Trail Report: Back to the Pine Barrens

This weekend I convinced my girl friend (Diane) and my room mate (Don '89 YJ) to go for a short excursion to the Pine Barrens this weekend. Of course there is really no such thing as a "short excursion", but what is 4 wheeling if you never get stuck? I was eager to get out on some trails and couldn't wait for our big camping trip next weekend. We headed down to the Pine Barrens in the late afternoon and got there about 6:30. I was low on gas, but I wanted to get at least one run in before it got dark.

The first trail we hit was the Pine Tree Trail. It was an easy trail with some deep sand in spots, but the trail was wide and fairly dry despite the pouring rain. The trail ends about 4 miles from a gas station, so we filled up after this trail and took another trail that heads right into some swampy areas and by some cranberry bogs.

Don soon found a nice narrow trail that was muddy and rough. Don got stuck briefly in one hole, but he was able to back out and pull through with another run. I got through no problem since my tires are a bit bigger and have a lot more tread. I did have to run back to pick up one of my fender flares that got ripped off by some branches. I just installed them this weekend to pass inspection, oh well.

By the time we got to the end of this trail it was getting dark out. We stopped and lit up some cigars (Diane's sister just had a baby) and noticed one of Don's head lights was out. That was going to make it a bit tougher for him to see since neither of us has any auxiliary lighting.

Anyway off we went and soon we found another narrow muddy trail. Don was in the lead and soon out of sight. Don radios back "Watch out for the tree!" and so I move carefully down the trail. Next thing I know Diane is warning me about something in the trail, but it only looks like a branch to me, we keep moving until we catch up with Don. Don is out of his Jeep looking things over. I jump out and take a look. Apparently he hit that tree back there and it made quite an impression on his right fender. It also ripped off the top tube of his bumper and bent the other tube back so that he can no longer turn right. The good part was that it seemed to have fixed his head light.

We get out the scissor jack and bent the bumper back a bit, then we put a strap on the bumper and around a tree and bent it out the rest of the way. We decide to go to the end of the trail and turn around and pick up the lost bumper. We start moving again, but Don quickly becomes high centered on a big mound of dirt. He slides around until his back end is right next to a tree. We get out the Hi-Lift jack, a chain, and a strap and 20 minutes later we pull him over the mound. A winch would have made this job real easy.

Because of this big mound of dirt we decide we won't be coming back this way and I better go back and get Don's bumper now. Unfortunately, my reverse lights don't work, so Diane held a flash light for me and I reversed down the trail mostly by braille. I get real tired of reversing down this trail with my manual steering, so I jump out and ran down the trail with the flash light to find the bumper. I run past it the first time, but on the way back I found it and threw it in the back of my Jeep.

I jump in and cruise down the trail to the mound. Fortunately Don had flattened the mound pretty well with his stuck so I am able to motor right over it. We keep going and soon find the end of the trail. As luck would have it, the trail ends in a parking area that was closed and we were on the wrong side of the fence, so back down the trail we went. This time we made it through with out incident and headed home at last. I can't wait until next weekend when I'll be hitting the trails again.

Here is an "after" picture of Don's YJ. He reattached the top tube and dumped the mangled bottom tube. The top tube remained attached until the next trip down to the pine barrens . . .