I owe you guys a huge apology. This was supposed
to be a two -parter episode. You were supposed
to get part one back on Thursday. Since I've
been back from Leatherwood, my life has been...
You don't even understand. I've been working
a lot. Friday night, my internet went out, so
I haven't been able to finish the editing or...
do the upload because we use, we use some online
tools for editing, not a whole lot, but enough
that it made editing a lot harder and not real
easy to accomplish. And even if I did, the editing
would be done and I couldn't upload it. So, um,
yeah, so you're getting a two hour episode. It's
a rarity here at botches for you to get an episode
this long, but hope you guys enjoy it. Uh, Leatherwood
was fun and you'll hear all about it coming up.
Welcome to Botches Off -Road. Join us as we talk
about everything from gear reviews to trail stories,
tank camping to rock landing, and all things
to do with the outdoors. We got a great one today.
Me and Mark and Duncan and... What, half of the
botches went out to Leatherwood? Half or so?
Half. I'd say half. Yeah, about half. Yeah, about
half. About half the botches went out to Leatherwood
with Mitten State Tours. We had an absolutely
wild time. Leatherwood is a park that I think
everybody should take the time to go to. It was
fantastic. Especially if you're on this side
of the Mississippi because we don't have anything
like it over here. Nope. And we already lost
Gavin. We're a minute in and Gavin's already
gone. He's back. Everything's fine. Whoopsies.
So we started, we left on Thursday. Wednesday
night. Wednesday night. Fuck, that's right. Yeah.
I'm glad we left when we did because we would
have gotten there so late on Thursday if we hadn't.
Yeah. And we are driving in the cool, rainy breeze
and still having overheating problems on the
way down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, what happened there?
That'd be a Duncan. It started with Duncan, man.
Did we not check our fluids before we left, or
was it you guys getting plugs, or what? Everyone's
fluids were good when we left. Yep. I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure what's
all up with Duncan's ride yet. I don't think
I've heard of him. I know Mark's isn't a thermostat
issue because we took that out. Mine was definitely
not a thermostat issue, but that was for a different
day. What was? No, we're talking about it. This
is where we're talking about it. Yeah. I thought
we were going to wait a little bit before we
talk about my issue. Now we can get into that
later. Because you're talking about days. So
next up. So we're on Wednesday, Thursday morning,
somewhere in there. Yep. We're driving through
Indiana on. 31. And it's raining really hard,
and it's dark. And, you know, occasionally I
would just message back, hey, Duncan, how's the
trailer looking? So I message back, and I'm like,
hey, Duncan, how's the spare tire looking? Is
it still there? And he goes, oh, yeah, it's looking
great. Two minutes later, oh, God, it's gone.
It's just gone. The whole carrier, everything,
it's gone. Yeah. I don't know how we got away
without him getting hurt from that because there's
no way he, I don't know how he avoided it. I
don't know where it went. It looks like it was
ripped straight up off the trailer, but our entire
spare tire and carrier came off the trailer and
somehow didn't hit Duncan, who was right behind
it. Yeah, that was wild. Yeah, so. If any of
our listeners see a spare tire carrier on Marketplace
that looks similar to the pictures they've seen
on Instagram, let us know. And may or may not
currently have a Needle Grappler 35 mud drain
on it. Yeah. They might have separated them.
Yeah. So, yeah, that sucked. I should have been
assigned about the tire carrier being wrong.
Because we had to ratchet strap it. Yeah, that
should have been an indicator. Well, no, because
what we had to ratchet strap was the actual tire
to the carrier because it was a little loose.
But that shouldn't have made the entire carrier
come off the trailer. Do you think the momentum
from the tire travel up and down was enough to
snap it if you hit some bumps or what? It definitely
happened while you guys were driving on like
an overpass or a bridge. Because you know you
hit those parts on the bridge, your truck kind
of jumps a little when you're going on the highway.
I don't think we went over any overpasses. No,
yeah, but like on the highway or the interstate
when you go onto the bridges, they're always
raised a little bit. There was that moment I
got really squirrely. I think that's when it
fell off. I think so, too. Boom. Where was that?
We checked there. A turn overpass? Oh, yeah,
dude. That's in someone's windshield. Was it
an overpass? Yes. Because we went into this turn,
and the overpass was in the mid -turn. Oh, so
we were looking in the wrong spot. It's down
under the overpass. Yeah, the hobos are like,
motherfucker, they killed - They killed Paul.
They killed our trash can. Like, the entire time
going down, there was a couple times where it
got a little squirrely. I'm like, yeah, that's
average. But that one incident was really squirrely.
So I'm wondering if that's what had happened
was that moment. Well, real quick, let's take
a quick break from this conversation. What is
everybody drinking? An alcohol, sadly. Fresh
2025 La Terre Frenchiola. That's French for water
from 2025. Nice. I got Mountain Dew's Summer
Freezy flavor. I found in the back of my fridge
the very last El Chavo. Don't you want to save
that for a bad day? Today is a bad day. Yo, by
the way, for any of you Mountain Dew drinkers,
Little Caesars has like a mango Mountain Dew.
Really, really good. I'm not a fan of mango flavored.
And then he drinks El Chavo. Oh, okay. Sorry.
Mountain Dew mango is different, though. I think
this is the only time this has been released,
I think. What's the KFC one? There's definitely
been mango. Yeah. Because they said it was exclusive.
It was the KFC Yellow Lightning. Yeah. Mellow
Yellow? No. No, Yellow Lightning was a Mountain
Dew flavor for KFC that was mango. Oh. That's
what I thought. Yeah, no, this was like a whole
different thing. Very orange dye, and it stains
your tongue and everything, so I never really
drank it. It was very sweet. Oh, like high C.
All right. Well, we're off to drinks now. Back
to Thursday morning. All right, so you lost a
tire. Yeah, tire carrier, it just exited the
chat. No idea where it's at. It's gone. Well,
at least you didn't appear with it and then lose
it because that'd be even more embarrassing than
losing it before you even got there. Right. Somewhere
between South Bend and the first BP and McDonald's
on 31. Yeah, and driving back, I was doing like
45 in the... in the left lane with my ditch lights
on, scanning for this tire. Oh, I had mine on
too, trying to scan it. Very unfortunate. Yep.
She gone, man. She gone. Oh, yeah. That just
means it's something to upgrade. After that,
you know, we stopped. We looked at it. We're
like, son of a bitch. And then we got back on
the road. We made it. Did we make it into Kentucky
before we had to stop for Duncan's overheating
problem? No. Jesus. So we had to stop for like
an hour somewhere. I don't even remember where.
It was a really weird gas station with like all
of these statues everywhere, like wizards and
dragons. Bigfoot. And Bigfoot. It was weird.
Like a tourist trap? Not. It was just a normal
gas station with statues. It was probably Medusa's
lair, to be honest. I think we were still in
Indiana when that happened. That tracks. Yeah,
right. So we stopped, and Mark and Alan took
like an hour nap while we sat and waited for
Duncan's truck to cool down, and then we jacked
it up and we burped it. For the first of many
burps. Mm -hmm. Because Duncan had decided to
flush his radiator just before we left. Oh, that's
- Don't ever do that. I didn't realize he did.
Okay. Don't ever do that before a big road trip.
Terrible idea, guys. Yeah, what? And he didn't
burp it before? He thought he did. Honestly,
burping isn't the problem. We had issues with
it all weekend. Everyone's trucks but mine were
overheating all weekend long. What the heck,
guys? Yeah, you know when Alex's truck isn't
low on braking that there's something going on.
No, it's just that I finally fixed all the issues.
God. God. Freaking idiots. So then we got back
on the road after that whole fiasco. Thank God
for the tool trailer, by the way. That thing
got used so much. It got used so much. A godsend
for a lot of us. So we get back on the road and
now we do make it into Kentucky. And at this
point, like it was a joke between me and Kaylin
that every like 20 minutes we hear someone over
the radio. My truck's hot. So. It was bad. So
then we get into Kentucky, and Mark's like, my
truck's at like 235. Jesus Christ. I didn't have
overheating until way later, though. This is
when we're in Kentucky. Yeah, not at first, though.
Okay, I'm sorry. Leatherwood is when I had the
major issue. Did I miss anything in between?
I don't think you did, but. Yeah, exactly. It
was a nice, calm, dry, short trip. Short trip.
Then we get to Leatherwood, and we're climbing
some mountains. We go and check in at their little
station. Everything's fine. We start climbing
the first mountain, and I mean almost immediately,
the minute our tires hit dirt. My truck's hot.
What temperature was it down there, 80s? Yeah.
80s? Yeah. Hotter than it's been around here?
2 ,000 feet above sea level, too. Yeah. Yeah,
trucks weren't used to it. And climbing. And
climbing. Climbing's the problem. And the longest
haul with trailer for my truck. Yeah, I don't
think that caused it. I didn't think so either.
You didn't have issues until we got there. Yeah,
it's probably elevation. And not even elevation,
but change in elevation. So as you're climbing
a hill, you're not going fast, but you're exuding
more RPM, which causes the truck to then get
warm. So we're going up the hill and we're like
the last turn before a camp. And Mark just stops
because his truck's too hot. And I keep going.
I was ready to be at camp and like see what all
our sleeping situations were and all that. So
I kept going. It was like a quarter of a mile
from where they were to camp. Not even. It was
like 500 feet. It was like right around the corner.
I know. So I'm up there. I'm already getting
my tent off the roof and everything. And I hear
over the radio, which, mind you, they watched
where I went, right? Like they could easily see
where I turned. I don't think Duncan was paying
attention. I hear over the radio, did you go
through all those rocks? And I'm like, or no,
how do we get there? And I'm like, you turn right
and go. And he goes, well. I don't think the
trailer can get through there. And as he's saying
this, I'm looking at built to, what was it, broke
to built or busted to built. I'm looking at busted
to built dually with a car hauler, right? So
I know that our little off -road trailer can
make it up this hill. So I hop in the truck.
I go get him. He wanted to go straight through
the playground. The trailer was not going through
the playground. So it wasn't that. It was the
trail directly across from the entrance, I think,
which is the Pack Your Lunch or whatever it was.
The little Rock Creek. I think that was the Rock
Creek obstacle trail for that one. The one that
he was talking about, it was the playground.
Okay. So you get to camp. You guys get everyone
finally to camp and then, I mean, camp pretty
smooth as far as getting us set up once you got
there or what? Yeah, it took me like two and
a half minutes, three minutes, something like
that. Oh, okay. Yeah. Did you guys eat that night?
What did we eat? I think that night's the night
we had walking tacos. No. Steak. It was steak.
Nice. So pretty eventful, uneventful night as
far as that goes. What about next morning? We
did a little late night trail ride. Oh, did you?
Yeah. Yeah. How'd that go? Give me one second.
I'm getting to a point where I can tell you trail
numbers. Okay. So the trail that Duncan wanted
to take the trailer on was called Welcome to
the Jungle. That's right. And it's a playground.
So we were actually camped on 103B, I want to
say. Sounds about right. I didn't think it was
B, though. I thought it was just the main trail.
No, it was definitely... Give me a second. Yeah,
it's 103B. Because if you go straight, you go
into Welcome to the Jungle on 106, but if you
turn right, you go on 103B. That's definitely
where we were at. And then... Um, so we were
camping right there in a little clearing that
they made for us. Honestly, it was a beautiful
campsite, um, mountainy, so not perfectly level,
but you don't really want that in the mountains.
Cause then when it rains, all the water sits,
which even though they had lots of drainage,
I will tell you, it got very muddy. Yes. Um,
Oh, we actually did a trail before that night.
Forgot about that because we went up the hill.
That's where I was just getting to. Yep. So then
we went up. After getting camp set up, we decided
to go explore a little bit. And right off of
camp, there's a trail called 103B. It's the same
trail camp is on, but it continues up the mountain
a little bit. So we follow that up, and mind
you, this is our first experience of trails at
Leatherwood, right? It was like straight up.
It's a blue trail. It was like straight up, straight
up the hill on a ridge where you're looking down
over like a 4 ,000 -foot drop -off, and you're
just making these super tight turns where your
tire is on the edge of the trail the whole way.
Yeah. Wild. Yeah, it was very wild. We come around
a corner, and we come up to 103E. Now, 103E is
only special and worth being brought up because
it was like an 86 -degree angle, like literally
straight up the mountain. And the backside of
it, right, so you turn off a 103. And 103, directly
to your right, is a 4 ,000 -foot drop -off. You
turn to your left, and it's immediately like
an 86 -degree angle. Yep. I don't know who the
hell can go up this trail because it is just
straight up with a drop -off right behind you.
Yep. Those are the black ones, right? The black
diamonds? Well, that one was a double red, but...
Oh, I must be thinking of the other one. I'm
thinking the part where there was two black diamonds
and we went down the rest of the main trail.
Yeah, that one is 103C and 103B. But yeah, I
backed up 103C. It's marked a black trail. Not
on Onyx, but at their site. A lot of the trails
are not marked by Onyx, which is kind of annoying.
Yeah, and not marked properly. Correct. So I
backed up 103C to get out of the way, and honestly,
it's marked a black trail. I did it backwards.
It wasn't a problem. And then we finished out
down 102 and just kind of took the main trail
back to camp because Mark's truck was getting
warm. That wasn't warm yet. Yeah, you were. No.
That was the main reason we went back. Your truck
was starting to get warm. You were well past
the middle point. Not that day. Or was it Duncan's
truck? No, it was your truck. I didn't have overheat
until the next day. Whatever. Mark's truck overheated
a lot. Duncan's truck overheated a lot. I'm not
going to try and distinguish whose was whose.
Someone's truck got hot. There you go. I think
we just went back to camp, but whatever. No,
someone's truck got warm because I wanted to
keep going, and we had to go back so that someone
could figure out why their truck was warm. Doesn't
matter. Oh, no, we burped Duncan. Okay. So then
we get back to camp, and we burped whatever truck
was warm. I'm not distinguishing anymore. We
burped whatever truck was warm, and we just kind
of chilled after that because we realized we
might be in over our head. However, I wasn't
ready to be done. So we ate dinner, and we went
back out, and we took... Oh, this was the only
day you really wheeled, isn't it? Yes. That's
why I said I didn't have overheating the first
day. I was just going into camp. I had issues.
So we took, I don't even remember what trail
we took. Let me figure that out real quick. Do,
do, do, do, do. We took a trail, whichever one
it was. I want to say 105, but I might be wrong.
Yeah, yeah, because 105B was the easy trail.
You're right. So we went down to 105, and we
took 105 around, and then there's a short section
of 105, and then it becomes 105B. Now, 105B is
marked green, and we had decided to stick on
green trails just to kind of get a feel for the
park. So we get up to 105B, and it is just a
straight. wet clay muddy hill like there's no
no other way to put it like it was wild i drove
right up it i had no issue neither mark or duncan
could get their trucks to go up this hill yeah
no idea why so they backed down and they continued
on 105 and i continued on 105b because i saw
that they meet up farther remind you 105b is
marked green 105 is marked blue 105 should be
marked green, and 105B should be marked blue.
I went up probably six or seven more muddy, clay,
messy hills before I came down. I was going to
say, was this based off Onyx or no? Yeah, I'm
basing it off Onyx. Yep. Which even there, the
trail was marked green on the sign. I thought
it was blue. No, they got those two backwards.
So then I come down the hill, meet back up with
them, and we followed around 105, which turns
into 104, I believe. And that was an awesome,
awesome freaking trail. Yes. Then we went back
to camp and, you know, sat around the fire for
a little bit. No, we didn't even sit around a
fire. We sat around and then went to bed. Yep.
All right. So now, Mark, you can talk about day
number two so that I don't mess up when your
truck overheated. Day number two, we had our
driver's meeting first thing in the morning,
which was not needed. Yeah. And they came around
at like 8 .30 on a freaking minibike. Wake up.
Everybody needs to get up. So we distinguished
who was going what groups, which was hards, medium
to hards, and easy. There was like two medium
to hard groups, one easy group, and then one
hard group, which was mostly the Jeeps. And let's
be honest, the hard group and our medium hard
group did the exact same freaking trails. Oh,
100%. Same exact trails. And unfortunately, the
easy group also did the same trails that day.
Not all the same trails, because they didn't
do any blacks. We did some blacks. Okay, sorry.
The first day, the only ones that didn't was
part of the main group that went out there and
got stuck later, which we'll explain more later,
was the other medium hard group, because they
never touched that trail that day. Yeah. Everyone
else did. But we decided to go back, do the same
trail we did the night before. We actually ended
up going down a different route the first time,
and we managed to loop back to the actual route.
We had us guys, the botches, and then we had,
what was the jeep? The orange jeep. Chris Ironside.
Yep, that's right. He's really cool, his family.
Oh, he is. He went with the cryptid hunt. He's
the one that actually stayed all weekend with
us. Yep. So we went back, tackled that hill.
I got it up that time. And then after getting
up and we're still climbing more hills, I started
having more heating issues. Yeah, okay, that's
where it's happened. Yep. So eventually... I'll
let you take over now. So we take Mark back to
camp. And what did we do first? Did we try burping
your truck? Yes. Yeah, because you bent your
license plate on the hill. I'm a true off -roader
now. We tried burping Mark's truck, and it didn't
really... It let some air out, but nothing crazy.
And we hadn't done anything with it, so it didn't
make sense that it needed burped. Yeah. So...
I mean, the only thing was that I added coolant
the week before. Yeah, but that's not going to
make it so it needs burped. No. So then we got
headed out and we went out to the main road,
which we were going to take, which is Kentucky
Highway 699. Yep. And we got on the highway and
we made it, I don't know, like not even out of
Leatherwood yet. And Mark started complaining
about his truck getting warm. Yep. At that point,
I wasn't going to ruin everyone else's wheeling
trip just to figure out Mark's problem. So I
was like, Mark, can you make it back to camp?
Can you do this on your own? And I sent him back.
Yep. I feel bad because I didn't know what we
were about to get into. Yeah. What did you guys
do at camp? Let's let you do that, and then I'll
get into the rest. We'll do that real quick.
So I spent most of the day trying to diagnose
what could be wrong. We went from thermostat.
Oh, I think that was the other thing. Did we
remove my thermostat that day or was it the following
day? That was the next day. Okay. I was trying
to remember. Yeah, you're right. So we were going
through the list of what could be wrong. Worst
case was a head gasket, which I really hope it
wasn't. We got to tearing down and realized that
my back of my radiator was packed full of mud
for over the last year. It was just coated like
almost two inches off the actual radiator. That's
how badly coated it was. Holy shit, dude. Yeah.
Didn't know about a radiator. Not the backside
where the fan shroud is. The shroud covers it.
Yeah. Oh, shit, dude. Yeah. So we spent. Almost
two hours, because it's like an hour drive to
get to the nearest town that has a car wash,
which was another fiasco. Spent forever trying
to find a car wash that actually worked or had
a wand. Got that figured out. Not overheating
the entire time getting there. Washed it out,
went back, didn't have any issues. I was like,
oh, I fixed my issue. It was just packed full
and might have had to get clean. We got back
and found the rest of them. Chilling at camp.
And then they told me about their experience
for the day. Yeah. So we had been told to take
Trail 232 at a certain time, which is roughly
the time that we were headed out that way. So
we went out to Trail 232. Now, 232 is supposed
to be just a green trail. Yeah. So, 232 was a
green trail. Actually, Derek told us if we wanted
it to be a little harder to take 232 into 233
instead of turning at 233. Okay, that's good
advice, right? So, we take 232. There's some
hill climbs, nothing crazy. We get up to the
top of the world, which is drop -dead gorgeous.
Like, it's their top of the world, not the real
top of the world. So, like, not that pretty,
but. Mm -hmm. Still really pretty. And coming
out of Top of the World is a very long hill climb.
Very long. We went down it. So we go down the
hill climb and come up to a set of stairs. We
go down the stairs. I turn around, go back up
the stairs, and then go down the stairs again.
They were beautiful. We continue on, and roughly...
I'd say almost at the halfway point of the trail,
we run into the easy group who mind you was supposed
to be done with this loop already. They were
not supposed to be there anymore. So we run into
them and we got, it's one lane. There's no way
off the road. So we fiascoed and figured out
a way to get them past us and talk to Derek a
little bit. And he's like, man, we've been through
like six tires, like. It's a mess down there.
Good luck. It's really hard. And, you know, we're
not scared. It sounds fun to us. But he had 15
trucks, none of which, I mean, they were overlanders.
They're not wheelers. They're not built for it.
Yep. Yeah, I think that's the first disclaimer
that you want to put out there. This is the easy
group, which means they're not set up to do what
Alex and Mark can do. disclaimer before alex
tells you this path was easy and then he had
no issues it was easy that's what i'm saying
to degree and then overweighted yeah so like
one of them had an alumicab with a built -in
rooftop tent like mitchell mcpherson media yeah
yeah so i mean rigs that do not belong in tight
quarters do not belong on rocks yeah and when
we ran into him i'm like hey derrick you guys
should turn around. Like you're not going to
make it if you keep going. And he's like, oh,
it can't be that bad. You have no idea what you're
getting into. And I'm like, fair enough, you
know? And so we continue on. And now at this
point, we kind of, you know, they've gone past
us and they've got, they probably had less than
we did to do at this point. I think they only
had like a mile of trail left or so. Like it
wasn't much. So we continue on and we drop down
into the creek, which, by the way, absolutely
beautiful. We drove through a creek for like
two miles. It was. Yeah. Oh, my God. I've seen
some videos of that when Derek was researching.
It looks gorgeous. Can't even put into words
how pretty this place was. And as we're going
through this creek, I realized they could not
have turned around because they went down. a
bunch of wet stairs. They went down wet waterfalls.
They went down all the stuff that we were going
up and it was no problem for us, but these guys
had no clearance. Like the best route out of
that was to go up the hill climb. That was hard.
So we, uh, you know, we're playing in the Creek
a little bit and all of a sudden it gets pitch
black, like cannot see, had to turn lights on
pitch black. And at this point we run into the
jeeps and we're like man a cloud must have went
over the sun or something like this is wild remember
we're in a creek in the bottom of a mountain
valley yeah yeah so we're talking to the jeeps
we're standing outside the trucks and all of
a sudden we hear a loud crack boom as a tree
comes running down the mountain directly at us
like We were in a terrible spot as a thunderstorm
hit. Yeah. So instead of hanging out and playing
in the creek, which I could have done for hours,
man, it was, it was beautiful. We start making
our way out and a really funny moment. We come
up to a waterfall and there's all these Jeeps
parked in my way. And they're all, like, having
a little bit of trouble getting up this waterfall,
you know, and down it. And I just yell out my
window, if all these jeeps could get out of my
fucking way, I'd get out of this creek. I just
drove up it without a problem. It's just, like,
I hope someone got it on video because it was
just so perfect. The whole scene was so funny.
Yeah. So we meander through this creek, and then
we come up to, at this point, we thought that
there had been trees that fell down behind the
jeeps blocking their way through the creek. And
we kind of, you know, we drove over them, worked
our way through them, and it was tight, but we
got through it. Well, come to find out, all those
trees had been there the whole time, and everyone
else went around them. So we went through a harder,
like, quarter mile of creek than no one else
had been through that day. Yeah. So, I mean,
it was beautiful, man. We're talking stairs that
are better than Marblehead with water running
over them. Right. Really hard wheeling in that
section. The rest of the creek was just meh.
It was pretty. That was about it. Right. So then
we get out of the creek. There's a couple more
little hill climbs. Nothing crazy. And we come
around to where 233 meets back up with 232. They're
a drive, like a loop trail, you know? And I was
expecting to at least see some Jeeps there, you
know? Some Jeeps, maybe the other, the easy group,
something. There's nobody. At this point, Duncan
announces that his truck is overheating and is
at 230, like 236. So we kind of stop. We let
his truck cool down for a little bit. Probably
20 minutes of that. Then we got back on the trail,
continued back to camp. And again, I'm expecting
for all the other groups to be done, right? So
we get back to camp around 5. We left around
2 .30. So what's that, three hours, two and a
half hours, somewhere in there? Yeah. Then Mark
and Alan show up. And then we wait another six
hours for the rest of the groups to come back.
Yeah. They had ran out of gas. They had to winch
almost all of these overland built rigs up that
hill climb because none of them could do it.
Well, yeah, I was just saying. And then plus
with the thunderstorm and the rain hitting, that
probably didn't help for a muddy clay hill climb
that was already hard to begin with. That one
wasn't muddy and clay. That one was just straight
rock. That one wouldn't have been bad with the
thunderstorm. And most of that thunderstorm was
under their elevation point. Gotcha. Just say
because, yeah, that would have been even worse
at that point. So it wasn't that the hill climb
was hard. It's just that they're not built for
it. They're built for like a Sunday drive down
a forest road and go camping. That's it. Which
that's fine. That's awesome. That's a fun time.
You're kind of underselling some of these vehicles.
I mean, not all of them. They're just not built
as stoutly as yours is for doing. bigger bigger
stuff you know man and then i think some of it's
an experience issue the majority of these rigs
that were in the the easy group they're maybe
an inch of lift they might have a rear locker
maybe um and yeah there's an experience part
to it too but the big thing is they're overloaded
to hell i had nothing in my truck right my truck
was the weight of a forerunner That's what I'm
saying. I'm not saying that they're not impressive
rigs. They're not well built. None of that. No,
it was just the way it was like, they're not
built for off -road. They're built for certain
applications off -road. They're just not built
for crawling like you do. They're not built for
this terrain. That's better. It's just the way
it's said it. It's how it's said. They're built
for a standard. forest road in the daniel boone
national forest which in michigan is like a blue
trail so it's not like here where a forest road
is nice and flat a forest road there is a hard
trail here and that's more what they're built
for which is fine i mean their trucks are cool
and awesome But Derek took them into the worst
place he could have. Like, they were so out of
their depth. Well, I mean, he had no way of scouting
it before either. No, he didn't. So, I mean,
everyone went into these trails blind. I think
it's funny. Oh, so we had this one group of ladies
show up. I'm not going to release names or even
what they were driving. But I will tell you that
they had the most capable vehicle for the terrain
in that group. Like, very much so. But the driver
of that vehicle had to pull over and cry several
times because she was so overwhelmed with what
was going on. Yeah. And they actually packed
up and went home that day. Yeah. You'll have
to tell me who it was off air. They didn't stick
around for the rest of the week. Yeah. So, and
it was funny. She's like, I've done a whole bunch
of trips in Tennessee and this is so much worse.
Yeah. So it was funny. Not funny. It was funny.
Let's be honest. I didn't like him. So it was
funny. But yeah, dude, it was, it's a beautiful
trail. The 232 to 233 loop. If you've got a vehicle
that can do it comfortably, you should do it.
I'm not going to recommend. a Tacoma with an
Alua cab on it because that's way too much for
this trail. Yeah. I don't... Was his four -wheel?
Couldn't remember. Yeah. Yeah. All of them were
four -wheel drive. Yeah. I couldn't remember.
Oh, you know who it was? It was... What's the
girl that's got the Tacoma? I forget. J .D.?
J .D.'s is four -wheel drive. I thought she said
hers was two -wheel because it was an SR5 or
something. No, ours is a four -wheel. Ours is
a four -wheel, too. Mm -hmm. Someone, I'll have
to double -check, but someone... I think Becker's
the only one with a four -wheel. It's actually
two -wheel drive right now. Yeah. Yeah, I'll
have to double -check, because someone only had
two -wheel drive that had a Tacoma, but it was
pretty built. The trail that took us, like, two
and a half, three hours took the Easy Group and
the Jeeps. The Jeep's probably about six and
a half hours because they got stuck behind the
other group. The other group, it took them 12
hours. And that, my friends, is why I don't wheel
with 15 people most of the time. Beginners. Even
so, I would hate a group of 15 trucks. That's
just too much. Not all of them were beginners.
No, not at all. Now, that being said, I don't
think anyone in that group had any experience
in mountains. I think that a lot of people came
into this trip and just kind of jumped in without
expecting it to actually be harder. Well, I mean,
again, it was an easy trail. So what do you,
from your experience, you know, as someone who
off roads in Michigan, going on an easy trail
is just that easy. So you have the, you don't
have the experience. So Mark, you're saying there.
experienced but they're experienced in michigan
they're not experienced in other places so and
then that's why you know overloaded vehicles
that's why going into this trip me and brian
had several times told people you know expect
the green trails to be closer to a michigan blue
or black because green to them is hard to most
of michigan no To me, there was nothing that
we did on a blue or a green trail was really
all that hard. No. But I have the experience.
I've done it before. Right. That's what I'm saying.
It's hard hearing this in the way because I know
Alex has a shitload of experience in places that
aren't Michigan. So it's like I hope people understand
that he's not like shitting on you. The way that
he's talking, he's just trying to explain the
situation that it's not. It wasn't what people
thought it was going to be. They didn't have
quite the right experience and they weren't ready
for things how they were. I'm not shitting on
anybody. Yeah, I just I just want people to make
sure that and understand that. Yeah, it can sound
like that when you're trying to explain the facts.
It can it can. Right. Alex has a way of making
it almost sound like that, but he's not. trying
to no he's just explaining the facts you know
the the fact was is that there were people that
had no experience in this kind of terrain in
this state they were overloaded and they weren't
built for this type of terrain and that ended
up in the downfall not that they weren't built
i mean right like i'll pick on mitchell a little
bit because i know he's got a backbone and he
listens mitchell's truck is incredible yeah And
I don't think that Mitchell had too many issues
in that situation, but those trails were so tight
that I guarantee you he was scraping the hell
out of that Alouette cab. Yeah. He was looking
for an easy trail, and so he went with the easy
route, but I don't think that was quite the trail
he was expecting to be on, especially after Rebecca.
I think at the end of the day, the main issue
is that... Maybe some of the main group should
have had a day to get there before everyone else
and should have scouted these trails to decide.
But the other issue is that... Derek should have
sent an actual higher group to the trail he wanted
to do before he went to it. Because he took the
easy group out there before anyone else had been
there. Okay. Yeah. And then the other half of
this is that a lot of people are going off of
Onyx and what Leatherwood says, and that was
proven not to really be true already from what
Alex has said. So they didn't have accurate trail
readings to tell the conditions, which is probably
the biggest issue. I think if Derek or anybody
else who was trying to make sure this was an
easy time, if they had known that the trails
weren't accurate. And that would have caused
them to maybe think about scouting or to send
someone up there. But when you look at, again,
the experience on Onyx for us in Michigan, green
is green, blue is blue for the most part. And
in Leatherwood, that just wasn't really the case.
I mean, it's hard with Onyx because people can
take it in a complete, fully built Jeep, you
know, and take it and go, oh, that was easy.
And again, in Kentucky, the trails are a different
level. So for that Jeep who has experience in
it saying that's easy, it's going to be a whole
lot different from an out -of -stater and typical
use to green trails in Michigan. So that's kind
of a major issue Onyx has in general when you're
looking at their trails. And really, it's just
trail ratings in general everywhere are like
that. It doesn't matter if it's Onyx. It doesn't
matter what it is because if I do a trail here
in Michigan, I have to really think about what
I want to market as because, to me, they're all
green. Right. We've never gone down a trail here
that I would consider even a 5 out of 10, you
know? Yeah. I mean, there have been situations
where it's a little bit more, but the overall
trail rating, you can't do it off of a 10 -foot
section. You can't rate a blue off of a 10 -foot
section. And if you know how I wheel in Michigan,
I go out of my way to make things harder for
myself. I might do a hill climb in two -wheel
drive, not because I need to, but because I'm
bored and I want to try it. Right. So I've gotten
myself in situations in Michigan, but nine times
out of ten, it's because I'm messing around because
I can. Yep. Down there, I will tell you, I picked
the easiest lines I could. Like, I was not looking
for hard lines this trip. Yeah, of course, you
have to drive back, too. Right. And I knew that
the wheeling down there was going to be way harder
than what we deal with here. And that definitely,
I'm going back. It was some of the best wheeling
I've ever had. Do you think I could have got
through most of that, too? You actually stuck
to green and not. I wouldn't say. I'm not sure
about the other. That would be his question for
that one. But I'd say most of the greens you
could have gone through. I think that you could
have kept up with me if you had a driver mod.
Your truck could have kept up with me. But you
would need a lot of warming up to some of the
stuff we did to have the experience to know what
to do. Not that you're a bad driver. No, I know
what you're saying. You're a great driver. but
there was stuff that we did that you would have
had to done before and know how to do it to be
able to do it. Yeah, no, I'm fully aware of that.
I mean, I have, for Michigan, I have good enough
experience in Michigan that I can handle just
about anything now. Now, a year ago, I would
have puckered up on some of the off -camber things
now that I just drive right through without thinking
about it anymore. An off -camber here in Michigan
is not off -camber. Right, right. It's just more
so people understand, though. So, I mean, I completely
understand that driver experience is probably
the biggest. I mean, you can have a darn near
stock vehicle, and if you have plenty of experience,
you can pick the right line and get through some
things better than others. But that's been proven
by people with darn near stock. Lexuses that
have been in our group that have taken better
lines than my truck. And then me almost, you
know, sliding down a hill or something. And like
I said, your truck in general, man, it would
have done great out there. The way it is now.
Maybe take some stuff off your roof. That'd probably
be my only recommendation. I mean, as long as
it's pushing branches, I don't care. I can push
the antenna back. Let me put it this way. So
you know how I used to have a roof rack on my
truck? Ice factory roof rack? Oh, yeah. I don't
anymore. Yeah. Because of the branches. Yeah.
It's not a matter of you can push branches out
of the way. If you've got stuff on the roof and
you're wheeling like we were, you're going to
break it. Yeah. I'm still confused why you didn't
go around that branch. Everyone else did. Because
I thought I fit under it. Everyone else went
around it because they saw me break it. Yeah.
No, I hit a branch on that Graylings shakedown
camp. I say branch. It was a tree that fell over
the trail, but not all the way. This was his
too. Yeah, and this was a five -inch tree. And
I hit that, and you could hear it go. And I'm
like, oh, shit. I don't want to admit that I
hit, like, a 10 -inch branch off a much larger
tree that fell. But this tree was significantly
larger. Yeah. Like, it was, the branch was about
yay big or out. Yeah, okay, anything on your
roof isn't going to stay if you hit a fucking
tree like that. And there were a lot of those.
That's why I said you should take the stuff off
your roof. Could you have navigated around it?
That particular instance, yes. There were other
times when I couldn't have. Because that's important
too. In that particular instance, I could have.
Yeah, I mean, overall. Overall, the wheeling
down there, I'm not going to say it's hard because
it's not hard. You just need the experience for
it to not be hard. Yep. Yeah. I would put. I
can think of places in Arizona, I can think of
places in Sierra Vista alone that to the guys
there at Leatherwood, it would be like a triple
red. Right. Like almost impassable. I think when
you speak about the trails, because you're so
used to it, you have to speak more objectively
about this. Because like when you say they're
not hard. We have listeners that are like, well,
maybe I should go to Leatherwood next year. Maybe
I should try this. And then they get there and
they're like, yeah, this is nothing compared
to what he was saying. They are hard. They're
just not hard for Alex. If you have the experience.
Yeah, exactly. Now, these are the hardest trails
I've ever done in an IFS rig. And I'll tell you
right now, I miss my solid axle. That sucked.
There you go. If it was solid axle, dude, I'd
have been crawling over all of it without giving
a fine fuck. I don't know. I got a pretty good
experience now. I play Mud Runner Expeditions.
I think I could probably handle it. But overall,
Leatherwood is beautiful. There's nothing in
Michigan that compares to the beauty that you
experience down there. Yeah. I mean, what about
the Western UP? Is anything up there? The Western
UP is beautiful and one of my favorite places
on Earth. It's not as pretty. Okay, let me rephrase
that. I'm accounting for trail difficulty in
my statement here. Oh, okay. See, I'm just talking
about views and just scenery. Leatherwood is
still prettier, but not near as much prettier
as it is when you account for trail difficulty.
Yeah. I'm excited. I would love to try this fall
-ish to go to... where we were talking about
earlier down in Ohio. What is it? The hill, Hocking
Hills. Yeah. It looks like it's going to be kind
of the similar type of terrain. Probably not
as hard, but. It looks like it's going to be
a cakewalk compared to Leatherwood. Look, I can't,
because of how cameras make everything look so
much more flat, I can't put into words how. not
flat this place was oh yeah built to not be easy
either as as it being a park which is nice well
and it's not all that a lot of the road the more
difficult stuff that we were dealing with it
wasn't even park built trails it was service
trails for like pipelines and stuff yeah i mean
that was hard what was the What was the hardest
type of terrain? Was it the rock, the shelves?
I mean, as far as clearance and getting through
it. I mean, you're talking the clearance in general.
Clay. Yeah. Clay was the hardest. Well, then
that's where MTs would probably do much better,
being able to shed that clay or what. I don't
think so because it's clay on like a 45 to 70
degree angle. It doesn't matter or what? No,
you're going to slide. I almost think all terrains
would be better because there's more surface
area. Sure. But there's also more surface area.
You're more likely to slide. Yeah. It was just
slick. Once it got wet, dude. Gavin, the first
night when I was trying to tip the hill climb,
I had my brakes locked, and all of a sudden I
realized my truck was going backwards in drive
and brakes locked. Right. That's how clay it
was. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was fun. I want to go
back. I kind of want to move there. I'm kind
of looking for jobs down there. Yeah. Is it safe
to say you fell in love with that type of terrain
and area? It was nice because it was the difficulty
I remember from Arizona, but it was green. I
don't know. Because I like Arizona desert too.
It'd be kind of nice to live like an hour from
Leatherwood and be able to just go every weekend.
Right. Yeah, just pay for the yearly pass. Yep.
Now, all that being said, I have recently learned
about a trail up in the northwestern UP called
Colorado Rapids. Oh, yep. It is not on any map.
Mm -hmm. And I may or may not have acquired some
coordinates for it. And I do plan on going to
do it because it looks like some of the best
wheeling you can do in Michigan. Yeah, I've seen
some stuff on that. I had someone message me
who we won't be giving names because this is
not a trail for everyone, but this is one of
those hidden gems that stay hidden. Yep. For
a reason. So, yeah, I was looking at that too.
I was hoping to be able to get up and do the
Western. michigan up exploration but if that
doesn't happen i might try that somewhere some
other time yeah i i don't know man i love michigan
i love michigan trails i understand they're not
all that hard because guess what they're not
but it's something about wheeling in michigan
is special to me so it's hard for me to just
say you know fuck michigan trails and go do something
else because The big thing in Michigan, you know,
it's mostly mud. So I don't know. I was going
to say the hardest parts in Michigan are the
ruts, the mud ruts. There's off -camber stuff,
not super bad. I mean, there's nothing really
bad at all, but the rock isn't bad until you
get into UP, and then it's still not bad. It's
just more. So it's just the ruts that the...
And for me, as someone who doesn't like trashing
my rig on purpose, to go through those mud pits
that some guy in a $800 XJ went through and just
trashed it, I would bury my frame. I'd just sit
right there and turtle on the frame because of
that. So it's not worth the issue. Other than
that, Michigan trails are beautiful. They're
just not hard. Yeah. And another thing to think
about is I was reminded how much better wheeling
with a manual is when we were there. Now in Michigan,
I would say an automatic is way better because
you just put it in drive and go. But if I had
had a manual this over the weekend, it would
have been so nice. Just throw it in four low,
throw it in two, and just let it walk down the
hill. Yep. And because, I mean, I can go to four
low one or four low two on the 4Runner, but it's
not the same level of control as what you get
with a manual. Yeah, because you can let off
and on the clutch. Right. Right. And not just
that. I mean, you've got more gearing that you
can choose from in a manual than what you do
in an automatic. Yeah, I'm assuming you're referring
to Chris because I believe his Wrangler's manual.
Yeah. Because he accidentally stalled on one
of the hill climbs we were doing. He did with
us, too. I was like, you good? Because I thought
he was slipping. It was one of the steeper hill
climbs. I mentioned it before. And he was like,
oh, yeah, yeah, just got to. And then he popped
right back in and came up. Just got to put it
in four -wheel drive. I wasn't necessarily talking
about Chris, but I'm definitely jealous of Chris
because I'll tell you that my break suffered
this weekend. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Chris has
got a really nice setup. Did he take his wife
too? Oh, yeah. She is freaking awesome. Yeah,
she is. She gave us biscuits and gravy, the MRE,
the dehydrated meals. She gave us them because
she hates them. And I was like, I've never been
so lucky because that's like our favorite breakfast.
So I will kind of off topic, very off topic.
So I'm looking at the Onyx in Michigan. Why do
they have Yankee Springs marked as a blue trail?
Maybe, well, they don't, whoever drove did. That's
the issue. It's like, that's what I'm saying,
right? Like to me, that's like a one out of 10,
like one of the easiest trails you can do. And
they have it marked as a four. Oh, my God. Yeah.
Because of deep water crossings. There are no
deep water crossings. There must have been in
the spring or something. I mean, yeah, I don't
know. But, you know, that's the problem with
the whole. the whole trail rating thing in general
it's it's so objective that you don't know yep
yeah i mean onyx is and this is not to scare
you from onyx onyx is an amazing tool but it's
it's also not the whole tool in your toolbox
right i mean like there there are other things
that you should utilize there are other ways
that you should check these trails out if you've
never been to them and if this starts getting
too choppy then play it safe dude Your pride
isn't so important that you need to break your
rig to try to get through something that you're
not comfortable getting through. I think Leatherwood
themselves marked the trail properly. It's just
Onyx went through with Ambassadors and they decided
it was a totally different rating from what they
thought. Yeah, and that's the issue. You get
a Jeep on 42s that can pretty much do everything
in Michigan two -wheel drive. Yeah, it's all
green, and if they can just crawl through. I
mean, there might be a user from Leatherwood
who is also one of the Onyx members who's been
on that trail 80 fucking times and goes, yeah,
this is easy as hell, rates it as that, doesn't
think twice about it, and then someone comes
in out of state and goes, holy shit. Or it could
have been a guy on a side -by -side. They tend
to have more clearance. I mean, they don't have
bigger tires, but they tend to have more clearance.
They can get through some of these obstacles
a little better. I think to fix this problem,
what Onyx really needs to do is the people that
set the trail ratings all need to drive a similar
rig. Just for shits and giggles, let's say a
bone stock, not modified at all, Wrangler JK.
I think, okay, and to best of both worlds there,
I think there should be a description and a list
of mods of popular or performance -changing mods
that you have to put under your vehicle. So if
it says, okay, this is a Blue Trail done by a
lifted Jeep with cutout fenders, 42s, and, you
know. off -road tire winch, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, so this is green to him. This might be
blue to me then. That kind of thing. You can
gauge it by what people are driving most of the
time. Like if someone says, hey, this trail's
green, and they show pictures of giant mud ruts,
and they're driving an $800 XJ with the fenders
cut out, you're like, okay, this might not be
a green trail for me then. So, I mean, knowing
the vehicle would be. The help. Yeah, for sure.
We are at one hour. Let's split it here and record
another one that will go into the rest of the
trip. Yep. All right. We'll catch you guys in
the next one. Catch you guys. For us, in like
15 minutes tops. For you guys, it'll be Tuesday,
I hope. Yeah. Life is crazy right now. Right.
So, all right, catch you guys later. Later. Well,
that was part one. I hope you enjoyed your Dice
Thursday episode that you definitely got on Thursday
and was not released on, at this point, Wednesday
with the other one. Man, I'm way behind on this.
But anyways, coming up is part two. If you want
to go get a drink or... take a poop or take a
break this would be the time to do it just hit
pause go do your thing i will get that going
right now welcome to botches off road join us
as we talk about everything from gear reviews
to trail stories i'm going to interrupt the intro
right here this is the uh i'm not doing the whole
thing for part two screw that yeah and he's coughing
Yeah, so this is part two for Leatherwood Adventure.
I'm sorry if I got loud and echoey. I'm very
excited. It was a great trip. And I'm a little
drunk. Still loud and echoey, still. Ah, you
know. I'm also a little drunk, so that's going
to happen. Drunk and rowdy. It has been a week,
my friend. I've been back for two days, and I'll
tell you I'm ready to go back. So, what day are
we at? Saturday. Saturday. Did we make it? We
made it through Friday? Yes. Yeah. Oh, okay.
We didn't talk about Derek coming back to camp
and how he was looking for stuff. What was he
looking for? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. So, we're
sitting around the fire just kind of chilling,
right? And Chris keeps coming over and saying,
they need gas. They need this. Luckily, there
were enough people down there that they were
able to get themselves out without help because
we were like two hours from making it to them,
and it would have been a whole fiasco. Yep. But
they had everything. They just had to spread
it out amongst everyone in the valley. Yep. I
kind of wish that we had someone, not necessarily
Joe Yamber. I want someone like Ed. Ed would
have been great to have on here to give us his
perspective of that trail. I think we should
have one of them on at a later date just to talk
about their perspective of what happened and
why it happened like that. I just know when we're
sitting around the fire and they came back, there
were a lot of salty people. They had had such
a long day. Yeah, that's rough. I guess there
were people. There were people, like, yelling
at Derek. Like, they were so mad about what was
going on. Oh. Yeah, I mean, that's hard. That's
a hard day. Yeah. It's... Yeah. The tensions
rise. With three to five rigs, you can have a
hard day like that, and everyone's still buddy
-buddy, it was fine. But once you reach that
10 -plus mark... that's a lot of personalities
going through something pretty rough. Not only
that, and it's like one person breaks down, you
stop the whole fucking group. And the more cars
you add, the more probability that someone's
going to break down, get stuck, have to pee,
have to get their dog out to pee, whatever. So
you add all that. Yeah, you add all that with
the people that are just antsy to get out on
the trail, people that are tired of others getting
stuck, people that are tired of getting stuck.
You know, it just, it's perfect storm. So, I
mean, and then again, it takes them another six
hours to get through the trail. So, yeah, I mean,
I would not doubt there was a lot of tired, irritable
people. And I can't imagine, hey, wives, sorry,
but I can't imagine the wives were entirely pleasant
to be with during that time. There was definitely
one guy who none of us had met before. I'm not
going to say what he drives or his name, but
all I heard was that his girlfriend was an absolute
peach the entire trip. Him alone was annoying,
but you add her and it was like next level. Yeah,
I still want to know when you guys would we go
off here. I got to know. I got to know who to
stay away from. That's very interesting. But,
I mean, like, again, like, it happens. So everybody
got to camp. They're super salty. They're tired.
They're probably very hungry. What do we got
next? The rest is kind of a blur because I drank
a lot of beer and got pretty drunk. I think everyone
took a really bad. Were you the rowdy camp again?
Oh, we, I, so when we were, we were some of the
first ones there. And I picked our camp spot
and said, we need to put the kids on the other
end. And then the jeeps got there and took where
we wanted to put the kids. Yeah. Because I knew
that there was no way in hell we were going to
be quiet past 10. I don't think we were that
loud to begin with. We weren't. We were up. You're
just naturally louder when you get excited. As
the listeners can hear. Yeah. But we were up
until 3. Yep. Jesus. Yep. I hit 1 a .m. with
Nolan during kids camp or spring shakedown. And
I was like, all right, we need to go to fucking
bed. So 3 a .m. is just too crazy. But the kid
slept through it. He had such a long day running
around that it was like he could have slept through
fireworks. He was cool. And then now we're on
Saturday. So we went to bed at 3. By the way,
swag, phenomenal purchase. That was some of the
best camping I've ever had because it was just
comfortable. I didn't have to worry about anything.
When it rained, I knew I wasn't getting wet.
You didn't feel the rocks. Yeah, I was right
on rocks and we couldn't feel them. I mean, it
was great. So you spend the money, you do the
research, and you actually might improve your
quality of sleep and camp setup? Crazy. It's
like we've been telling you that. Oh, I knew
that. I just wasn't ready to spend the money.
I finally was there. So it's like it's a revolutionary.
I would say. I would say that sleeping in the
$100 12 -person tent, honestly, way more comfortable
just because I use an inflatable cot. Oh, yeah.
I mean, it usually is. But because of ease of
setup, swag, 100%, best thing I've ever bought.
I think us pivoting from having these giant crates
that fill with everything and then having tents
to something that's way more easier to set up.
throw out has changed how we've been doing stuff
yeah now the packout trailer absolute fucking
game changer man yeah um there were a lot of
breakdowns other than just ours in the mst group
and the trailer just kind of became a hub for
people to come get tools yep we had mario was
realigning his upper control arms Yeah, people
are going to get real salty when I stop putting
the massive amount of tools I have in my truck
because that thing has been the hub for most
people when I'm out and something breaks. It's
easily accessible. There's pretty much everything
you'd need. Grinder, oscillating saw, your impacts,
wrenches, everything. I mean, it's going to be...
You still should definitely carry because the
minute that you don't, you're going to need it.
Yeah, but I don't need the mass amount of standard
sockets and wrenches. Most of what I do is metric.
Stick with metric. We don't even carry. We're
going to start trying to carry our own, but it's
going to be very specific of what we need at
the time and it stays in the rig. Yeah. We don't
carry. We don't carry standard anymore. We just
carry metric. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing
is I can move that down a little bit. Once I
move from my 300 -piece all -around toolkit to
something more compact, that'll probably be it.
I might actually do a packout mount with one
of the... Did you say not to do the pre -built
Milwaukee packout metric sets or to do them?
Do it. Do the pre -built one. Okay. That's what
I was thinking of doing, but I just wanted to
double check with you because we did have a conversation
on this at one point. I tried piecing one together
out of tools that I had, and finding dividers
that actually hold up is basically impossible.
So just spend the money, buy the Milwaukee stuff,
but you don't need the full socket set. No. No.
What I want to do is I want to get down to the
half set up. So, like, they've got the $100 3
-8 drive metric set. I'm going to buy one of
those. I'll probably, for my half -inch drive
set, buy the full half -inch drive. Impact? Impact.
I was going to ask, I mean, if you're, for the
sake of space saving. Would it be better to just
buy all impact instead of chrome because impact
can do both? Yeah. So what I do is in half -inch
drive, I go out of my way to only do impact sockets
if I can. Yeah. In 3 -8ths drive, I do chromely
because I'm not going to run a 3 -8ths impact.
Also, you really should try to get short sockets
and not just have all long ones, which is mostly
impacts. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say,
do they make shorty impact sockets or no? They
do. Actually, Milwaukee has a set for $229. Okay,
yeah. So I think there's a place to mix and match
a little bit. Personally... I'm probably just
going to buy the Milwaukee stuff, and I'm going
to aim to do as many of the half pack outs as
I can because, one, they take up less space in
the truck. Two, if I've got them on the trailer
and you need them, you just grab the half pack
you need. You don't need to carry around a whole
freaking case. Yeah, that's an absolute game
changer right there. I don't have the convenience.
of being able to just grab the whole thing off
of my truck. Right. It is nice I can grab the
whole half -inch tray, but it would be very cool
to grab the whole fucking box off. Right now
they're hard -mounted, so it's not as easy. That's
kind of the point in going to Milwaukee is to
be able to spread our tools out. Like right now,
we don't have all the Milwaukee boxes we need,
so we've got a chest full of tools. Well, that
chest full of tools could easily be split. Into
10 of the smaller pack -out boxes, and then you
just grab what you need. Oh, you need ball joint
press? Grab the ball joint press pack -out box.
Yep. Because the goal is to not have to unload
the trailer 100 % every time we need something.
Oh, yeah. I've been thinking about slowly switching
my Pelican. my Pelicans out for plates and doing
Milwaukee, but only the shorter. So again, we
want to keep the, I want to keep the same amount
of clearance around the same size box as the
one I had before, but that's just about as expensive
as buying a brand new Pelican too. So it's kind
of, I don't need it. It's just a convenience
thing. The thing with the packouts are they are
expensive. I'm not going to sit here and tell
you they're cheap because they're fucking not.
No. But the convenience factor with a packout,
there's nothing on the market that matches them
in convenience factor. Yeah, it's the mounting
is the most. I think that's the biggest player
in it, to be honest. It is, 100%. It's the mounting.
It's not the quality of the box itself. There
are others that have similar quality. It's the
fact that you can buy aftermarket packout plates
and mount them literally anywhere. So roofs,
you can mount them vertically. You can mount
them underneath your truck if you really wanted
to. I mean, put them in this entire area. Yeah.
I'm getting ready to build a Prince's style rack
for my truck. And when I do that, I'm going to
have somebody cut me a big sheet of, instead
of having slats that go between everything, I'm
just going to have someone cut me a big sheet
of aluminum with packout mounts lining the entire
thing. Yeah, I was going to say, if you had them
cut out a sheet as wide as your rack, as long
as your rack. and literally made it all pack
out cutouts that's my plan yeah i mean you probably
have to still have supports in there but if you
had all of the mounts on this you know on each
side of your truck already spaced properly you
just i think the only well i guess it wouldn't
matter what size box because i was going to say
that what would matter would be the spacing on
your box but they all put them in pretty much
the same places I'd space them for the biggest
box and that would be it. Biggest box and the
metal sides because that's the widest. Yeah,
I would have it set up specifically to fit the
biggest packout box and then anything would fit
after that. And by doing that, I'm not going
to have packouts on there all the time. No. Because
when I throw my 10 up there, I'm not going to
have packouts up there as much. But it would
be so convenient. Like, the packouts that are
the size of our individual packout setups, I
would just slap that up there. Yep. I could line
my entire truck with everything I need right
there, tools, whatever. And if we're not taking
the trailer, I can now take whatever tools we
should have with us and put them up there off
the trailer. Yep. But then if we are taking the
trailer, we can just put them on the trailer.
Mm -hmm. So, really. Our trailer, for anyone
who doesn't know, it's not necessarily a crazy
overland built trailer. It's literally just a
flat trailer with packout mounts. Yep. So that
we can put whatever we need to on it. Mm -hmm.
And I kind of just want to follow that through
with the truck. I mean, the back is already pretty
much all packout mounts. Yeah. We're on Saturday,
right? Yes, we're on Saturday now. Okay. Sorry
for the rant. Packouts are amazing, even though
they're expensive as piss. And trend is definitely
taking off in most of our groups. I saw a lot
of packouts, both on other non -MST trucks and
MST trucks this weekend. It's taken off. You
know, the one thing, I get Milwaukee's color
scheme. The one thing that if I could change
it would be that they offered pack outs in different
colors. I would love the black ones from the
UK. The black pack outs. I will spray paint every
one of my pack outs if I use them. Probably every
pack out on our trailer is going to get painted.
I hate red. Yeah, me too. It is. Oh, it is ugly.
But the box itself, everything it gives us is
worth it. Yep. So, we're on Saturday, though.
Yep. Saturday, we woke up. We were kind of moving
slow. We had made arrangements. My wife became
really good friends with Busted to Built's wife,
Megan. So, we kind of, they made plans for us
to go find horses. Because. You got to remember.
Early Saturday morning, what you and me had to
do before we even hit the trail. Oh, right. I
was missing a shock bushing, so we had to go
into town and buy a shock for my truck, which
I took the bushing off of and then returned the
shock. So I got a free bushing. Don't do that.
It's bad. I'm basically a thief. Basically a
thief. Basically, he says. The clear definition
isn't there. So. We fixed my shock bushing. I
say fixed. It's not fixed. It's just usable now.
I got to buy Icon bushings because they're way
beefier. So then, oh, then while we were in town,
I got a text from my boss that my birds tested
positive for MG. MG is a step down from AI in.
spreadability and at this point we didn't know
if it had left the other barn yet but if it had
left the other barn at this point their plan
was to depop my farm and kill all my birds that
would have made my next like probably six months
absolute fucking hell for anybody who doesn't
know ai is anal influenza Yes. I'm sorry. It's
avian influenza. Sorry. But just so anybody knows,
because he's speaking like we know chicken terms.
Right. And I cannot pronounce the actual name
for MG, so I'm not even going to attempt it.
Look it up. Look up MG and turkeys. It's really
bad. Machine guns. So we... At this point, we
didn't know if it had jumped, but if it had,
they planned on killing all the birds. I'm not
going to get into what happened in the last couple
of days, but I mean, I'm not going to get into
it later, so I'll just do it now. We're not killing
all the birds, but all of them have MG. It is
treatable, but we're just going to skip a flock
cycle and clean out every barn as we go and treat
it to kill the MG before it spreads to new birds.
Yep. It's not going to be convenient, but it's
way better than killing everything. I mean, I've
got right now probably, I think it's like 20
million or something like that in inventory.
I say inventory, it's livestock. I've got a lot
of birds. Yep. So we're not killing them. Thank
God. You have 20 million in those barns? Price
-wise, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's what
I was. Yeah. I'm like, there's no way you have
20 million birds in there. Yeah. You're exaggerating
a tad. If we had killed all the birds by the
time we were back to regular, um, production,
it would have been about $20 million in losses.
So. It's not even necessarily that I have $20
million worth of birds on the farm right now.
It's just by the time that everything was said
and done, that's what we would have lost. Yep.
Man, that's a lot of money. Yeah, you need a
raise. And they don't pay me jack shit. Right?
Fuck. So we're not doing that. We're going to
treat them. Thank God. It's been a really rough
couple of days. I'll just. Leave it at that.
I have a fear of going out of town because every
time I come back, things have gone to hell. Yeah.
That is how it works, my friend. So, yeah, so
we get back to camp and then we head out on our
little - Overheated. Oh, Mark overheated. Mark
overheated. So we decided to see if it was my
- Thermostat. Thermostat. So we ended up removing
it. Yep. Just to force cold air, see if that
fixed it. Yeah, so we removed the thermostat
to just allow it to, you know, flow water just
all the time. Then we got back out on the trail,
now with Busted to Build, which, by the way,
watching that Tahoe work is fucking awesome.
It is awesome. That thing is so fun to watch.
We have to get him on at some point. I talked
to him about it this weekend, and he's so down.
Yep. Go look him up, Busted to Build on YouTube.
Fantastic. So we get back out on the trail, and
we make it not even half a mile. Yeah. And Mark
goes, I'm overheating. I'm like, all right, are
you going back to camp? And he's like, yeah,
I'll go back to camp. So we continue on our quest
to find horses. I don't remember what trail we
were on at this point. 101. Was it just 101?
Yeah. The main trail going through all there
was 101. I know you had all the side shoots,
but 101 I literally followed. Yeah, and I don't
think we took any side shoots. I think we just
followed 101 as well. I can't even find Leatherwood.
There it is. So, yeah, we just followed 101,
and we came up to a group of three horses. which
I see horses every day. You know, I have horses.
The wild horses are so much cooler than my horses.
Like my horses are assholes. These guys walked
right up to our truck. They let us, we got out,
we're petting them. I almost got on one and then
decided my wife was like, that's not a good idea.
And I'm like, she's probably right. Buzzkill.
It was awesome, man. Like I, Yeah, I can't even
put into words. The horses were probably the
second best part of the whole trip. And that
first group of three, there were three geldings,
two older ones and a yearling. Fantastic. They
were super friendly. The yearling was a little
skittish, but after some warming up, I got him
to let me pet him. And then we're like, well,
I hear there's more if we keep going. So we go,
continue on down the trail, and we come up to
this group of probably, what would you say, 15
or 20 of them? Yeah. There were a bunch. There
was a bunch. And there were four babies and two
donkeys. And a mule. And a mule, yeah. I wanted
to pet a donkey so bad, but they wouldn't even
let me get close. The mule would come right up
to me and stand just out of arm's reach. And
then when I reached out to pet him, he would
try to nibble my fingers, but he would not let
me touch him. He was driving me nuts. Then I
tried to pet. a couple of mares and they were
not having it with their babies right there but
while i'm over here trying to you know pet a
baby or a donkey or a mule or something cool
um duncan has not gotten out of his truck at
all and he's sitting there and one of the uh
the studs just keeps picking up his backpack
and trying to take it out of the truck like he's
trying to steal duncan shit so we we probably
sat and played with them for a good 30 35 minutes
like it was it was so fun man and they were super
friendly yes they were um so then we get back
on the trail we make it 20 feet and we hear mark
over the radio this motherfucker had limped his
truck all the way out there because he was not
giving up wheeling no so now back to me we got
back to cam i'm trying to figure out like what
what is going on with my truck besides overheating
like there has to be something to work around
so i looked up hill climb issues with steep hills
and i was like yeah we put it in low gear so
i'm like oh so it must be a low gear thing so
i was like all right alan i'm gonna try something
stupid we got a trail right above us to test
this theory so we went up to what we did the
first very first night or day i should say and
i went up there not issues i slapped in too low
and then slapped in a four -wheel climbed up
without any major overheating issues i'm like
all right we're gonna go back to 101 and make
our way through there if i have overheating i'll
turn back and call it a day so i actually tire
time that way i didn't have any major overheating
issues I noticed a little bit of jump when we
went uphill, but it wasn't significant enough
like it did the first time. So, like, all right,
we're going to keep going. So, I think it was
when we got past the three horses when we started
picking up your node. Which, we made a major
breakthrough with nodes this weekend. Oh, yeah.
Custom channels, it's the way. Yeah. So I was
following you on ATAC, and I was following the
trail because on the ATAC map I was using, you
could see the trail line. I'm like, oh, it looks
like Alec is over here on this trail, so we're
definitely on the right track. Yeah. So we met
up. They went and looked at the horses while
we continued on, and they got caught up at some
point. Yep. And then we made it back to camp.
I don't even remember what we did. We just kind
of packed up Saturday night. Yeah. And then hung
out with Ed and Rebecca at the fire for a little
while. And then we also tried the power lines.
Oh, yeah. That was fun. We tried power line ridge.
I don't even think there's a trail marker for
it. I don't think so. Now that I say that. Let
me see. I got through the first half pretty well.
It's basically just a straight up. It's just
straight up. Yeah. There's. Okay, so it's marked
as 105, it looks like. Yeah, it's 105 on Onyx.
And it is just a straight, I mean, it's a wild
hill climb. Yep. You can kind of see it. It just
follows the power lines there. If you look up
105 on Onyx and follow it up. It was, it's beautiful.
It looked like fun. Watching the Tahoe not be
able to make it kind of told me that I couldn't
make it. Yeah, that part of the hill climb. So,
yeah, that was the – it's a double red, but it's
not even marked on Onyx, which is funny. So I
didn't do that, and then we kind of went – me
and the Tahoe went up 105. We were just going
to finish it out, but Mark turned around, so
we turned around to see what was up. Yeah, I
couldn't climb it, and I was starting to overheat.
So, like, no, I'm not going to push it. So, we
turned around, met back up with Mark, and then
Mark went back to camp. Yep. And me and the Tahoe
went and played in Welcome to the Jungle a little
bit. Oh, Welcome to the Jungle. Which is the
playground. Oh, okay. I thought it was a separate
show. no they're the same thing oh yeah like
what they call drive shaft alley that's what
we were trying to get the tahoe up that was so
freaking fun dude like that that whole trail
is just it's wild it's fun yeah uh then we went
back to camp and just packed up because it was
supposed to rain all of sunday morning so we
got as much packed up as we could yeah um saturday
night yep Then we sat around the fire for a couple
hours and went to bed. A little earlier than
the night before. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Then
we originally had talked about leaving camp around,
like, I think we were talking about 1 on Sunday.
Yeah, we were originally talking about that time.
Yeah, we were talking about leaving around 1
and just making it halfway back, stopping and
camping, and then continuing on. But... I think
we were all just kind of done with it by Sunday
morning. Because we had two trucks that were
overheating. Oh, and Duncan's alternator went
out. Oh, that too. Yeah. So we had two trucks
overheating, and one of the trucks that was overheating
wasn't charging itself. And we thought we were
going to have a Drummond Island scouting mission
again. Yeah. Another recap on packouts, right?
I think. And I recommend this to all listeners
and everybody. Everybody should do this. Build
some kind of pack -out battery box. Doesn't have
to be your main truck battery, but have it tie
into your main truck battery. Because then, let's
say our group of three, if one of us had been
running an extra pack -out battery, we could
have just swapped it into the truck and continued
on. And just done that repeatedly, allowing the
alternator of the other truck to charge it. Yep.
So, I think... At least me, Mark, and Duncan
are going to do that. Just because if you have
an alternator go out, we can limp a truck along
without having to be tethered that way. You've
even been in this situation twice now. Duncan
was a little better than Joe's experience. Yeah,
because luckily, we didn't know this yet, but
Duncan's truck still charged. It just, it was
barely enough to keep the truck on. Yep. So.
Yeah, I highly recommend build a battery box
with an Anderson connector on it, preferably
a packout battery box, because then it's just
clicking into a packout plate. So I'm going to
build another one of those for my truck. So I
have two batteries and then I'm going to at least
have a location on Mark and Duncan's truck for
a battery that can tie right to their main battery.
So. So we came up with that idea and then went
to sleep Saturday night, woke up Sunday. We got
on the road, was it 8 .30, 9 o 'clock? I want
to say yes. I know it was early, but we got on
the road pretty early. We headed, first we went
to Lexington was the plan. By the way, Lexington
is absolutely fucking beautiful. We went to the
O 'Reilly's that had Mark's. radiator in stock
yep which happened to be a hub yes and we met
the world's coolest o'reilly's employee who is
now a listener and i don't remember his name
but o'reilly's guy from the lexington hub you're
the freaking goat um he gave me a tour of the
hub and was like showing me turbos off like tanks
and stuff like it was there was some crazy shit
back there he pulled out a box a wooden o'reilly's
parts box from the 1930s oh geez like it was
it was cool man they had they had a turbo room
they had a wiper room like it was it was so cool
um so yeah we got to do that we got mark's radiator
swapped we put a new alternator in duncan's truck
uh got Oh, and speaking of the radiator, the
radiator was definitely bad. It had material
in it, like dry clay. Yeah. By the time we drained
it. Also, Mark's bumper had to come off to swap
the radiator. Yeah, that was not fun. And bushings
and shit and other stuff was bad. Yeah, so. It
was not a fun experience. We got it fixed. Next
time it'll be easier because of some of the mods
we did. Yep. I mean, please don't have your radiator
go bad again. That sucked. Yeah. I don't plan
on it. I want to say that's the original radiator,
isn't it? In all honesty. Probably. And I'm almost
at 200 ,000 miles, so. But, so we got everything
fixed. We got back on the road. Duncan's truck
was charging right. Mark's truck was cooling
right. And we made it. I don't know, 50 miles,
and I hear over the radio, my truck's getting
warm. I swear to God. If there's any word, this
is going to be the show title of both of these
episodes. It's not going to be Leatherwood Trip.
It's going to be My Truck's Getting Warm, Part
1. I heard it over the radio. I had PTSD from
hearing the words, my truck's warm. I could tell
by how frazzled you got while talking about it.
Jesus, dude. Duncan's truck still is not cooling
right. We limped at home. We were just kind of
done at this point. I think we stopped, tried
to burp it, didn't do anything, so we just headed
home. That's kind of what I don't like about,
like, line and back trips. It's like by the time
you're done with that trip, you're done, done.
Oh, yeah. It's kind of why I enjoy loop trips.
You know, like your middle camp spots, like the
second day in, and then you still have two more
days to come on the way back. So it's like the
last day, yeah, you're still kind of like done,
but you're not like exhausted from it. I mean,
but that was a lot of stuff you guys had in a
short amount of time. I think it was better than
the seven -hour planet crash trail incident.
That one was a really, I'm done and we're going
home. We should not have went home that night.
No, we shouldn't have. I actually, we should
do like a 30 minute on that at some point because
I don't know that I've ever heard the story on
that. About when my lower ball joint failed and
why my fender is now sticker bombed? Yeah. I
thought we talked about that one, but we can
do that. I don't remember. We've done a lot of
episodes, so maybe we should do just one or a
15. Maybe I'll just have Alex join me on. On
mine, and we'll just do a 15 on the seven -hour
plane crash trail. I think we're on, like, aside
from the fact that we split it up by seasons,
I think that this is, like, episode 66. Yeah,
we got quite a bit. Like, we've been killing
it, guys. Yes, we had 22 episodes on season one,
and we are currently at, this will be episode
42 of season two. So that's a lot of episodes.
But yeah, so I would say that that incident sucked
because we were ill -prepared. We had tools with
us, not quite the right tools. Not all the tools.
We didn't know as much as we do about the Toyota
platforms then as we do now. I mean, it was just
an ill -prepared thing. We just weren't ready
to be doing what we were doing. Yeah. Ah, shit,
my phone's ringing. I'm going to mute myself.
I'll be back. Yeah. You guys kind of talk along.
Yeah. Well, we got two huckleberries now? Yeah.
Huh. So it just shut me out out of here. I'm
not sure what happened. yeah but yeah the the
we were very ill prepared for seven hour plane
crash trail i think that's a lot of why we built
the trailer for was because of our incident 100
percent um yeah but so we got the trucks fixed
we got back on the road We had the little overheating
thing, and we just booked it for a little while,
and I had a shake that just kept getting worse.
And finally, I pulled over, and I'm like, guys,
I just can't handle it anymore. Jacked up my
driver's side first, checked it. There was a
little wiggle. Pulled my dust cover off to the
CV axle. Sure enough, my CV axle was loose. Tightened
it up, put it all back together. My fix was,
what, 10 minutes, maybe? Yeah. Like, it was fast.
Then we got back on the road, and guess what?
My shake was gone. He says his fix was fast because
he doesn't want to add any this year. Well, mine
was two hours of fixing O 'Reilly's. Mine was
10 minutes at a gas station. We really should
buy a bunch of, like, black X's. And every time
something happens to your truck, it gets a little
black X. At the end of the year, we clear it
off. Clean slate. And then we just tally them
up. We'll have an episode where we tally the
Xs. So then I'm on three incidents now? For this
year, I'm on one. Yeah, I don't know. If you
count every time you overheated, you might have
been a bad wreck this weekend. No, I wouldn't
count overheating. I'm saying, like, broken parts.
I'm just thinking that. I know the major one
was when I bit the crap out of my control arm.
Yeah. I don't know. We'd have to talk about categories
because I would say anything that makes your
truck break down. And break down to me, overheating
is pretty much that. Well, never overheated.
It just was getting warm. We pulled over before
it overheated. I didn't have it shooting out
of the radiator. Well, that's extreme. But like
if it stops the flow of things and you have to
stop and wait. So we got that fixed. And then
after that, we actually. Oh, yeah. So after that,
a little while later, my shake was kind of. It
wasn't even that my shake was coming back. I
thought that my front hood was starting to slope
more to the right. So I told Duncan, go on ahead.
I know you have to work in the morning and we
don't. I'm going to pull over and check my tire
and make sure it's not going flat. Yeah, we were
in Indiana at this point. So I pull over. I put
the pressure gauge on it. Everything's fine.
We get right back on the road. We're cruising
along and I hear my phone go off. And then almost
as soon as my phone goes off, there's Duncan
on the side of the road. That was funny. He pulled
over to wait for us and sent us a text. Let me
know when you're close. I'll accelerate to match
your speed. But when he sent that text, we were
zooming by him. I was actually watching all these
texts come in. Yeah, it was the weekend of Shakedown,
right? The weekend after Shakedown. Oh, okay,
yeah. Shakedown was the previous weekend. I'm
watching all this stuff come in, and I'm just
like, oh, shit. I'm seeing stuff on Facebook
about people broke down. I'm seeing this. I'm
seeing that. And I'm like, holy shit, this is
going to be an interesting episode. Yeah. He
gives us the address and says, just pulled over.
And as he said that, we're just like, zoom. Yeah,
so that happened. And then I think we stopped
one more time after that to get gas. No, two
more times. Two more times. One more time in
northern Indiana and then one more time in Michigan.
Yep. But it was smooth sailing the rest of the
way. I mean, because it had gotten cooler outside,
no one's trucks were, you know, warm. Yep. We
also had rain go through again. Yeah. Got back
to the right sea level. Yeah. I don't know. 400
was happy. It was in its element, man. Yeah.
It must have been from the south or something
at some point. She was like, oh, yeah, I remember
this. I know what to do. Mine was a Southern
one. Bought brand new. Bought brand new in Wisconsin.
I think mine was Virginia. Well, then yours is
just sad. Well, I mean, we knew why yours overheated.
Yeah. So I have the list here that I was reading
while everyone was at Leatherwood. I just want
to read out all the damage that was done that
weekend. Go ahead. I'm going to read it from
the top here. Mark overheated a few times, but
after flushing the radiator fins with water and
clearing out a bunch of mud, it seems to be well.
You guys now know the whole story on that. Ed
dented the rear bumper of the fifth gen, which
for his truck and the amount of clearance he
had, that's pretty good for him. Yeah, it wasn't
like major. It was like someone kicked a soccer
ball into it. That was pretty much it. Geo broke
a CV axle and punctured two tires. Yep. That
was Thursday. Yeah. One of the other tacos knocked
their upper control arm out of alignment, and
I'm pretty sure he got it reset. One of the guys
in Derek V's group punctured two tires, and someone
else had a puncture. And there were two more.
Yep. Someone else's. Go ahead. They ran out of
spare tires for Toyotas on that. Yeah, they were
looking at Marketplace for spare tires. Gio had
his spare spare tire on. Yeah. And borrowed someone
else's tires. Yes, that too. Someone else's in
Gio's group got a one -inch diameter stick straight
through their sidewall and punctured a tire.
Yep, that was Jackson. And then of the very early
arrivals, think he broke a coil over on his crawler
jeeps, so he left Thursday. Yep. That was Jay.
And he did break a coil over on his jeep. Yeah.
Alex broke a crossbar off his roof rack and got
stuck in the mud in a very big way but managed
to winch himself out. And then Wild Bill ran
out of gas about 12 miles into a 25 -mile trail
at the bottom of an active creek bed. Yep. In
a thunderstorm. Yeah. Busted the deck, pulled
him out for most of it. That's crazy. So, yeah,
Busted to Bill actually ground -toed the CJ,
Wild Bill CJ, through all of the big hill climbs
and everything at the end of the trail. He didn't
drive his CJ down all the way, right? He trailered
it on the second trail. No, it was trailered,
yeah. I spent spring shakedown with him, and
the whole time he's like, I'm not doing nothing
crazy. I'm not going to – this whole weekend
I've been here to being called Wild Bill. Oh,
dude. Oh, you got crazy, didn't you, buddy? He's
always crazy. Drummond Island, he was just flooring
it up marble. Driving backwards. Drummond Island.
Yeah, I drive backwards just beating the piss
out of that poor CJ. That is so funny because
the whole time in Spring Shakedown, he's like,
hey, hey. He sounded like the most innocent guy.
He's like, yeah, I got a little crazy on drumming.
Not going to lie. Things got a little out of
control, but this isn't going to happen again.
That wasn't me. He was talking like, that was
a one -time thing. I won't be drinking this time.
I'm following him down a trail. And he's hanging
a silver bullet out the window, and I ran up
and threw a koozie over it so he didn't drop
it. People was giving him alcohol the entire
time, too. He was such a stellar guy. He's a
lot of fun. He is. He's up there with one of
my, okay, maybe not my favorite person to wheel
with, but my favorite stories and favorite person
at camp. Yeah. Great personality guy. uh he showed
up to our spring he was actually the first person
to show up and i think that was a day earlier
or way earlier in the morning and he hung out
and talked to us like we had some weird guy that
looked like he stepped right out of the 80s pull
up on a a completely restored like three -wheeler
from the 80s like that bright yellow crazy yamaha
looking yeah he and the guy had like complete
80s outfit complete 80s hair. Like he was, it
was like he stepped out of a time capsule. Yeah.
He's just talking to us and it's like me and
Bill are like, man, this is odd. We're in the
middle of nowhere. So yeah, Bill's, Bill's real
cool guy. He rode around on his bike, hung out
with us. Scott came by, they smoked cigars together.
That was my first time meeting him and I had
no idea he had a Sequoia. I was like, who drives
a Sequoia that we know? Yeah. So yeah, he, Wild
Bill's awesome. Yep. Cracked me up the whole
time. Yeah, so, I mean, as you can hear from
the damage report, it was crazy, and that's all
there is to it. Crazy fun for most people. It
was fun. I think everyone had fun. Yeah, I think
overall. One thing. Yeah, the patience. I mean.
You can only put up with that so long. And then
you got some people with kids or something like
that. They're crying. They want to get out and
do stuff. It's like, there's nothing worse. We
did that loop, like I said, in like three hours,
I think it was. Yeah. It honestly, it probably
wouldn't have been bad for Derek's group if they
were only like three to five trucks. Yeah. Well,
yeah. I mean, it wouldn't have taken as long
to pull everyone through. Right. And then you
got everyone that wants to stop and each one
gets, gets their picture on that rock or, you
know, I could see where that would be troublesome.
And I can honestly say as much as I love Derek,
I never want to wheel in Derek's group at any
event because he just, everyone ends up in his
group and it ends up being so big. And the Jeep
group was big too. They had like 10. I think,
something like that. Yeah. So imagine them getting
stuck behind Derek's group of 15. That's 25 rigs
just waiting to move. It was a majority of the
camp was there. Yeah. That's a double -edged
sword because a lot of the times when Derek does
these events, he is usually the one that has
to keep the newer stragglers in line or the easier
group. Not that he isn't equipped. for harder
stuff. Oh, he's not. No, he's not. That's what
I'm trying to say. Yeah. But he ends up getting
all of the newer people, too, and when you have
15 people that, you know, we don't have a bunch
of people volunteering to go, hey, let's break
this group up. They don't want that either. So
it ends up falling in on him. 15's too much for
that type of wheeling. It's not for scenic stuff,
but... Derek will come right out and tell you
he does not have experience. Like, Derek's only
been wheeling since 2022 or 2021. Like, he'll
tell you, I do not have experience. I only know
Michigan trails. And he'll straight up tell you,
my truck is not built for this because it's not.
It's built for Michigan trails. That's it. Yeah.
And at the end of the day, he's a good. event
planner you know he plans out the stuff and he
he's very good at helping the newcomers and stuff
yep but it that was just a situation where that
was a lot for everyone yep and including him
that was his first time that was his first time
on those types of trails like we mentioned in
the previous episode every it was everybody's
first Other than a couple people that had the
experience from other states, like Alex and maybe
some others. But nobody knew what they needed
to have experience -wise, what they needed to
have equipped -wise for their vehicle, because
there wasn't the intel there to help. I will
say, a lot of the guys will say, it would have
been better if I had a locker. It would have
been better. I did the whole thing open -open.
It wasn't that bad. Would a locker have been
nice? Yes, but you really didn't need it. Yeah,
I think that's where experience comes into it,
too, because you knew exactly where to go, lines
-wise. Hey, we have a message from a listener,
right? That's what that sound was. The message
was, let's read it out. It is my dad. It is my
dad, and he says, ah. Oh, I was going to make
something up. He tried to call me and I said,
I'm recording the podcast. And then he goes,
ah. Yeah. I was going to make something up like,
what was your favorite mod for the weekend? Just
the weekend. Not the entirety of your life. What
was your favorite thing that you were like, fuck,
this is handy? Well, this is awesome because
we got 10 minutes left and we're pretty much
done with Leatherwood. Yeah. It was a great trip.
I can't wait to do it again. Yep. Next year.
A little bit of housekeeping. I know me and Mark
have been talking about doing Moab pretty much
nonstop. I think that we are not doing Moab in
2026. Yep. I think that we're going to go back
to Leatherwood with a group of, I don't want
more than four trucks total. I want to be able
to go out and actually do some of the harder
trails without having to worry about other people.
Yep. I also, that trip, I plan on trailering
as many of the trucks down as I can because it's
one that I plan on getting rowdy and being rowdy
on. Right. Yep. Well, since I already asked it,
what was, Mark, what was your favorite? What
was your favorite upgrade for the weekend that
you were like, fuck, thank God I had this? It
would be a second cooler. There you go. Yeah.
So we stopped at a Meijer on the way down and
bought drinks, and they had nothing cold. No
cold pop, no cold beer. So we went through ice
like crazy just getting the drinks cold. So it
was nice having a cooler that we could put the
food in that we just didn't have to worry about
it. Yeah. Really, as long as you don't buy warm
drinks, you're fine with coolers, but that was
really irritating that they had nothing warm.
Turns out that's an Indiana thing, by the way.
Nothing cold. Yeah, they don't sell cold beer.
Yeah. Didn't know that. What about you, Alex?
Anything different, or is yours kind of the same?
The swag. Yeah. That's it. The swag is great.
Yeah. No, that's valid. So let me ask this then,
since you mentioned that. Does a fridge make
more sense now as far as convenience -wise to
be able to put on a trailer? No. Put on a trailer?
Yeah, I mean, if you enclosed it. So how about
this? If Milwaukee came out with a fridge that
fit into the packout system, I would be more
interested in a fridge. Yep. Having to specifically
set up my setup for a fridge. makes it less convenient.
What about just mounting a plate onto the bottom
of it? A lot of them have foots that you can
just unscrew and mount a plate to. I've really
thought about it because I kind of looked into
them maybe two months ago. But for the cost of
a fridge and the fact that none of them are Milwaukee
-sized, and I don't want one that's Milwaukee
-sized. I was about to say, we've got to find
the right size box. Yep. My Milwaukee -sized
cooler is 49 quarts, 49, 42, somewhere in there.
Yeah, whatever. But if I were to get a fridge
of the exact same size, it would be significantly
smaller because of the fridge mech. Yep. Yep.
I was going to say, I think mine's a 38, and
that's much smaller than what yours is when you
translate that into cooler size. By the time
you'd get yours, you'd need, like... God, you'd
need like a 55 or a 65 liter. And the other thing
is, you know, if you manage ice properly, it's
not a problem. Yeah. I'll be honest, the way
we did it by having food, and this is the other
thing, if you're going to do coolers, it's good
to have two, one for food and one for drinks,
because the drink cooler is always going to go
through ice faster, but it's less of an issue
if the drink cooler goes through ice. Yeah. It's
only an issue if the food cooler goes through
ice. Yes. And we did not have a single problem
with our food cooler at all. I think the only
cooler. The only issue we had was when we ran
out of food. So we started putting pops in the
bottom. Yeah. Yep. Right. Through our steaks
and sausage or beef. So I was like, well, we
got room for more drinks. Yeah. I mean, for what,
for me, 38 liter, I wish I could have had a 45.
That's my only, that's my only, I wish I could
get rid of the ice box and make it a 45. Yeah.
And. And that would free up some space because
what I typically do is I'll put three or four
drinks in the fridge and I'll leave the rest
out because they don't need to be cold. And,
you know, you're not wasting a bunch of extra
power on that or, you know, or anything. You're
not wasting anything. They're just sitting there.
They're not doing any harm. I'll have a 12 -pack
sitting there. I'll take three or four out of
it for the day, put them in the fridge, and they're
35, 40 degrees when I want them. Yep. That's
about it. Yeah, I don't know, man. I think that
I do, what, one four -day trip, one to two four
-day trips a year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't
make sense for you, especially that size. It
would be very, very expensive to get a decent
one. I'm not saying that fridges are bad. I'm
saying that you get a good cooler, it's not as
big of a problem. Now, if you're trying to run
like a Walmart cooler, man, them things fucking
suck. And, you know, if you plan things out right
and you're pre -chilling all the food and drink
going into a cooler, that cuts down on problems
a lot. Yes. The biggest problem is to take something
from warm to cold. Yep. Yep. And that's like
our big cooler. We never had issues with ice
in the big cooler ever. Because we'd get a 25
pound bag of ice and we might only be cooling,
you know, we could have gotten away with a four
pound bag of ice for the amount of stuff we had
in it. So the ice would cool things down and
it would barely melt anything. Yep. Right. But.
Yeah. And if you know that you're going to eat
meat on the fourth day, keep it frozen. Like.
Keep it frozen when you put it in. Make sure
if you're going to have something different,
thaw it out. Put it in a different area to thaw.
I've literally taken meat out of the fridge and
then put it in a Ziploc baggie and put it in
a drawer a couple hours before I knew that we
were going to eat just to thaw it out. If you're
doing the cooler thing, and let's say... Just
for ease of use here, let's say you're going
to be out for five days and you're eating steak
and mashed potatoes the entire five days, right?
You freeze three out of your four packs of steak.
You put them in the bottom of the cooler. You
add a small bag of ice on top of them. That is
your ice now. That meat is your ice. Now, you
put your next two steaks on the top of the cooler
because you're going to use them in your first
two days. You cook up the first one. You cook
up the second one. By the time you've cooked
up that second one, that third one should be
pretty well thawed. You pull that one out, but
the bottom two will still be kind of frozen.
So you just space it out so that they're in the
order that you're going to use them in the cooler.
I recommend maybe not water bottles. Water bottles
sweat. but they're a good option because then
you're also carrying water. But if you can get
the gel packs, the freezer gel packs, those last
longer than standard ice anyway. I actually,
I pre -froze a bunch of them for this trip and
left them in my freezer, which is probably most
of my issue. On the topic of the gel pack, I'm
kind of curious because I think I sent you these,
Alex. There's pre -chilled ice blocks, literally
ice cubes. I'm kind of wondering how they, because
supposedly they last for 24 hours, but I don't
know if they last longer in our coolers based
off of that. I'd have to see. Yeah. I don't remember
this. The other thing, when I was a kid, we used
to do this a little bit, because when I was a
kid, we used to horse camp, and we'd be gone
for like two weeks at a time. So our meat that
we were going to be using later, dad would put
it in a cooler with dry ice and then pull it
out and put it in the normal cooler to let it
thaw. That worked great. If you're doing a two
cooler thing, having one that's a dry ice cooler
is smart. Yeah. And then you're not opening it
because the more you open it, the more heat or
I'm sorry, the more cold that you actually lose.
So every time you're grabbing a beer out of there,
you're losing precious, precious cold. And that
is why I highly recommend having a separate food
chest from drink chest. Yep. Also, make sure
they stay latched. We had issues this weekend
where a certain individual in our group would
never latch the cooler. And that made the drink
cooler melt significantly faster. See, this is
why you need four Milwaukee Packout coolers,
one for beer. one for veggies one for meat and
one for etc and then you're oh man it's perfect
i would also say you just if you run coolers
put them inside the truck they would definitely
last a little bit longer i mean i know mine didn't
last my last pretty well but i think it would
have done better i actually i actually think
that they last better outside the truck they're
white so they don't absorb the sun as much. But
when you put them in the truck, the truck is
warmer than outside. Yeah, that's a good point.
I was going to say with coolers and fridges,
they work harder in hotter spaces. So, for instance,
my fridge in my truck, when it's 95 degrees outside,
my truck's 120, whatever. It is going to work
a whole lot harder and expend a whole lot more
battery life just to actually get it to keep
it as cold. I tend to move the temperature up
a little bit on those days so that the fridge
isn't working so hard to try to keep it at, let's
say, 45. I'll say, okay, let's just keep it at
like 50, 55 because it's still keeping things
cold. Because you're going to add a house battery,
right? You talked about that? Yeah. You should
do that in a packout. You should do that in a
packout so that it's removable if you have an
issue with your alternator and can just swap
it. Well, so I'm going to have it where I'm going
to put it is there's actually a spot in under
the hood for a house battery, a second spot on
the opposite side. But I will have it hooked
up. through anderson connectors so that i can
take it out but there i mean there's a perfect
spot for it plenty of room to have a second battery
there so it makes more sense to have it in the
engine bay where i have the space for it versus
it taking space somewhere in the truck right
so where we really i mean i guess i did have
space under my hood for another one but i'm moving
it all the back so No, I mean, it makes sense
for you. Yeah. No, that's a good point. I definitely
have thought about it, but I'm going to get like
a 105 watt solar panel to put on the hood so
that anytime we're camping, it's just going to
charge. Anytime we're wheeling, it'll slow charge.
It'll just slow things down. I don't expect it
to have everything charged by the end of the
day, but it'll slow the consumption. Right. Yeah.
So, I mean, that really. Coolers are good, man.
The coolers are really good. Yeah. The swag was,
I can't even tell you how nice it was. And there's
an added benefit, right? So the swag has two
panels on the top that open. They call them like
stargazing panels or something. But the swag
is short. So if you had to get something out
of the swag, you could just open the roof and
reach down and get it. It was the best thing
ever. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn't think of that.
I thought they were just like clear webbing or
something. I didn't know you could actually open
them to get through them. That's cool. Yeah,
they open right up. Huh. Yeah, they open right
up. All together, man, the swag is just... I
mean, any tent you spend $600 on is probably
going to be a pretty decent tent. Yeah, that's
true. At that point, they have to be pretty decently
in the quality department. Especially... a $600
two -person tent like that's got to be a pretty
fucking good yeah yeah but it it just was good
man that high density foam was way more comfortable
than i was expecting um and i found it interesting
most of the people that had rooftop tents still
can't put their bedding in their rooftop tent
yeah i'm not sure oh i'm sorry especially the
ones The ones that, like, flip open to give extra
space or whatever, you can't put bedding in those.
It doesn't work. Yeah, and that's something that's
why I did the research on that beforehand, that
you actually, if that's your plan, then to actually
look for a rooftop tent with that as one of the
features to be able to do, to have the extra
space. By taking... By taking that out, right,
taking that away, not having bedding be able
to be stored up there, that makes a rooftop tent
almost worthless. Yeah. The only benefit is you
won't feel rocks. Well, I didn't feel rocks,
and I had a foot -high boulder under my tent.
Yeah. No, that definitely takes away a big sell
point on it. I mean, there are a lot of sell
points on rooftop tents. aren't for your type
of wheeling so they're not sell points for you
but uh that is one of the major ones and that
was one of my major reasons is to be able to
store all of our bedding in there that was the
only thing about a rooftop tent that ever interested
me yeah and which is why i got swag yeah i think
that might have to do with the beds the rooftop
tents have in them A lot of the times rooftop
tends to come with like a foam pad and not an
inflatable. And I think if you switch that foam
with an inflatable, you would gain some of that
space because you have three or four inches of
foam. That's what Ed and Rebecca did because
they only come with, like, 30 mil foam usually,
too, which is ridiculous. But Ed and Rebecca,
they swapped theirs for an inflatable, and the
inflatable is better. But now you've got to set
the tent up, which takes time. You've got to
inflate the mattress, which takes time. Then
you have to move your bedding in, which takes
time. By the time they're done setting up, I
could have my swag up and ready to go. Yeah,
I was going to say, I think their inflatable
has foam on it, too, though. no i think they
have the x pad which i think has a layer of foam
on it yeah it's like it's like five millimeters
of foam it it's basically a winter sleep pad
yeah it's it's very comfortable i'm sure it is
tested i've tested them out but um it just yeah
it's just that that rooftop tent wasn't designed
for it unfortunately with that in mind i mean
Once you get to that point, though, like, your
two big selling points on a rooftop tent are
ease of setup, which gets taken away, and ability
to store bedding, which gets taken away. So now,
what are the sell points? Yeah, that you're off
ground, that... Why is that a big deal? I don't
mind being on the ground. You don't. Other people
do. If I'm in a thunderstorm, I'll tell you I'd
rather be on the ground. Yeah. But like I said,
they're not sell points for you. They're sell
points for other people. That's the whole thing.
You don't understand. Other people do. But that's
what I'm saying is I'm not saying all rooftop
tents are bad. But once you take away those two
big sell points, it really limits a reason to
get a rooftop tent. Yeah. I mean, for everybody.
And that's why you see so many of them on Facebook
is people buy them blindly. and then realize,
oh, this doesn't do what I want it to do. Oh,
this doesn't, I can't store bedding in it like
I thought I would be able to. That kind of thing.
That's crazy to me because that's like the number
one thing. And for clamshells, you'd think like
a hard clamshell you'd be able to do that. So
if, I don't know, if you are running a clamshell
and you listen to this, let us know. But that
just seems stupid. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you
have the extra space, maybe that's not a big
deal to you. But for space -conscious people
like me, that makes zero sense to buy a rooftop
tent just to store your stuff in the truck. That's
the whole reason, you know, a lot of people buy
them, I would think. Driving down before I broke
my roof rack, it was so nice. My back seat was
fully set up. I had nothing bouncing around.
Everything was tucked behind the seat. I had
no extra stuff taking up storage space in my
truck. It was fantastic. Obviously, after my
roof rack broke, I had to put the swag in the
truck. That took up a lot of space, but that's
not normal. I don't normally do that. Yeah, I
actually bought a couple things, splurged a little
bit, and made some more room in my truck, and
that's been kind of nice. I had those two Pelican
boxes donated to me. I hard -mounted those up
on the roof rack, which gives me a good amount
more space. I put all my recovery gear now is
out in a Pelican. My tow strap, my kinetic straps,
all of my... Soft shackles, they're all in those
Pelicans now. So that takes a lot of stuff out
of my truck. I moved in a Kelty cargo box. That
looks pretty sick. It is. For the price, I was
super wary about it because it's like $99. Yeah,
no, it's sick. But I can fit four days' worth
of clothing in it. And there's three cubes, so
one for me, one for my son, and one for Sienna.
And it takes up less space than the duffel bags
that we use. So for some reason, when we use
one big duffel bag, it just takes up more room.
And maybe that's just because it's a square.
But it's also nice that I can pull a cube out
and know it's for me, put it back, or pull a
cube out for Jasper because that's all we need.
I'm used to square duffels. Yeah. Because the
military duffels, you pack them right, they're
square. Right. And you can fit, I mean, four
days with the three of you, I would need half
of one military duffel. Yeah, you don't really
need all that much. And that's another thing
is trying to be honest with yourself. What are
you actually going to go through? Yeah, underwear.
Yeah, socks. But are you going to go through
three pairs of fricking pants? No. So this was,
we packed for a five day trip because I had vacation
until Tuesday just to be safe. And all we took
was the smallest, um, like the half pack out.
So, I mean, the listener can't see, but maybe.
Ammo can. Yeah. Ammo can. Yeah. That's all we
took for clothing. That was all of my clothes
and all of Kaylin's clothes. Yeah. Yeah. That's
nice. Because. We were just honest. I was like,
all right, babe, it's going to be warm. You need,
you know, let's say one shirt a day. Pick four
shirts. Pick two pairs of pants and two pairs
of shirts. And I'll do the same thing. Then we'll
get underwear and socks in there. Boom, we're
done. And I think I wore two shirts the entire
weekend. Yeah. Maybe. And I think that I wore
one pair of shorts. I didn't even get into my
jeans. I wore one pair of shorts the whole time.
Yeah. I mean, if you're being honest with yourself
and to be honest with anybody who's out camping,
you get dirty. You get a little stinky. I mean,
it's normal when you're out camping. That's part
of it. So you don't need to change your whole
outfit every day. That's just pointless. I mean,
nobody cares. Nobody's looking at your outfit
every day and going, ugh. Everybody's doing the
same thing. Plus, then you don't get to wear
your cool botches Hawaiian shirt the whole time.
Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And, hey, on that note,
we're going to probably roll it out here. This
is a nice long second episode. Yes. We've got
plenty of content for you. My truck's getting
hot, so. You should probably pull over. Yeah.
All right. Catch you guys later. Later. Catch
you later.