Dakota Territory Challenge's Iceman

by Terry L. Howe

Table Rock

I rolled into Whispering Pines about 2am and quickly set up camp since I needed to be up at 7am to have breakfast, get my Jeep inspected, register, and sign up for a trail.

I stumbled out of my tent early the next morning and met Park Owens at the camp restaurant and he got me registered while I enjoyed some delicious hot breakfast. The good news was The Black Hills Four Wheelers had a new strategy for trail sign up this year. Rather than the first come, first served trail sign up strategy used in previous years, everyone was assigned a number and sign up started at a different number every day. It just so happened I was sixth to pick for my first day. I had planned on doing an easy trail the first day, but since I had an early pick, it might be my only chance to do the hard ones.

Several of the hard trails were closed due to heavy rains, so sign up on the hard trails was particularly competitive. Trails that were closed included Lower Buzzworm, Upper Buzzworm, and Hal Johns. The hardest thing open was Iceman, so foolishly I signed up for it. Iceman is rated a 4+ which means 33"+ tires and a locker in the rear are required. No full size trucks are allowed due to the tighteness of the trail. Body damage is likely and major vehicle damage is a good possibility.

The hard trails leave camp first so that there is some hope of returning before sun down. It wasn't long before I was in my Jeep driving to the trail head. On the way to the trail head, we took a short cut along a pleasant forest road and lost our first victims of the day with some electrical problems. After the short cut, every one stopped at a local service station and fueled up and picked up more hot coffee.

It wasn't long before we saddled up and hit the trail head. The trail starts out as a shelf road along a canyon, slipping off the edge of this narrow road would cause a lot more problems than a little vehicle body damage. The trail slowly drops into the canyon where the fun really begins.

The first major obstacle was optional and about half the people skipped it, but after that we started hitting obstacles that weren't optional. The Iceman struck fast freezing us in our tracks. The first victim ripped the knuckle on his Dana 30 front end right off the ball joints. The front end had to be disassembled to get the ball joints and knuckle out. The damaged knuckle was welded by a friendly four wheeler with an on board welder. Everyone pitched in and it wasn't long before the CJ-5 was back together.

The next obstacle caused body damage to several victims. Vehicles with a wide stance were able to avoid the squeeze by climbing a rock on the drivers side. Vehicles with out a wide stance could not negotiate the extreme off-camber situation, and had to go into the squeeze. Many emerged looking like this CJ-7 from Wisconsin, with a mangled front fender.

The next obstacle was a great photo opportunity because almost everyone caught big air with their passenger side tire coming up this big stone step. Justin, aka "Papa Smurf" out of Ft. Collins, catches some air coming up the step.

It was the obstacle right after this one where I seemed to be having a little problem steering. I got out and noticed I had just pretzeled my tie rod. Several wheelers helped me winch it back into shape and fine tune it with a Hi-Lift jack handle. Soon I was back on the trail and approaching the final obstacle, Table Rock.

Table rock is a real cool obstacle that requires a good spotter once you get on the obstacle. Getting on the obstacle itself is not easy even with 33s and locked front and rear. Once you are on the rock, you need to drive right on the edge of the rock which is about 8 feet tall. A couple of septuagenarians out of the Victor Valley Four Wheelers in California showed us youngsters how it was done. It isn't comforting to have your drivers front tire drop in the crack right on the edge of the rock. The drop off is steeper than the approach and when I went down it, my weakened tie rod pretzeled for a second time.

Last modified Wednesday, 01-Dec-2010 09:10:55 MST

[ Jeep Tech Main Page | Terry's Jeep Page ]