Nebuchadnezzar

There is a cool off road park off I-5 called Hungry Valley that LAAllroad tipped me off to. Didn't have much planned for today, so I packed up the wife and baby and set out in search of dirt roads to traverse. I was concerned about getting in over my head, so I took the wife and kid as a "forced" sanity check. :-)

First of all, I think it's great that there is a place only 60 miles away from downtown LA that allows 4x4 vehicles, motorcycles and whatever to get some offroad trail riding in. Once I got there, I realized I'd been there before for one of those Jeep sponsored "see what our cars can do" days. Anyhow, for $4, it was fun and worth the drive, although I didn't get much action in.

We started out on a paved road, and I saw Road Runner Trail that was marked with an "easy" designation. So I began driving on this dirt fireroad... it was a bit bumpy, but it was simple driving. Then I saw an incline to my right that I wanted to tackle. My wife didn't like the first incline we saw, so I opted for the second incline option, that was less steep. Climbing up was absolutely no problem. I'm sure I would've made the steeper one had I tried. Going down the other side was simple too. BUT... after the decline, I came to a "dip" that looked a bit deep, but I went for it anyways.

Enter problem number one with our allroads. <B>The front hangs too far over the front tires.</B> I bottomed out with my front skid plate and was unable to progress forward. Luckily, I was going totally slow, so I didn't get totally stuck, but as you can see below, I did a slight bit of damage to my skid plate. I had to backtrack and pick another route without any deep dips.

<img src="http://www.threeib.com/argorman2.jpg">

After more simple dirt road driving (nothing even slightly difficult), we just kinda drove around a bit, took in the scenery and took off. There were tons of trails to the left and right, but my wife wasn't having too good of a time, so I decided to come back on my own to do some more trail riding. It was a bit cold and windy, and for the sake of the baby I didn't want to keep getting in and out of the car to take pictures, so the only other one I have is of my car parked along the side of the road.

<img src="http://www.threeib.com/argorman1.jpg">

I must admit the "coolest" part about going off road was actually getting back on the freeway. What I mean is, it was amazing that I went from climbing dirt hills, sloshing through mud, etc. to cruising on the freeway... and in both extremes the car felt right at home. As good as (or better than) most SUVs in getting through semi-rough off road terrain, but also a perfect sport luxury cruiser on the freeway. Considering I'll spend 99% of my time on highways and paved roads, the shortcomings of it as an offroad vehicle are no problems at all. I know that my adventures today were tame by any comparison to "real offroading".

Has any other allroaders made it out to Gorman/Hungry Valley? There is a 4x4 practice area out there that I'm curious about. I remember we used that section during the Jeep event and it was a bit hairy. We climbed up some steep sheet rock then drove sideways at a 45 degree angle... too scary to try that in my own car. :-)

dwh

Hey Nebekenezer, is the part below the chrome side mouldings on your car colour coded??

Nebuchadnezzar

It's the same as everyone... same as the fender flares.

dwh

Oh my mistake, looking closer its just dust, nice pictures By The way

allroadau

I have done similar damage to my front skid plate. The good news is they are reasonably easy to replace, i ordered a new skid plate which only cost $36 Australian Dollars(I think they did'nt charge enough!), installation took about an hour. You will need a Torx 15 driver with a right angle connector to get to the screws under the radiator. The plastic grill is released by clips that are easily accessible and quite obvious once you have a close look. Pics of the damage to my are here - http://homepage.mac.com/allroad

cheers,

brendan