Part I of the “Built for Off-Road” Adventure featured a tale about Mike Lawson and his travels with an Adventure Trailer in Colorado. The following is part two of his story:
[Not a valid template]Next up was the San Juan mountain range in Colorado. This particular area is known as the Jeep Capital of the World (not to be confused with the 4X4 Capitol of the World). Any kind of Jeep trail you desire is in this area. You can find just about anything here; ghost towns, 13,000 foot passes, scary ledges, and some pretty major rock crawling is all located in this area. Almost every trail there can be tackled with care by stock vehicles; however, a little extra lift is nice.
This was a no incident and no problem trip, so it was absolutely awesome! We didn’t pull the trailer as much as I had hoped to, but we still had a good time. Again, we had lots of interested eyes gazing at the trailer.
A quick two days of work and then we were off to Moab for about a week. I started my wheeling days with a Land Rover Discovery, then a Toyota Tacoma, and now the Jeep Rubicon. We hit Alaska with the Disco, and then Colorado with the Tacoma and Jeep. My Colorado wheeling led me to some of the nicest people that could care less what you wheel with. They proved that on every trail and really pounded the idea home when they invited me to tag along with them to Moab. This was going to be a TTORA (Toyota Territory Off Road Association) trip for what they call a “Take Over.” I was honored and accepted their invitation.
Since so much of wheeling revolves around the fellowship side of things, we planned to spend two nights on the 113 mile White Rim Trail. The trailer was in tow for this, and from there it was one day on to Hell’s Revenge without it.
The trailer, being pulled by a Jeep among Toyotas, raised more attention than what I was comfortable with. I was, after all, the invited guest among the Toyota group. With that being said, I had no problem carrying some of their gear in the trailer or answering questions as they came because The White Rim Trail is a perfect trail for this kind of setup.
This is where things got interesting. If you know of the White Rim Trail, you are probably wondering how on earth anything weird can happen there. In the middle of nowhere, a puddle of water and mud appeared right in the center of the trail. Most were going around it since it would be a real “sticky, throw everything around” kind of mud. I went around the puddle on the left side. There was maybe a 6-8” incline on the side of the road that the Jeep and trailer were going to ride on to go around the mud. In the center of this small incline was a boulder. When the left trailer tire hit this boulder, it bounced the trailer over on its side then into a tight roll to the right.