Wheeling in Clayton Oklahoma

WOW! what a great weekend! Or at least most of it. You'll understand later.

Friday started off late as anticipated. The group was meeting at 9am to drive to Clayton together. It is about a 3 hour drive, and while it's always fun to be part of the parade of Jeeps running down the road, I had a few things to take care of that couldn't be done before 9am, so I left about 1030am. Samantha had to have MRI's done that day, so she couldn't join me. Not surprisingly, our daughter Jennifer was very unhappy with me for going out of town. So much so, she repeatedly requested to go with me. I briefly considered it, but I knew she would be cold and bored most of the time, therefore she wouldn't have any fun, and neither would I. So much to her chagrin, she needed to stay home and take care of Mommy.

Clayton is in the southeastern part of the state near Sardis Lake. It is very popular for Bass fishing, and there is a lot of hunting in the area as well.

I hit the road at 1040am after going through the drive-thru at McD's. After I reached the end of the directions provided by Google Maps, and I was not at my destination, I called the cabins and got further directions LOL. They were only off by about 7 or 8 miles. I stayed in a nice little cabin at Hickory Ridge Cabins. Actually, everyone stayed there. I got a small cabin to myself, one queen bed, without a kitchen. It did have a mini-fridge, microwave, and most importantly a coffee maker! The other guys were all sharing larger cabins, plus there were 3 that were tent camping! For those of you not on MySpace or Facebook who may not have access to my photo albums, I'll attach a few photos in here. Here is my cabin. It was really nice for one person or for a couple, but any more and it would be quite crowded. Also, it only had a shower, no tub. It was small enough that even with the heat off all day, it only took about 15 minutes for it to be nice and cozy. Most importantly, they were nice and clean. The only complaints I have about my stay are there were no paper towels for cleaning any possible spills, and the TV was not properly connected to the outdoor antenna. I checked the coax cable and found that there was no connector and the cable had simply been shoved into the hole on the back of the TV thereby providing only a picture of a polar bear in a snowstorm. I also suspect that it was not connected to the antenna correctly either. Oh well, I'm not on this trip to watch TV, and I have a cell phone to check the weather with.

So, I unload my gear, disconnect my front sway bar, and call Garrett to find out where they are. He and Slim agree to come back to town to get me and lead me into the wilderness. So I air my tires down to 18psi, and head for the store in town. I fill up with gas and they pull into the parking lot in Slim's mud-covered Jeep. The mud is not fresh, but Slim hates a clean Jeep. So we grab some snacks at the store, and head off into the woods. It may be a trail, but they are very rocky so it is slow going. Later I realized that this is not even part of the trails, this is just the trail to get to the trails. This is going to be fun. Right after we get in there, we meet two CJ-5's leaving. The first is a new guy who has broken a bolt in his leaf spring and has a gas leak, and the second one is another club member who has lost his oil pressure down to 5psi! Scary low! After wishing them well, we come upon or friend Fatty who is seriously stuck on a large boulder. He has a winch, but nothing in front to hook onto, and it's questionable if he could go further anyway. He was following larger more equipped Jeeps, and we all thought it best to pull him back out and take the other trail. So after hooking a strap onto the back bumper, and using a Hi-Lift jack, we managed to pull him back off the boulder. So, on we go further into the woods, when we catch up to the others, we find J crawling across some rocks and we arrived just in time for his left rear shock mount to break, and the coil spring to fall out on the ground. So I've been off road at Clayton for 15 minutes and I've seen a broken CJ, a mechanical problem with a CJ, a stuck TJ, and now a broken TJ. In retrospect, I should have thought, maybe this trip wasn't the best idea. But no, I'm having fun, wheeling with the guys. Sanity is nowhere in sight.

So after the field repair, which involved a length of rappelling rope tied around the frame and the rear end to act as a limiting strap, we soldiered on into the wilderness. We came to a fork in the trail and decided to stop and have a look. We concluded that to the left was a by-pass of sorts through the woods while the trial up to the right was the main trail. Up at the were stones that were no doubt leftovers from the great pyramids. So I decided the other route should be called "Little Jeep Left" So Slim led the way, I followed and Fatty was the caboose. As we were making our way through, I hear Fatty yell WHOA! So I stop and look behind to find him bailing out to inform me that I'm a little more off camber than I am aware as he swears my right rear tire was off the ground and downhill is to my left. Later we concluded it was only because I still have a rear sway bar, so the rear wheels are still connected to each other. Not as bad as we thought. So after we reach the end of the "Little Jeep Left" trail and it meets back up withe downhill portion of the main trail, we all head for the bottom. Almost done and I find myself high-centered. All four tires on the ground, but no traction, so Slim has to pull me off the ledge, then all is well. As we have been at it for a few hours, it's decided to call it a day as the sun sets in the mountains pretty early. Back to the cabins for a fun-filled evening of standing around the campfire freezing off our patooki's and telling lies LOL.

Saturday Morning...God Smiled!

So this should be a beautiful day. I had the best night's sleep I've had in ages. Asleep before 930pm on a bed almost as hard as a sheet of plywood. I woke at 730am refreshed and ready for a new day. I went into town seeking the aforementioned paper towels. While out, I took the photo to the right. An overwhelming sense of calm washed over me when I topped the hill to this sight.

For day two, we decided to go to a different place to wheel. On Friday we were at Slims's. Not to be confused with Slim in our group. Local Slim is a guru of all things mechanical as I will truly find out later in our adventure.

So we drive the opposite direction from town heading for Frieling's. The view from the ridge where the trails start is fantastic. Having never been here before, I had no idea there were places like this in Oklahoma. I decided that next time Samantha and Jennifer have to come with me. This is beautiful country. So we line up our Jeeps for the obligatory group photo.










Now back to the task at hand. Going where not every man can go. This is real fun. Drive a nice trial for a bit, then hit some more difficult obstacles, easy trails, more obstacles. Difficult climbs up very steep rock trails, and descents down into very steep chasms. This is living.

So we are all lined up behind Tanda in his bone stock yellow Jeep YJ who is hung up on a particularly tough rock climb. After a while, they manage to get him over the obstacle, and we slowly proceed one at a time being spotted through. Large rock ledges between boulders and trees. Every one's goal is the same, make it through without damage or breaking something.

Finally it's my turn, I obey the spotters instructions to the letter, and I make it up on the ledge to the sound of PointBlankOKC behind me to the right saying OUCH! He then speculates that perhaps my passenger door might not close correctly anymore. Apparently that rock ledge reached up and bit my poor little Jeep. Right in front of the rear wheel. It doesn't show up real well in this picture, but it took a pretty good shot. I HAVE to invest in some Rock Sliders to make sure this doesn't happen again. After all the joking about my Jeep finally looking like everyone else's, we got on our way. In lieu of my newly acquired trail damage, I'm still having a great time. We continue on more trails that are beautiful, technical and breathtaking in some instances. We drive on through the trees into a clearing in a very steep walled valley. Ahead I see our objective. There is a creek running across the bottom of the hill from right to left, you drive across the creek then hard left onto loose stone, almost as small as gravel, but who knows how deep it is. This is climbing at a very steep angle, then a hard right and straight up, or at least if felt like it was nearly straight up LOL. Petty much, as soon as you hit the loose stuff, maintain speed, do not stop, do not gas it. You do not want to slide, or stop or dig a hole as once you make that right turn, you are lined up to a Jeep swallowing canyon about 25 feet deep! Of course, we all made it easily. We drive Jeeps. Shortly afterwards we are taking turns through a technical area again. My turn comes up, I'm following the instruction of JeepinFever, my spotter, and he yells WHOA! and gives me the throat slashing motion and starts yelling "He's broke!" OK, I'm good with Whoa!, I'm fine with the throat slashing, but broke? Pass. He motions for me to back up, then more throat slashing. Jeepers come out of the woods, I climb out, and we all look under the front end. I find myself staring at my Jeep's steering drag link laying on the ground behind the driver's wheel. Um, shouldn't that be connected? Mud-Dog exclaims"Wow, I've seen them bent and twisted, but not broken right in two like that" It snapped off. Turns out Jeep went el cheapo on this part. It is a hollow thin-wall tube, instead of a solid rod of steel that is should be. Ironically, it is a solid bar on a Grand Cherokee. Who wheels Grand Cherokees? Well, my baby isn't going anywhere. There is no steering. I can turn the right wheel, but the left goes where it wants. The guys think that if we can turn it around, back downhill, we might be able to "drive" it back down to the main road where we can get a trailer to put it on. Mud-Dog ties up the left wheel with a ratchet strap in an effort to minimize it's movement hoping to get down the hill. Good idea, but the wheels determination to be free was stronger than the strap. So after many attempts to drive it through the woods with the left wheel flopping about, we are forced to abandon my Jeep in the woods on the side of a mountain in southeastern Oklahoma.
Tanda is kind enough to provide a shotgun seat back to the main ridge. There Mud-Dog and I climb in with Zach in his still leaking gas, CJ-5 to go to town. We drove 18 miles into Wilburton to O'Reilly's and guess what...not in stock. They can get one in on Tuesday. She is even so kind as to call AutoZone for me, but the closest one they have is in Ft. Smith Arkansas! We talk to another customer who works in a local shop and he comes up empty as well as the father-in-law of an employee who owns a salvage yard and he can't be reached. So back to the mountain we go. I call Slim to let him know we are almost there, and he tells me that they have put his Jeep on a trailer and taken the drag link off and that J and Ryan took J's Jeep back up the trail and are fixing mine to drive it out! WOW, what a great bunch of guys. So J and Ryan bring my Jeep out from the wilderness, and we head back to camp. There we pulled my Jeep onto Slim's trailer and plan for me to drive Slim's Jeep back home the next morning, and pull the drag link off of my Jeep and back onto Slim's.

After breakfast Sunday, I ask Ryan to drive me to Slims'(local shop owner, not club member) to see if he has a drag link laying around. Slim says he doesn't, but he can make me one that won't break. So we go back to camp, clear out, haul the Jeep to Slim's and give him the old one. He straightened the old one, took some measurements, welded it back together, then sleeved it with a huge steel tube and welded them together with the original inside the new one, re-attached the tie-rods, and even spray-painted it black. All this for the bargain basement price of $65. I gave him $80 and thanked him profusely for being available to help out on a Sunday. He seemed grateful that I recognized the inconvenience that I had placed upon him, and was willing to compensate, even if just a little. YEAH! I got to drive my own Jeep home! This trip has forced me to reconsider the priority of the different upgrades I have planned for my Jeep. Body armor is now right up at the top along with a little lift and undercarriage protection.

All in all it was a great weekend. In retrospect, I'm glad Samantha and Jennifer were not with me. I'd still like to bring them next time, but I'll have made some changes before then.

Special thanks to Mud-Dog, Tanda, Slim, J, Ryan, Zach, Slim and everyone else for all your help and support. Brews and Brats for all!