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| Project Money Pit finds a new home and a new place to wheel | Short Cuts | ||||
| by: Ron and Laurie Hollatz - 8/2001 | |
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| Saturday Morning Lineup at Paragon. Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| Harry B on the first section of "Pick Your Poison".
Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| Devin needs a little ballast.
Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| Project Money Pit crawls through the entry to "Pick Your Poison".
Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| Rollover shows off his Commando.
Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| Yeow makes it through easily with with some spotting from Omar.
Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| Robert breezes through "Blueberry Rocks" in his built XJ.
Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| We found plenty of big rocks at Paragon.
Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
The last weekend of June 2001 finally found us ready to attend our first 4-wheeling event since moving to the East Coast earlier in the year. We hated to miss some of the spring events, but our trip back to Minnesota to pick up Project Money Pit kept being delayed until the end of May. Now that we were reunited with our Jeep, we were ready to get out and play! For our first event we chose the Dirty Dozens Trail Ride at Paragon Adventure Park on June 30 and July 1.
Forming the "Dirty Dozens"
Back in March of 2000 a group of Jeepers from the East Coast started a conversation on a message board about 4-wheeling in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The original group of 12 started to plan a weekend trip and the Dirty Dozens was formed. From the original 12, the group has expanded to over 70 participants. The most important thing to remember about the Dirty Dozens is they are not a club. They are a group of 4-wheel drive enthusiasts who enjoy getting together and having fun. This frees the group from the dues and politics usually associated with formal clubs. In fact, most of the participants are members of other clubs. The trail rides are open to any vehicle type and driver ability. The group has found a home at Paragon Adventure Park, and tries to meet every 6 weeks or so.
Wheeling at Paragon
Located on 15,000 acres of private land near Hazelton, PA, Paragon Adventure Park is a world class 4x4 park with terrain for drivers of all abilities. Deep in the mountains of Pennsylvania, parts of the park were formerly strip mined. The majority of the trails wind through thick forest. Tight twisting trails favor short wheel base vehicles, but full size rigs can get through most of them. The trails range from scenic forest road type trails, to extreme rock crawling trails that rival many of the trails found in the western states. Since Paragon is on private land, there is a user fee. With areas for 4-wheeling disappearing every day, we have no problem paying a user fee for access to this good of a trail system. Paragon uses trail guides to ensure nobody gets in over their heads, and to distribute users over the park to prevent long waits on trails.
Camping Jeep style
After a beautiful drive through eastern Pennsylvania we arrived at The Red Ridge Campground, the Dirty Dozens' base of operation for the weekend. After a quick registration with the family running the Campground, we were warmly greeted by members of the Dirty Dozens and shown an area to set up our tent. While some of the participants stay at local hotels, to really experience a Dirty Dozens weekend you need to camp. The Red Ridge Campground is located near Paragon Adventure Park and provides all the necessities for an enjoyable weekend of camping. Once camp was set up, it was time to wander around and look at the variety of vehicles present. Although Jeeps were the dominant vehicles, a few Suzukis and Toyotas were also on-hand. While the vehicles ranged from stock to heavily modified, most were driven to the event rather than towed. These were people who enjoy 4-wheeling their daily drivers. The weather during the day had been hot and humid, but up in the mountains it cooled off nicely for sleeping.
The campground was busy early Saturday morning, as people got ready to be at the trail head by 8:30. Most of the people at the campground had been to events here before, so we tagged along with a group to find our way to Paragon. After a quick ride through the scenic countryside we were at the trailhead. When we registered for the event we had to give details about our vehicle, and the types of trails we wanted to run. This allowed the organizers to set up the trail groups ahead of time. This is a big improvement over most events we've been to where some drivers sign up for trails they might not be ready for. The 70 or so participating vehicles were split into 6 groups. Project Money Pit is heavily modified, so we joined group 6 which was scheduled to run the most difficult trails. Our mixed group included good examples of built YJs, TJs, and CJs. We also had a Suzuki Samurai, a Toyota truck, and even a Jeep Commando. Since I had never been here before, I was concerned what the terrain would be like. Most of the areas we had been to in the Midwest had been mostly dirt with a few rocks thrown in. I was soon to be pleasantly surprised.
Pick Your Poison
Once everyone was ready to go, our group leader Chris (a.k.a. Bumblebee) led us out of the staging area. First up for the day was "Pick Your Poison". This trail is rated 4 out of a possible 5 on the Paragon rating scale. As we pulled up to the top of the trail I could see what I had been hoping for, ROCKS. This trail is relatively short, looping down from the ridge line and back up. The rocks in this part of Pennsylvania are granite left by glaciers thousands of years ago. The surface of the rocks is very rough giving a tremendous amount of grip. Being exposed to the sun keeps the moss and lichen on the rocks to a minimum. Pick Your Poison takes you right through a series of granite slabs. Since all of the vehicles in our group were pretty well set up, everyone made it through without any major damage. Bumblebee then led us towards our afternoon trail to find some shade for a lunch break.
M Trail
Our group's afternoon trail would be the "M" Trail. This trail heads up and down a hillside in the shape of an M and is ranked a 5 out of 5. While the rest of the group was running the trail, John Boring in his built CJ and I decided to try a recently completed new section of the trail. This new section heads straight up the hill over some huge granite slabs. One wrong move and it would be time to get the recovery gear out. John made it through most of the trail with no problem. Near the top is a huge chunk of granite that looked next to impossible to get over. John took a shot at it, but his boggers pulled to one side and he landed hard on his transfer case skid plate. On his next attempt he managed to pull his rear driveshaft apart and high centered on his rear differential. After some closer inspection he realized the skid plate was pushed up a couple of inches. After some careful winching and some work with a High Lift, John headed for the park entrance and his waiting trailer. The Money Pit made it up the slope thanks to some great spotting from Bill (a.k.a. Rollover). I chose to bypass the rock John had all the trouble on. Harry Brosofsky soon followed in his built TJ. As he neared the top, however, someone noticed he had a severely bent front track bar. Harry soon followed John out of the park.
After a quick tour of some of the easier sections of Paragon, it was time to head back to camp. The weather Saturday was one of your typical hot summer days with lots of sunshine and few clouds. So it felt incredibly good to get to camp, break out some cold drinks, and check out the carnage incurred by others during the day. We invited Suzuki Denvin and his Jeepless passenger\spotter Steve to join us for a traditional Wisconsin dinner... brats, sauerkraut, crackers, and beer, what else does the body need?! After a quick cleanup of dishes, a shower was in order. Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided it was time for everyone to have a shower. Huge black clouds had rolled in followed by a phenomenal lightning show and a torrential down pour! While the rain fulfilled some of the participants' desire for MUD, we were not exceptionally happy to find our air mattress suddenly feeling more like a water bed. We were lulled to sleep that night by the sounds of pattering rain on the tent accompanied by the familiar sounds of air tools and die hard mechanics working to fix our neighbor's TJ so she could drive it home in the morning.
Blueberry Rocks
Sunday morning found quite a few vehicles making an early start home. But the rest of us hung in there for another day of trails. While we were afraid that the rain from the previous night would have turned Paragon into a mud lover's delight, the trails themselves were not the muddy soup we encountered in Minnesota after a storm. After airing down a bit more at the trail, the Jeep easily crawled over the granite boulders comprising "Blueberry Rocks", our trail of choice for the day. This trail is found on the other side of Paragon which let us see quite a bit of the park as we twisted and winded our way to the trail head. Our group was much smaller on Sunday and we had a lot of fun playing on the rocks. The weather cooperated pretty well that morning with only a light sprinkle here and there. Half of our group decided to call it a day after we finished the trail, so we wound our way through another section of Paragon and headed back to the campground. We packed up the tent and miscellaneous camping stuff just in time for the rain to find us... and fall on us all the way back to Virginia! We were definitely happy with our first wheeling experience on the East Coast and are anxious to get back to Paragon and join the Dirty Dozens on future events.
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