North American Soft Roaders North Texas group Northwest OHV Park half day trip

machine1

Explorer
A few of us from the North American Soft Roaders group on Facebook planned a short trip to our local OHV park for some time behind the wheel on some trails. We've been watching the rain all week hoping for the best. We ended up with 2-3 inches of rain the day before the trip. Our original group of 10+ dwindled down to seven of us, including:

Me - 2013 Subaru Forester w/ Cooper Discoverer AT3s - Recovery
Josh - 2014 Subaru Forester XT w/ Geolandar ATS - Trail lead
Ron - 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek w/ General Grabber AT
Kevin - 2015 Subaru Forester XT - stock
Nicole and JD - 2015 Subaru Forester XT - stock
Mohu and crew - 2011 Ford Escape AWD w/ AT tires
Dan - ZJ Cherokee w/ Rough Country lift and mud-terrains - Recovery

I met up with Josh at the Park at 8AM and this is what we saw (Northeast corner of the park near the east door):

10734013_10152892868033792_5121495184608524817_n by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

I will later return to this spot to attack it later.

This is a map of our park:

RevisedMap by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Josh and Dan, our recovery rig:

DSC_0013 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Stretch79 showed up to play around at the park, he joined us later on in the afternoon:

DSCN2475 by jasplund91, on Flickr

Ron's XV Crosstrek:

DSCN2476 by jasplund91, on Flickr

One of the guys was having trouble finding the park. I had to drive out to the main highway to retrieve him and told Josh to send the group down into the trail. We were going to play catch up.


Picture taken after catching up with the group:

DSC_0014 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Entering the North Loop:

DSC_0019 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Unless you had mud-terrains, your tread didn't matter:

DSC_0027 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

DSC_0031 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Dan going over hills as if they weren't there:

DSCN2483 by jasplund91, on Flickr

DSCN2482 by jasplund91, on Flickr

Josh's footage from the first trail:

 
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machine1

Explorer
The front of the group ran into a muddy obstacle, so I decided to drive around the northern loop of the trail to assist them on the other side.


They didn't need our help after all.

This was the obstacle they were fighting with, some muddy ruts:




The recovery team:

DSC_0033 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

DSC_0014 by jasplund91, on Flickr

DSC_0015 by jasplund91, on Flickr


DSC_0035 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

DSC_0043 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Nicole's Forester on stock tires climbing the hill:


Ron's XV Crosstrek doing a little three-wheel motion:

DSC_0029 by jasplund91, on Flickr


Kevin running the logo of the North America Offroad Subarus:

DSC_0045 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Lunch Break, couldn't believe it was already 11:00 AM:

DSC_0057 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Group Shots:

DSCN2500 by jasplund91, on Flickr

DSC_0076 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Short clip for this section of trail:

 

machine1

Explorer

On the way out of the four hills area, Dan reported some oil in one of the water puddles. We traced the oil to the Ford Escape, we checked where he was parked and confirmed that he had cracked his oil pan.

DSC_0085 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

The best thing to do was to tow the Escape out through three wheel junction.

DSC_0088 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

DSC_0091 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Josh did not want to take the others through three-wheel junction due to our muddy conditions on that day so they ended up going back to the main trail taking the North loop.

I went through three wheel junction and told them I would meet them back at the front of the park

DSCN2503 by jasplund91, on Flickr

DSCN2505 by jasplund91, on Flickr

After saying goodbye to Mohu and making sure that he had someone on the way to pick them up, we decided to meet up at the Raptor Hill to splash around in the water.

Remember that first picture?

10734013_10152892868033792_5121495184608524817_n by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

We met up again with Stretch79 and Dan to meet up with the guys down at the Raptor Hill:


Hanging out in the East Quarry, this used to be a rock quarry that went bankrupt:

DSC_0127 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

DSC_0119 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

DSC_0060 by jasplund91, on Flickr

DSC_0051 by jasplund91, on Flickr

DSC_0037 by jasplund91, on Flickr

DSCN2509 by jasplund91, on Flickr
 

machine1

Explorer
It's around 1PM and both Kevin and Ron leave us for the day.

We decided to head down to the Perimeter road to check out the Spiderwebs. Water level was a lot higher than expected in some spots:


When we reached this section of the trail in the Southeast corner of the map we got into a little trouble:

DSCN2511 by jasplund91, on Flickr

I attempted the section and start to get pulled into the fence at the end of the water:


Josh wasn't so lucky. He was pulled into the fence on the southern end and scratched up his bumper, fender, and cut some of his left front tire with the barb wire fence.

Josh's footage from his Gopro. Fence contact at 11:00:


By this time Nicole was on edge and didn't want any more stress of this section of trail. We ended up towing the blue 2015 across the water with JD behind the wheel and her in the back seat of her Forester.

The recovery rig:

DSC_0129 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

I was attacked by a pile of fireants. After getting everyone safely across I went to scout out the exit to make sure we wouldn't have anymore difficult sections. We were going to have to cancel the Asplund connector that was originally planned by us earlier.

Nicole's Forester survived with only a few scratches and a dented front skidplate:

DSC_0133 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

Josh's Forester had some bumper and superficial front tire damage:

DSCN2512 by jasplund91, on Flickr

This is the dirtiest we've ever been at this park:

DSC_0146 by machinecrewchief, on Flickr

That concludes our trip. Two sections of trail in five hours. That's what mud will do for you. Thanks to Stretch79 for the help in the afternoon. Thanks to Josh for the pictures and videos from his side.

Next time around, I will have to require AT tires for the Spiderwebs, and I would like every vehicle to have a walkie talkie or CB so that they can keep an ear out for trail conditions on the fly.

It was a good birthday trip for me (I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday, haha).

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
 
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WagoneerSX4

Adventurer
Looks like a great time. I think Texas mud is different than Canadian mud. If we had puddles like that on our trails even the ZJ wouldn't have made it through :p
 

WMDunkin

Adventurer
awesome time! How did the escape fair before the oil pan issue? I love seeing you all test the AWD systems. Now get some better tires ;)
 

Cascade Wanderer

Adventurer
I love these reports. Its so much fun seeing these rigs tackles stuff.

Exactly! It's always fun reading these, checking the photos & video. I'm pleased that the owners are willing to go risk a little dirt and damage to learn their vehicles capabilities better.

Regards, CW
 

machine1

Explorer
Thanks guys!

I like to use this park as a training ground for the new Subaru owners that want a taste of off-road. Our trips are set up like guided tours for the newcomers.

WMDunkin, the Escape, even with AT tires, got stuck in some ruts that the Subarus drove out of without a problem. He struggled with it for about five minutes before powering his way out. He also powered his way up the hills, so we didn't get to see the Escape's AWD system in slow motion. There was supposedly a large rock in one of the water puddles we crossed, but none of the Subaru guys made contact with it. Speed could have been a factor in the oil pan damage, I can't really say because I was in front of the pack when it happened.

Our upcoming Spring trip is going to be an all-day event. I'll probably push that start time to even earlier and form smaller groups for different skill levels so that we don't get caught up at an obstacle for too long. I just hope it stays dry this time so we don't have so much standing water.
 

CLynn85

Explorer
Cool writeup, thanks. I've always had a thing for Subies and soft-roaders so this definitely peaks my interest.

It's also interesting that the OHV park appears to be a city-sponsored sort of thing judging by the interweb, is this true?
 

machine1

Explorer
Cool writeup, thanks. I've always had a thing for Subies and soft-roaders so this definitely peaks my interest.

It's also interesting that the OHV park appears to be a city-sponsored sort of thing judging by the interweb, is this true?

Thanks!
And yes, The Bridgeport OHV Park is run by the city of Bridgeport. The Texas OHV (Off Highway Vehicle) program is a grant from Texas Parks and Wildlife for creating and improving OHV recreation areas in the state funded by the purchase of the OHV stickers ($16).
http://tpwd.texas.gov/spdest/ohv/

I've added additional footage from Josh's GoPro into the original post. You can see him get sucked into the fence in part 2.
 

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