Feburary 2000
By Summer Duke
We began the day with a long cold drive to Lawton. The stock '95 Wrangler stripped of it's top and doors let the wind through the cab freezing it's passengers to the point that their hands and feet were numb. We pulled up to Loves to top off the gas tank and meet up with the rest of the group.
The group of 16 vehicles soon reached the air down point. Not long after everyone aired down Shane took the lead out to the trails. A very short distance later I had decided it might have been a mistake taking the Jeep out for my fiancee proceeded to getting it high centered on the first small step. After a quick tug from another member of the party we were on our way again. The group stopped for a short period and when we continued on down the trail I was told I should take a different path from the rest of the group because I was completely stock (but as always I didn't listen).
The Jeep nearly got stuck numerous times through the next section of the trail due to it's lack of articulation. But thanks to Shane and a lot of creative weight distribution I managed to drive through it all. When the less equipped group of us reached a safe point to stop we watched Robert, Dale and two others take a much harder line further up the ravine. As Robert reached a section of steps that was just to much for his little samurai he decided to try a different path out of the ravine when the little sammy had trouble. He started back down the hill and the next thing I knew he was setting on the passenger side at the bottom of the ravine. The entire group started running towards the accident. Luckily Robert was able to walk away with no injuries. The sammy however wasn't quite as lucky it had quite a lot of damage but did drive it back to the trailer after a day of wheeling.
After another small trail repair we were on our way again. We finally got to the next major obstacle the group was given a chance to go around and anyone else needed to be ready for a crazy decent down a hill. I was a little reluctant at first but decided to give it a try after watching everyone else traverse the hill and then picking my own line with Shane as my spotter I started down the hill before any hard parts of this hill Shane had to help me get started moving forward again by placing a little extra weight on my front driver side. The next step of the hill is a large rock on the left of a tight squeeze just coming off a slight steep section and trying to turn to the right as making sure not to go far left on the rock to get serious damage to the Jeep I took the hill very slow and continued down the next section required a little bit of creative driving to not really destroy the Jeep. The Jeep lifted at least one tire almost every time moved further down the hill until finally reaching the bottom and every one that was there. There was much praise telling me of the good job I did.
The rest of the day I just set in by and watched the easier stuff relax me. We started to get some small showers, which really began to worry me, for we didn't bring the bikini top with us. But luckily we escaped without any major amount of rain until we reached the highway. Alan and all the day was wonderfully fun and challenging, thanks to all the great help and support from other great members. Thanks to you all.
