Me and my wife went to Northwest OHV Park in Bridgeport, TX this weekend and had some fun. My parents watched the kids and we were able to get away for 2 whole days! For the first time since I got my 4Runner I trailered it since we were going a lot further than we had before. It took us nearly 9 hours to get there where it normally should take 5-6 tops but it was raining the entire way and we were limited to anywhere from 45 mph to 55 mph.

The next day we drove maybe 2 miles from the hotel to the park, it was nice to have such a short drive to get there! It's run by the city of Bridgeport so an OHV sticker is required and also means it's kept up nicer than other privately owned parks I've been to. It really is a beautiful place with lots of wildflowers and neat rock strata exposed since this place used to be a quarry I believe.







Several inches had already rained in the days prior so it was extremely slick mud everywhere which makes for some fun times sliding around corners. Unfortunately the rain and a mechanical problem ended our fun early. We were on the final hill of a trail called Godzilla and the left half of the way up is muddy and the right half is a mixture of big and small rocks. I was spotting my wife and we'd made it maybe 30 ft. up before we stopped making progress when we should have. I noticed the drivers front wheel wasn't spinning but the passengers side was so we were only in 3 wheel drive. The CV shaft wasn't spinning either so something in the diff wasn't right.

We locked it up and headed out to try and find some help. While we were out it started raining and we got about 50 yards away from a pavilion they had out there with picnic tables before the bottom fell out and we had to make a mad dash for cover. Not even 5 minutes later a group of guys we'd seen earlier come racing towards us to try and get out of the rain. Only one of them had doors and glass! They get out and we ask them if they would mind helping us out when the rain stops and they said it would be no problem.

For the next 15-20 minutes it rained HARD. So much that by the time we got back to the trail there was what looked like a small creek making its way down the hill towards my 4Runner. The jeep that I was in had 1 tons (D60/14B) and 39.5" Iroks and he started backing down the hill so we could get my recovery strap hooked on. But after getting my strap hooked on the trail had become too slippery from the rain and even he wasn't able to make any headway getting up the hill! We were forced to try and go backwards and there were 4 of us all winching each other out. After 2 hours of dragging across several trees and over half a dozen boulders we all finally made it out.

Both of my front fenders are done for, the passengers door got beat up by a tree and broke the glass, the rear tail light got ripped out, the rear bumper is tweaked, my exhaust got modified by one of the rocks, and I wasn't able to shift into gear without overriding the shift lock until I replaced a fuse the popped when the tail light got ripped out.







It's kind of odd that the very first time I trailer it out somewhere it gets torn up pretty good.

Here is a short video I took while being recovered. It doesn't really show much besides what one of the rigs looked like. The other 2 that are behind me trying to get me out are Toyotas.

 

Wow...

 

Can't wait to see the trouble I get into when I finally swap in a solid axle. I'll be running some tube from the bumper to the sliders before the next trip out so I won't have to keep replacing fenders.

Another pic from earlier in the day.

 

Two bad about the carnage. Looked like fun though.

 

maybe get a winch for that arb too! looks like fun, where did you trailer your rig from, im in pensacola flordia and would love to hit this up some time if its not too far

 

take that back google maps showed a 13 hr ride, too long for me

 

It's all just body damage which doesn't bother me at all. I'm just glad nothing broke. The ADD in the front stopped working so it got deleted to keep me from getting stuck again.

I recently added a Warn M8000, Bud Built cross member / skid plate, and the new Marlin rear bumper. I got the glass and mirror replaced and can't wait to go back out.