ROCKS!	Short Cuts
	Navigation Menu OutdoorWire Front Page Main Expo Center 4x4 Parts OutdoorWire Site Index Main Links Index 4x4Wire Front Page 4x4 Tech 4x4 Trails

By: John Nutter - 8/2001

Hal Johns Trail

Josh on the first obstacle, Skyscraper

Jeff in the 'Cruiser Crack'

Boulders!

More Boulders!

Just drive up that pile of rocks and hang a left.

Hal John's is probably the most famous of the trails used by the Dakota Territory Challenge. My chance to run it didn't come through the challenge though. 4x4Wire.Com technical editor Josh Lowenstein brought a small group through the trail. The group consisted of Josh, Lisa and Nyssa in Josh's flat fender, Jeff Dixon in an FJ40, Dave Jacobs in his YJ and me in my CJ7.

The trail itself is a stream bed, with an access road running along the banks and crossing the stream several times. There are nine 'stages' to this trail, with the beginning and end of each stage marked by a place to enteror leave the stream bed. Each of the stages has a different feel to it, with varying degrees of difficulty and boulder size. We all ran the first three stages on the first day of our trip, and it took Dave and I a while to get used to boulder type rock crawling again. About half way through the second stage Andy Hoffman showed up in his YJ. Andy left his Jeep on the observation road, and joined the group. It soon became apparent that Andy had a natural gift for spotting. Dave and I were tired by the end of the third stage.

The fourth stage soon loomed ahead. It only took a quick glance to see that the obstacles were a lot bigger than any of the three previous stages. Before we really knew what was happening Josh drove in by himself with Andy spotting. Josh drove obstacle after obstacle, seemingly without stopping to breath. Andy had to literally run to keep ahead and continue spotting and everyone else had to run to shoot any pictures. Of course part of the reason Andy had to run was becuase his spotting was so dead on that Josh drove every obstacle on the first shot. My camera was only a hundred feet from the entrance of stage four, but Josh was half way through by the time I got it and caught up to him. After nearly rolling once, Josh finished out the stage and caught his breath. I think it took about 15 minutes total for Josh to complete the stage. It was an incredible performance that the rest of us knew we couldn't follow, so we retired to the campground for the evening to recover and get ready for the next days trails, Full Size and Kong.

Stage 4	Andy saves Josh from rolling.
Josh's expression says it all.	The end of stage 4