LRO: No problems, no troubles, no worries

From: Hope Peter (hope_peter@bah.com)
Date: Sun Apr 15 2001 - 14:06:26 EDT

  • Next message: kyle vandyke: "Re: LRO: paint and parts"

    Aloha!!!!
    That's right. No questions to ask. No problems that need fixen. Why you
    wonder? Did I just leave the project sitting in the driveway all weekend?
    I should say not. We had a true, no holds barred, white knuckeled little
    expedition this weekend...and me Rover survived :-).
    3 88's and a 109 met early Saturday morning at Wheeler Army Airfield and
    headed over to East Range. Another 88 had to back out with dizzy problems,
    and 2 other series owners were not available.
    East Range is one of the training areas that makes up Schofield Barracks,
    the Army post on the center of Ohau. On the map there is an 'improved
    trail' that runs the perimiter of the training area, about 10k in length.
    Only thing is, the map is dated 1979, and for my lifetime the Division at
    Schofield has been Light (the walk every where). Judging from the
    maintainance of the trail, I would hazard to bet that it's been a number of
    years since even a Hummer has done the trail.
    On the weekends, East Range is open, sortof. Range Control does not allow
    civilian vehicles in training areas, but we found out that we are not
    'forbidden' to go to East Range. It's like some unknown, unpublished rule.
    So just about every weekend sees a couple of Jeeps and Landcruisers hitting
    the trails. It's not gated off, but it's in a semi hidden spot, so you only
    ever see Military people out there.
    We had a beaut of a day, temps were nice and low, around 75mph, and mostly
    sunny. It has been pretty cool for the past week, and the winter rains are
    hitting us a bit late. Flood watches last weekend, and some pretty heavy
    rains every night since.
    The trails are not your typical mainland tanktrail sort. It's hard pack red
    clay and intermitant lava rock. In most spots the clay is very very hard
    pack. With the recent rains the surface in some areas had a nice 1/8-1/4
    inch thick layer of liquified clay, about the consistancy of what you find
    in a babies diaper. On top of the hard pack it was like ice.
    Sections of the trail were really rutted, combination of Hummers, other
    wheelers, and decades of rain. In some spots the ruts were 2-3 feet deep,
    no shit. The ruts that were casued by hummers casued the most problem. The
    hummer track is so wide and the trails so thin, that you had no choice but
    to ride one wheel in the rut, one on top. Watching Kevin go through one
    section ahead of me, I was ready to turn around. I still don't see how he
    didn't roll over. The side slope was like this "/". Ok, that is an
    exageration, but only slightly. His passenger was waiste up out the window.
    When it came my turn, I just sinched up the lap belt tight....for the center
    seat, and let her go. If you have never driven your Rover from the center
    seat, I highly recomend it. Only had the dog as my passenger, have a sled
    type harness for him, and belt him in, but he freaked. AFTER I got through
    the worse part I did snap a picture out the front windscreen as to measure
    the angle between the trees and my Landy. What a rush. Oh, and if you
    popped out of the rut towards the left better stop fast and put her in
    reverse. It's a rain rut, that cuts even further left, and it was a long
    way down.
    At times we were on muddy track with a 20-30 foot cliff straight up on one
    side and a 80-100foot straight down on the other. I stopped once to take a
    picture, and had to hold on to the bed tub rails to prevent loosing my
    footing and tumbling to my death. :-) In some spots the rain ruts cut
    perpandicular across the track. Combines with the slickness it was kinda
    tricky. James and I have mud terrains but still had some wheel spin. Kevin
    and David both had all terrain treads. In one spot it was a tight right
    hand up hill turn, with a diaganol washout.. On the downhill side of the
    washout, the left hand side of the trail was a steep drop. Just past the
    washout, the left hand side turned into a steep wall and the right dropped
    off. James took a couplke of runs on the right side of the trail, the wall
    of the washout was steeper, and made it on the third go. Kevin made it with
    out a problem. I had my line a bit too far to the left and bounced off the
    cliffwall, no damage cept some paint scraped off my roobars. Helped sell a
    pair to one of the other drivers...hahaha. Dave's 109 just could not get a
    line. No matter how he lined up he got cross axled. He kept backing up to
    his left, trying to get more straight on at the rutt. I was holding my
    breath each time, he got as close to the drop off as possible. In the end,
    James climbed on his right front hood and kevin and I pushed. Made it no
    problem. This was the only section that the 109 seemed to have problems
    with. Dave wheeled a bunch in Oz and really knows how to drive his rig.
    Think he is considering a locker now though...hahahaa.
    Other sections of the trail were total wash out, knee high mud holes. Only
    had one wet ignition all day, wd40, and away he went.
    Got some great shots. In one knife edge section, we looked down in one
    direction towards Pearl Harbor, and in the other back up the central valley
    towards the north shore.
    For those of you that have ever slogged through the hills of East Range, you
    may know this area well, it's called "Top of the World". When ever some CO
    thinks his troops have a bit to much energy, he humps them up to the "TotW".
    I took over 100 pictures in all, going to take me a few days to go through
    them all, and edit the ones I want to post to the web. Will let you all
    know when they are up.
    What a great day, yeah!!!
    Later alls
    Pete



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