Day 2, Sunday:
First Blood... red dirt at Barnwell Mountain, Gilmer, Texas
The first trail day of Ultimate Adventure is similar to going to your high school prom. Everyone's a bit nervous as they're sitting in their freshly cleaned 4x4s, and since most of the group has never been on these trails before they feel especially uncomfortable wondering if they're gonna look like a total dork when they hit the dance floor. Lucky for us, we were under the guidance of the Texas Motorized Trail Coalition and the Jeeps of East Texas club, so we headed for some trails at the 1,800-acre Barnwell Mountain OHV recreation area just 5 miles north of Gilmer. Barnwell was a great trail day to get the UA gang warmed up and ready for a week of wheeling, and when we say "warmed up," we mean temps in the mid 90s with so much humidity you could practically swim to the trailhead. Now this forecast may sound bad, but it was actually pretty nice, at least compared to the entire month before when most of Texas was being flooded and folks were literally swimming to safety. Ultimate Adventure rolled into Texas and brought with it excellent weather from across the nation. Believe it or not, from the day we arrived the rains pretty much stopped, and though it was hot and humid, at least there were no unplanned deep water crossings.
After that it was tire wheelie action with readers and sponsors alike lifting a tire and crawling their way through the trail. Luckily most escaped this first hole with no real damage. | 
After Twister we moved onto other trails such as Weenie World, Chaos Canyon, and finally Dewoody. The trails had challenges for everyone whether their rig was a long-travel machine like invited reader Clay Parish's chopped 4Runner... | 
...or a big-powered CJ like the Flowmaster Jeep CJ driven by Phil Rohr. |
Enough about the weather, let's get back to the trails of Barnwell. Imagine some deep ruts and giant V-notches with a plethora of steep climbs thrown in for good measure, then cover everything in deep red dirt and you get the idea of what we were looking at. Barnwell is an old iron ore mine which now offers nearly a hundred different trails for bikes, ATVs, and 4x4s rated from novice to extreme. Plus if you want to come for a weekend there are designated campgrounds, both primitive and outfitted with power and water. The park is great fun and though it's mostly dirt obstacles, that didn't mean there wasn't any carnage or rigs going dirty-side-up. In fact, the very first obstacle we hit, known as Twister, had more than one of our invited readers showing the crowd his rig's belly, and shortly thereafter our rookie feature editor busted out the taillight on that dang Ranger of his (he'll call it the Ultimate Danger Ranger, but that's mostly because it tried to self-destruct more than a couple times on this trip). The day was a great way to get the trucks and drivers ready for the week. Many of the forgotten last-minute things were discovered, like when one big truck sheared off almost all the wheel studs and another big Jeep had the stick shift literally come loose in the driver's hand on a particularly steep climb.
A big thank you goes to Cecil Derrick from Longview Driveshaft & 4x4, his team of local trail hands, and the Texas Motorized Trail Coaliton, who helped spot our drivers through the rough sections they were getting stuck on, and for feeding our troops both lunch and the first of a handful of excellent barbecue dinners we had during our visit in the Lone Star State. And of course Longview Driveshaft was open for business that night as UA attendees scuttled back to lick the fresh wounds and make final adjustments prior to Monday's 200-mile road trip.
Of course being new to the dance and maybe just a little nervous about finally getting to go wheeling on UA, invited reader Jake Munoz and his codriver, Glenn Leighton, proceeded to dump their flatfender Jeep right over onto its side. Cameras flashed, people laughed, and in no time flat these Nevada cowboys were having a blast. A quick tug with their winch (a Warn, in case you were wondering) and they were up the trail. | 
One exciting obstacle had drivers straddling an exceptionally deep crevasse. Here the father-and-son team of James and Stephen Watson work their way through the crack with their big crew cab trail rig lovingly referred to as Cousin Willard. The Watsons were almost through this fissure when onlookers stopped them because it was noticed that six of the eight wheel studs on one wheel had snapped off! A careful drive to the bottom was performed before a trailside repair could ensue. | 
Another driver with a give-it-heck driving style was Tom Allen from PSC Motorsports. Tom and codriver Carl Yarbrough attacked this hillclimb on the Dewoody trail with a fearless attitude, and their barely finished Highlighter yellow Jeep YJ got them to the top where an unlucky bounce had the front end resting against a tree trunk with a long way down behind them. With some cool driving and cautious spotting from onlookers, they backed down the hill a bit, and crawled their way to the top. |
Of course, Feature Editor and new kid on the block Ali Mansour had his freshly finished Ford Ranger on the trail and proceeded to bust out a perfectly good taillight on the first obstacle of the first trail day of UA. Way to get that damage out of the way early so we can get onto some wheeling, Ali. | 
The team from Slee Off-Road worked great together and even when carnage struck they kept a positive attitude. Here Ben Swain spots his boss Christo Slee behind the wheel of their solid-axle late-model Toyota 100 series Land Cruiser. This luxury SUV was a behemoth on the trail, but Ben and Christo had a blast stuffing it down some of the tighter trails we encountered. | 
Clifton Slay and codriver Keith Bailey brought the big guns to Texas in the shape of Poison Spyder Custom's Suicide Sally, a giant rock buggy on 46-inch tires with big-block power. If there was an obstacle everyone balked at, Clifton and Keith were ready to try it, and rarely did they fail or fail to give the crowd a show to remember. Here they took the steepest line up the Weenie World climb. |