Easter Jeep Safari Coverage
The Fraternal Order of Offroad
Brian “ College Boy” Gabriel
When you’re out on the trail wheeln with your buddies
and someone gets stuck in the mud, hung up on the rocks,
or rolled upside down it’s only right to spring into action.
Out come the winches and straps! After all you were probably the one cheering the loudest for them to give it one
more go!
The trail leader takes charge and the team works together to restore peace and order to the situation so that the
crew can safely proceed down the dusty, rocky, or sloppy
trail. Even if your group rolls into another stranded soul,
you always check to see if they need any help. We all know
it has happened to us in the past, and it’s only a matter of
time until it happens to us again. There is an essence of
karma in the woods and on the trail of what goes around
comes around. At the end of the day, we all want to be able
to load up and head home.
I was a witness to probably one of the most amazing
stories in offroading that truly was an expression of the
brotherhood (and ladyhood), shown by people on the trail.
We were out on a trail ride at Area BFE, just a few miles
south of Moab, and having a blast creeping all over the
red rock on the property. I was spotting a fella in a JK that
I had met in the staging area that morning. He gave the 3
foot ledge a few good tries and almost had it conquered!
With the front tires up on the first step he backed up about
a foot and gave the ledge a good ”bump”. A loud BANG
was heard. After a quick inspection of the front u-joints
and undercarriage, it was determined that it was just a
control arm hitting a rock and we were good to go. For the
sake of moving along my new Canadian friend took the bypass and continued down the trail. When I caught up with
him about 15 minutes later, they were out of the Jeep and
underneath it again. Something was obviously not right.
I hopped out of my Jeep and joined the ground crew to
see what was wrong. “The axle is broke,” one cried out.
“Not a big deal, we’ll find you an axle shaft,” I replied. The
parking lot wasn’t that far away and we were bound to
find an axle shaft for a JK in town during Easter Jeep Safari
week
“No, the AXLE is broke,” he said again, this time with a
little more frustration. When I took a closer look I could
see what he was talking about. The factory JK axle housing
had cracked and broken in two directly adjacent to the
hydro assist ram mount that was clamped around the axle
tube. We started thinking of how we were going to get it
off the trail, and out came the ratchet straps, and we literally strapped the axle together from side to side to keep it
from separating and he limped it back to the main staging
area and parking lot.
44
April 2014