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| Project Money Pit makes another trip to Paragon Adventure Park | Short Cuts | ||||
| by: Laurie Hollatz - 8/2001 | |
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| Paragon's trails take on a whole new look after dark. Photo: Monique Brennan |
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| "Dust Puppy" strikes a pose during the night run. Photo: Laurie Hollatz |
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| On the way to "Undertaker" Saturday morning. Photo: Ron Hollatz |
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| Steve shows some flex on Undertaker. Photo: Monique Brennan |
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| Project Money Pit negotiates a tricky off-camber spot on Undertaker.
Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| Linyee and his well-equipped TJ on Undertaker. Photo by Laurie Hollatz |
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| The Blind Faith challenge on Saturday provided plenty of entertainment. Photo: Monique Brennan |
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| Plenty of challenges for everybody at Paragon Adventure Park.
Photo: Monique Brennan |
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| This Jeeper must have been a Boy Scout while growing up.
Photo: Monique Brennan |
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| Rich showing us how it should be done on the "M" Trail. Photo: Laurie Hollatz |
Now that summer was in full swing, it was time for "The Dirty Dozens Paragon Summer Blast". Follow along as Laurie Hollatz gives a day by day description of the festivities.
Getting There
As it goes with almost every planned wheeling trip, Friday morning found Laurie packing and Ron running around making last minute Jeep fixes. Project Money Pit spent part of the morning at Hi-Tech, a local 4X4 shop, getting its rear exhaust system re-routed to avoid interference with some system modifications made a few weeks earlier. Then it was off on a treasure hunt looking for a welding supply store to refill the Power Tank so we would have on-board air for trail riding needs such as running air tools and filling tires.
While the East Coast had enjoyed an unseasonably comfortable and enjoyable July, the heat and humidity was back just in time for our second trip to Paragon. This time around we managed to finish packing and hook up the Jeep for flat towing behind the Rover by 1:00 pm. After changing into dry clothes and filling up on cold liquids, we were happy to be on the road in an air conditioned environment! After an uneventful, but cool, ride from northern Virginia through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, we arrived at Red Ridge Lake Campground just before 6:30 pm. While we didn't encounter any rain on our trip up, the wet roads near Hazelton and in the Campground told us that the rain clouds had beat us and would probably stick around through the weekend. We had roughly an hour to set up camp and get the Jeep ready for the night run. We joined others heading to Paragon's staging area around 7:30 pm.
Night Run
Something new to the Dirty Dozens' event was a night run through Paragon. Similar to many of the event's participants, this was our first time participating in an organized night run. After hearing about the possibility of running trails the first night of the event, Ron started scoping out available rock light options. While roaming the aisles of a local Wal-Mart store, he stumbled upon several sets of small fog lights. We installed eight lights under the Jeep staggered to shine strategically on the trail. As night slowly enveloped the staging area, we were able to check out the rock lights on other vehicles and exchange installation stories. Trail rigs were divided into two groups for the Friday night run. Trail guides for our group were Chris "Bumblebee" in his yellow '89 YJ and John "Stumpy" in his white '92 YJ. They led us down Turtle Trail and through a rocky fun trail called Sleepy Hollow. Both trails are rated 3 on a scale of 1 to 5 by the park, and are described as traversing moderately difficult terrain offering challenges for vehicles with 31" tires and mild lifts. These trails took on a whole new feel in the dark as we twisted and turned down a mountain, at times running next to and across the Catawissa Creek. Some of us let our rigs go topless for the night run, which made the adventure spookier at times as we wound through the black night along tree lined paths. Sometimes tree branches would reach in to grab you or sprinkle you with rain drops that had accumulated on the leaves from the night's earlier showers.
Sleepy Hollow gave us an opportunity to get out of our rigs and watch others crawl over the monstrous boulders strewn along the trail. Memorable scenes include Stumpy lying across the hood of "Wind Danzer's" TJ, keeping an ill-placed tree from doing body damage. Alan "Dust Puppy" put his TJ through some flexing worthy of a 'pose' while Ron was unable to resist the temptation of 'Picture Rock'. We had so much fun in the woods, we didn't get back to camp until after 1:00 am.
Michael "Omar" and Rod "E-brake!" led the other group of night riders over moderately difficult terrain through a combination of muddy, rocky, and off-camber trails: Valley Road to Haul Road to Impossible Hill Trail through Campground Trail to Wet Willy up Turtle Trail, bypassing the Rock Garden.
Undertaker
We dragged ourselves out of bed Saturday morning just in time to shower and grab a hot breakfast compliments of Suzi and "We Like to Party Catering", a caterer hired by the Dirty Dozens for the event. Suzi and her crew also had sandwiches and other lunch necessities for sale. What a great feeling to go camping and have someone else do the cooking and the dishes. Plus it allowed us to leave the cooking supplies and camping equipment at home. We caught up with everyone at Paragon's staging area around 8:30 am where we lined up according to what trails we were riding that morning. We hooked up with four other built rigs to tackle Undertaker, a 5+ rated trail described as Most Extreme. Omar and Monique led our small group in their blue '97 TJ. Rich and his spotter Bill followed Omar in an orange '77 Land Cruiser. Suzuki Devin was back for this month's event as spotter for Steve in his white '94 YJ. Rounding out our group was Linyee, his son Derek and "NavyStar's" son Jeremy in a green '00 TJ.
The Undertaker is aptly named. This trail reminded us a lot of the rocky terrain found in South Dakota's Black Hills. Luckily our Jeep has undergone significant modifications since our '99 trip to the Dakota Territory Challenge. This trail is not for your stock or slightly modified trail rig. Driver skill combined with great spotting and a lot of flex capability are a must for this trail. Even with this combination, the granite slabs and boulders on the upper portion of the trail kept us busy for more than four hours. However, part of that time was a sun break for most of us while we watched Steve and Devin work on the front of Steve's TJ. After having increasing problems with the Jeep's steering, the driver's side heim joint broke. No sooner had the guys fixed the broken part then the other heim joint snapped! This one, however, got fixed a lot quicker since the guys learned to use heat on the bolt rather than wasting time trying brute force... although they put on quite a show for the rest of us. After a quick lunch break, it was time to head out and join the rest of the event participants for fun and games starting at 2:00 pm.
Event Challenges
Another new twist to this month's wheeling extravaganza was a friendly competition including four driving challenges: Blind Faith (a timed race where the passenger spots the blindfolded driver through a mixed terrain course), Water Torture (a test of a driver's ability to maneuver through an off-camber and rocky terrain course without spilling water from a bucket attached to the rig's hood), Tortoise Race (a test of one's ability to slowly crawl up a rocky ravine with time subtracted for braking, stopping, reversing, and getting stuck), and RTI Ramp (a calibrated 30 degree ramp that tested each rig's flex). We arrived just in time to watch drivers test their rigs on the RTI ramp. While Ron and Steve showed off their Jeeps' flexing capabilities to the crowd, Rich and his Land Cruiser stole the show with a ramp score over 1,000 on the 30 degree ramp. Others chose to watch drivers test their listening skills as they maneuvered blindfolded through a course following directions from the person in the passenger seat. There appeared to be two key ingredients to winning this particular competition: having a co-pilot giving clear and accurate directions combined with a driver listening well and reacting correctly to the directions. Surprisingly it wasn't only the married teams having difficulty giving and receiving accurate directions! Which way do you turn the wheel when the passenger says go right?! After these two events were completed, everyone headed over to a nearby pond for a group picture. Some tackled the Tortoise Race in a competition to be the slowest rig up a rock strewn hill. Others took turns placing a bucket of water on their rig's hood and driving through an obstacle course with the goal of spilling the least amount of water out of the bucket. The Dirty Dozens organizers did a great job of creating these events, keeping participants entertained throughout the afternoon, and sending them back to camp with smiles on their faces and stories for the evening's campfire.
Suzi's crew had dinner waiting for us when we returned to camp with our ravenous appetites. The campground's showering facilities also received a lot of attention from the sun burnt wheelers covered in the day's dust and dirt. After a day of hot sun and high humidity, we were actually a bit grateful for the rain showers that rolled in shortly after dinner. While it rained, everyone gathered at the covered picnic tables to hear who won the various events and to participate in a raffle. Each driver received at least one wheeling goodie, with some happily exchanging their prizes for items they didn't already have.
"M" Trail
Sunday morning came really early for those who couldn't tear themselves away from the prior evening's campfire and festivities. But breakfast was again waiting for those sleepy wheelers who stumbled from their tents, ready to tackle one more day of trails. Having missed running this particular trail during our July trip to Paragon, we lined up to run the "M" Trail, another 5+ rated trail described as Most Extreme. This trail is conveniently located off the main access road from the Park's entrance. The trail runs up and down a rocky hillside in the shape of an M. This trail was definitely worth the wait. Our group today was smaller than yesterday, with Omar and Linyee guiding a group of stockers on Doe's Run backwards to Lucky Trail and back down Valley Road, stopping at every mud pit along the way. Rich and Steve have run "M" Trail on many occasions, so we were led to the trail head by Paragon General Manager Kyle Knosp and Paragon's Land Rover Discovery, who rode with Steve for part of the trail while Devin and Bill provided spotting advice to the drivers. The digital pictures taken during this ride do not truly reflect the size and difficulty of the obstacles scattered throughout this short trail. The flexing employed by these three vehicles on this trail confirmed their ranking as the top vehicles in Saturday's ramp event.
We opted to run only one trail on Sunday so that we would have sufficient time to get back to camp and pack up the tent. With some help from Steve and Devin hooking up the Jeep behind the Rover, we were ready to head for home by 3:30 pm. We got home around 8 pm, only to be greeted by a disgustingly humid evening with the temperature still lingering in the upper 80s. After many trips up and down the two flights to our apartment unloading the Rover, we rewarded ourselves with cold showers, microwaved White Castle burgers, and gladly fell into bed.
We really enjoyed our trip to Paragon and trail riding with the Dirty Dozens. Hopefully you'll be able to join us for future runs!
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