Pictures from my Big Bend Trip!

So we took the JK to Big Bend National Park last week, and I gatta say, it did *awesome*.

It was almost 1900 miles of driving for the week, only 1400 miles of that were on pavement. The rest was either wheeling or desert washboard roads.

A lot of the washboard roads were so bumpy at 15-20mph that we realized it was easier to just go 40 and skip over them!

We also did the only "real" wheeling road in the park, Black Gap Road, and the JK did well. It wasn't crazy difficult, but had a lot of off-camber stuff at the end of cliffs, so it was pretty committed.

Dianna didn't feel comfortable with the off-camber stuff, reasonably, but when we got to the main "obstacle" (a ledge), she told me to spot because she wanted to drive!

All in all, an awesome trip!

A couple highlight photos from the trip.

They're not great, but hopefully Holly (the photographer) will post her shots at some point and I can share those. I was wheeling or spotting, so I didn't get any actual wheeling pictures.





The only damage sustained was a good dent to the crossmember. It happened while a friend was driving, but I was spotting and told him to take the high-clearance line, rather than the off-camber one. *Lots* of off-camber stuff by the edge of cliffs on Black Gap Road!





When I say "isolated"....I mean *isolated*.



Not another trace of civilization at our first night's campsite, Elephant Tusk.



The wives!



This pictures does not begin to do justice of how much white dust coated the back and inside of that Jeep.....



So Diann only recorded the smooth road-like part, but there were some pretty hairy washes and ravines and washboard roads that the JK handled at speeds of 40+ no problem. Very impressed.

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhCZ5kn16jI"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhCZ5kn16jI[/url]

The video doesn't seem very impressive, but racing through the desert at 40mph through winding roads on a moonless night? Pretty intense.

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne3jiTa8QR8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne3jiTa8QR8[/url]

Reflections from the trip:

• Yes, I need a snorkel. Damn dust.
  
• I need a real gerry can and not the plastic thing we had strapped to the rack and I had to vent the pressure every couple hours as it heated up.
  
• On that same note, I need a swing-out tire carrier to hold it, as the washboard roads actually loosened the tailgate stays and made it rattle until I retorqued it.
  
• Lights. More lights!
  
• Mud Terrains are amazing, but ours are at the end of their life (60k is not bad though!) and I'm going to have a hard time convincing Dianna to pick them again, especially when the Goodyear Wranglers takeoffs are *everywhere* on Craigslist for cheap. We'll see.
  

It looks like you had a good time. I am >< close to moving to Texas, Arizona or perhaps Oklahoma. I need to get out of the Northeast. I need to do a road trip with the Jeep. I may head north this summer to visit some friends in BC. I wonder if there are any areas up there to off-road. There must be!

I didn't even think about the snorkel for usage in dust. Good call. The Jeep looks like it did its job well and got you through. Good stuff!

-bill

Totally off-topic here, but I'm going to Yellowstone this summer and I think I've got the same itch as you, Bill. I probably should just fly, but I haven't entirely convinced myself NOT to just road trip my Jeep out there.

Big Bend looks awesome. Added to my to-do list. Thanks! It looks like you guys had a good time. Thanks for sharing!

Yeah, we'd been looking to move for a while and was originally looking at Wyoming/Colorado/Montana area before the Texas job fell in our laps.

I'd still love to relocated out to that area someday. It's *awesome*. I used to live out in Utah and took trips north whenever I could.

Flying out in great and it's convenient, but there's just nothing like the memories made from roadtripping....

I need to push my Dell rep guys. They are headquartered in TX. There must be jobs down there. Sorry, not meaning to hijack, just wondering your view of the job scene down there at the moment.

Eh, it's in General Discussion, so I'm not sure there's such a thing as a thread hi-jack, ha ha. Besides, that's the nice nature of a local forum. We're not quite as heavy on the "mod-stick".

The job situation down here is actually *really* good, at least in Houston. The whole area is in a major growth period right now.

Looked like great fun!! Happy the 4 door handled so well. It kind makes me feel bad to be retiring Gepetto.