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Minnesota's Minefield Trail
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| Minnesota's has a long awaited rockcrawling playground | Short Cuts | ||||
| by: John Nutter |
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The first rock garden for 4x4 use in Minnesota
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| Mike Knorr, President of the Mn4WDA, in the Mine Field. |
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| The author drops his front tire into a hole. |
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| Mike trying to roll it onto Jason's side of the Jeep. |
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| In another hole. The holes were placed so that it was very difficult to avoid dropping a tire in from time to time. |
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| There are plenty of opportunities to pick a difficult path. |
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| Brian Gallus of the MN Trailriders flexes his Toyota in the Mine Field. |
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| Mike Knorr spots the author out of a tight spot. |
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| Dave Buzinski winches his way off a pile that had high centered his YJ. |
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| Loren Squires winches Mike out of the Mine Field after Mike's tranny case broke. |
The boulder field was beautiful. It was found Labor Day weekend when the Grizzly Offroaders hosted a run near their home town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The boulder field is in an abandoned iron mining area and it hadn't been driven on yet. The field was apparently created by huge mining dump trucks dumping loads of boulders as close together as possible. This left huge rocks in piles with the low areas between the piles three to four feet lower than the top. The area reputed to be tax forfeit land from a old mining company that went bankrupt in the 1940s, and it is now county owned and managed by the DNR. I knew when I first laid my eyes on it that I had to get back soon with a contingent of serious rock crawlers so we could fully explore the boulder field and map some trails through it.
It was the middle of October before I got back up there. The day started with a hill climb on some pea gravel and a little play time on some moguls made of small rocks, but soon almost everyone was at the boulder field. Mike Knorr went off exploring with Jason from the Grizzlies riding along. I called for Mike over the CB to tell him that I was at the entrance to the boulder field and was waiting for him. Mike replied that he had found a way to drive up a crevasse full of boulders and had just reached the top and was looking at yet another boulder field. I guessed he was at the same boulder field I was, so I drove onto a pile of boulders and looked for him. He was doing the same from where he was, and we couldn't see each other. I decided to drive out into the boulder field and see if I could find him. After I got a good distance into it I realized that the small, stunted trees in the field had made me misjudge it's size when I first saw it over Labor day weekend. Mike was indeed in the same boulder field as I and probably 1/4 mile away. I could barley see his bright orange Jeep at the far end.
I tried to drive out to Mike, but soon got stuck. Mike was walking towards me while I was busy with the high lift and winch, trying to get my rear diff high enough that I wouldn't shear of my pinion yoke on a rock when I went forwards. After about several minutes of work I was just getting unstuck when Mike arrived and spotted me out of the tight spot. By this time trucks were just starting to attempt the boulder field while Mike and I tried to decide what to do next. Brian Gallus in his 4 Runner with 35" tires and lockers at both ends put on a show for us by nearly rolling and Brian was soon headed back out of the boulder field. Dave Buzinski from the MN Go4 Wheelers was making good progress out in an area of the field where the largest rocks were, occasionally having to winch or pull out the HiLift jack to maintain forward progress.
Mike and I eventually decided to try driving towards each other since his winch was broke. Mike had no problems fulfilling his end of the bargain with his 35x15.5 Swampers and 1/4 elliptical rear suspension, but I was really starting to slow down. WhenMike left I still had some very willing spotters trying to help, but none of them with any rock experience, and I could see that I really could have used some bigger tires here. My 34" of wheel travel was nearly constantly maxed out and I was having a hard time keeping my diffs from introducing themselves to the rocks. Fortunately there was an abundant supply of large 4 foot (and larger) diameter boulders to connect my winch onto. By the time I had made it 75 feet Mike had gone well over 750 feet, without being stopped once. Mike's trick suspension is a great setup for just this kind of rock crawling and a joy to watch work.
Several others tried the shallow end of the rock garden while this was going on, but none ventured very far into the large boulders. Most backed out or turned around when they saw what they were getting into.
Soon I was coming up behind Dave as he winched of some rocks that were high centering under his skid plate and front axle at the same time. I managed to get myself good and stuck at nearly the same time. I hooked my winch cable up to Dave's tow point as soon as he was freed and pulled myself out of a hole and over a particularly large boulder before I was able to maintain forward progress without assistance.
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| The author flexing in the mogul field. |
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| Paul Stelzig of the MN Trailriders tried the mogul field in his SOA Grand Wagoneer. |
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| Brian flexing his 4 Runner in the Mogul Field. |
Once Dave and I were back in the small rocks I noticed Mike was nearly out of the boulder field but a crowd had gathered around his Jeep. As Dave and I drove out people began hooking winch cables onto Mike's Jeep from the edge of the boulder field and I realized Mike had a serious problem. Fortunately he was only about 10 yards from the edge of the field.
I parked my Jeep on the access road and walked over only to find that Mike had cracked the case on his automatic transmission and all the fluid had drained out. At this point Mike was being winched out backwards by Loren in his Dakota while another Jeep winched on huge boulder in an effort to clear a path. Eventually Mike was out, but he was done for the day. His transmission case had broke where the tailhousing bolts on. Mike got to name the trail since he was the first to successfully traverse it, and the first to suffer major breakage on it.
After braving the Mine Field with but one serious casualty, we headed back up to the large
mogul field to wind down and give those that hadn't tried the rocks a chance to play. The
mogul field is an area where mine trucks had dumped smaller rocks in piles as close
together as possible. These piles were all four to six feet high and being so close
together makes them a real articulation test. Even vehicles without lockers can navigate
the mogul field by always choosing a line where all four tires stay on the ground. I think
everyone tried it, including our host Duane in his Wife's stock Bronco II.
I think everyone had a good time. I know I'll be back to play and test my Jeep on these rocks.
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