`You can go back the easy way with us, or you can try to go back up that hill and meet us on the other side,” the trailmaster told us.
We were milling around at the bottom of the hill, a bunch of Jeepin`
fools who had been on the trail since dawn grinding up and down the hills of southwestern Arkansas in the Ouachita Mountains as part of a Jeep Jamboree, organized four-wheeling at its cushiest.
The day had started with a staggering country breakfast of crunchy hash browns, a wallet-size hunk of ham, a mound of scrambled eggs, homemade biscuits and doughnuts and sweet rolls.
Now, we had worn off the breakfast and a meaty box lunch, and the day was trying to end, only it looked like it would end the hard way. You don`t come from Chicago to southwestern Arkansas and look up at the hill and have the trailmaster say, ”Take `er, Bud,” and not take `er. It`s not enough to be a moderately acceptable `ol boy. You have to be a gooood `ol boy out on the trail, if yall know what I mean. In Chicago, you might find ”you” and
”all” in the same sentence; 350 miles south of Chicago, you might find y`all in some use; but down here, where the speech is as thick as West Texas Intermediate crude, it`s a single word, and the only accent mark is Deep South, yall.
When we had come down the hill earlier, I had turned to my seatmate, as our stubby Jeep Safari slid over the loose yellow shale and I stood nearly perpendicular, using the brake for a foot pedestal, and said, ”I sure am glad we don`t have to go up this one.”
This Jeepin` stuff was fun, but for a novice it had been a long day`s effort to graduate from the white-knuckle driving to a point where you trust the vehicle and can point it roughly where it should go. I was halfway between those spots on the education curve.
It bothered me a bit when more experienced Jeepers elected the easy route around the hill. Perhaps I had been rash. After all, there was supposed to be no shame in driving around the base. As the organizers had told us at the beginning of the day, we weren`t in a race, and nobody cared if you were a beginner. The point was to have fun.
Like hell. That`s the official line, all right, but you could see in the little gimlet eyes of a few drivers, in their excited, flushed faces, that low drive and overdrive weren`t the only options in their gearboxes-the fires of competitive drive sparked and smoldered, too.
One advantage of Jeepin` in a convoy is that you learn from watching others, and indeed one other Jeep pulled out ahead of us and made for the ribbon of track that ran straight up the hill. This Jeep was a modified affair, rigged for back country rambling with oversize tires, wire mesh over the headlights and a salty, bashed-around look.
It clutched the hill, the tires grabbing patches of stones and throwing them behind as it worked up the incline. Then better than halfway up, the rear tires spun at the same time and forward movement halted. The Jeep quit trying and sat there, like a beetle contemplating its next move up a wall. The engine gunned again, and the spinning tires sloughed the vehicle off to the side. There was another long pause. Then the engine gunned and almost imperceptibly the vehicle crept forward a few inches, then a few feet, and then it scooted the last few yards to the top.
It was my turn. My eyes became little gimlet slits, and a flush came to my face. I knew I could make it to the top without pause. The trailmaster looked me over and remarked, ”Remember, if you have to back down, back down in a straight line.” He hadn`t elected me to the Four-Wheel Hall of Fame, but he hadn`t said stay off the hill, either.
Lesson No. 1 in off-roading is when you bail out, don`t turn around, because going sideways on a hill invites a rollover. Off-roading has its tricks.
My seatmate, Steven C. Klein of Chrysler Corp., which bought American Motors Corp. and its Jeep Division in 1987, knew several.
”If you get stuck, remember to wiggle the wheel a little; it can help,” Steve said helpfully.
The automatic transmission was in four-wheel low, first gear, the lowest of the low. As we started up the hill, taking the first few yards with ease, I fought a natural inclination to overgun the engine. You need momentum, but spinning wheels tear up the countryside unnecessarily and don`t track. Klein wears another hat as head of Tread Lightly Inc., a former Forest Service program gone private that educates off-roaders in minimizing the impact of their sport on the outdoors.
We made it halfway with lots of momentum, then hit the steep stuff. The wheels churned, and we slid around like butter on a hot skillet. A shower of stones and dust spurted out behind us.
I wiggled the wheel violently. ”Not so much, a little less,” Steve cautioned, and I subdued the wiggles. The wheels bit in, we moved a few feet, and the tires spun again. But I was up another step on the learning curve, and wiggled just a little. The tires got something to bite into, and we bounced to the top.
”That wasn`t exactly Tread Lightly!, but there`s nothing but bare rock there,” Steve said. Tread Lightly! asks enthusiasts to respect property rights and the activities of others, using maps and avoiding streams, meadows and other fragile areas. In short, it seeks to counter the image of four-wheelers as beer-guzzling rednecks intent on wreaking havoc on the outdoors as loudly as possible.
Founded by the Forest Service`s Cliff Blake in 1986, most of its members are corporations with a commercial stake in off-roading. Jeep was the first corporate sponsor, Jeep officials say, because it has the most to lose. Jeep sold about 30,000 vehicles a year in the early 1980s, and now sells about 250,000 a year. Studies show most Jeep owners don`t drive off-road much, but with those kinds of overall numbers, off-roaders still are a significant group.
Off-roaders have become deeply concerned about their activity as more and more land has been closed to motorized vehicles, especially with the expansion of the Wilderness system. One of the meanings of the Wilderness designation is no motorized vehicles. Klein estimates that 42 percent of off-road tracks have been closed in the last 15 years, putting the available figure at about 200,000 miles, mostly in the West.
Jeep Jamborees are one answer to dwindling possibilities, and they are growing in popularity. Organized jamborees have been held for 38 years. This year there will be 15 jamborees nationwide and next year 20.
The first was an informal affair in California among friends, including Mark Smith and Danno Raffetto, owners of Jeep Jamboree Inc., a subcontractor for Jeep.
”It began as a bunch of guys going out on a weekend, but we`ve been full-time for the last four years,” said Raffetto, who made the trip, as did Smith`s 25-year-old daughter, Jill, who also runs the business.
Jeep Jamboree scouts and clears the trails, provides guides and arranges for meals and evening entertainment. Costs are $125 per adult, $75 for children age 7 to 14 and $35 for those 6 and younger for most Jamborees, which last three to four days. Some trips can cost up to $200 per adult. The company`s mailing address is P.O. Box 1660, 6180 Highway 193, Georgetown, Calif. 95634. And yes, for Jeep Jamborees you need a Jeep, not just any off- road vehicle.
This year there were Jamborees in Cadillac, Mich., and French Lick, Ind. Next year, Raffetto said, the company is scouting the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky and upstate New York.
As the activity expands, it`s likely to change in ways that are only beginning to emerge.
These are automotive outdoors people, intent on mixing motor oil and mountains. They display no lust for the physical challenges of the outdoors, and even seem offish about such attractions as giant spiders and blimpish wasps, common in these parts. When the convoy stops, nobody hikes except to answer a nature call. But the lack of physical requirements allows older people and families with small children to get into the back country. Our group of about 140 was a mixture of families, couples, singles and buddies.
There is much interest in food, and much food to be interested in. Though drivers are asked to refrain from drinking beer, the beverage is not unknown on the trail.
And formal instruction would be helpful. It happens on some Jamborees, but not on this one. After trying to navigate a long rut three or four times, I was amazed at how simple it could be when Raffetto showed me how to
”sidewall,” use the tires` sides to grab traction along the side of the rut.
There`s a camaraderie in Jeeping. Socializing along the trail appears to be of nearly equal importance to driving. The convoys stop sometimes every few hundred yards with little or no excuse. People pile out and wander up and down the line to gab or help somebody who`s stuck or having engine trouble. There`s no end of cooperation. People dig into their tool and parts kits and pass around wrenches, spark plugs, whatever. This ethic of cooperation is nowhere more apparent than when a Jeep breaks down or snags in a rut.
We are told to watch in the rear-view mirror and wait when we see no other vehicle for a suspiciously long time. On one of those occasions, we backed up the trail and found the convoy halted by a stalled Jeep. It`s owner was sweaty and anxious, apologizing for holding everybody up. He was the only one who seemed to mind. The Jeep directly ahead of the disabled one had a towing hook.
”No problem,” said its owner, and hooked onto the other vehicle. At the next halt, the disabled vehicle`s owner dived under the hood with a borrowed wrench and discovered fouled spark plugs. At the next halt, somebody had dug out a new plug or two. About the fourth halt, he got running again. He was still sweating, but he was smiling.
