Linda Stanford (who used to run BMRA in Gilmer, TX) run the main office at the ORV Park are great folks to deal with.
Man, I can't wait to go back!
For more information, contact:
Superlift Off-Road Vehicle Park
2100 Mill Creek Road
Hot Springs, Arkansas 71901
Office: 501.625.3600
Fax: 501.625.3607
E-mail: orvpark@prodigy.net