Trip Report Flat Fenders in the Black Hills

[smfulle]

This week we had an Event for Flat Fenders in The Black Hills of South Dakota.
The thing was supposed to go all week with over 30 Jeeps participating with everyone camping out and running the scenic trails there. Unfortunately it rained great buckets for two straight days and the plug was pulled on the week long event in order to spare the dirt trails and the camp area from muddy destruction.
A few die hards stuck around after finding alternate acomidations and we managed to find a couple of days good wheeling on a rocky creek bed off Camp 5 Road that we understand to be called Hal John’s Trail..
Here’s a video put together by Jeff Petrowich (Jpet on any forums he’s on). If you stick it to the end you will see where Jeff is welding my tie rod back together on the trail as well as a little spring hanger repair for Ward Williams.

Here’s the before and after pics of my tie rod. Jeff used a piece of angle iron on the bottom of the tube as a splice and strengthener. This kind of trail side welding with a couple of batteries is like magic to me. I’m pretty confident that this repair is at least as strong as the original,

 

[mbryson]

Cool folks!!!!

 

[Magerdgr]

I've got a complete CJ2A tie rod assembly on my spare front axle you can have if you want it? Heck, you can have the whole housing (no guts or hub assemblies), springs, and tie rod assembly if you want.

 

[smfulle]

Here’s my own video version of our Hal Johns trail adventure. Mostly from my on board GoPro in 4x speed except for obstacles and alternate views.

 

[Greg]

Looks like a blast, Stan! I've wanted to wheel South Dakota for a long time, I'm jealous! Looks like that place is a non-sop rock garden... and it only lets up when the rocks turn to boulders.

I think you made Jeff nervous at 3:45!

 

[smfulle]

This trail has lots to offer for rock crawling. The Camp 5 Road is a regular forest trail that crosses back and forth across a dry stream bed that is the Hal Johns trail. There are several sections of the Hal Johns trail between the various stream crossings of the Camp 5 Road. This section that we did was not the most extreme. There is a section called Kong that we wanted to try, but didn’t get to because we had 3 rigs that needed repairs, all within about 100 yards of each other.
My vid only covers Jeff and my recce run. All the carnage happened on our 2nd time up the trail a couple of days later with Brian and Ward.

 

[ID Bronco]

This trail has lots to offer for rock crawling. The Camp 5 Road is a regular forest trail that crosses back and forth across a dry stream bed that is the Hal Johns trail. There are several sections of the Hal Johns trail between the various stream crossings of the Camp 5 Road. This section that we did was not the most extreme. There is a section called Kong that we wanted to try, but didn’t get to because we had 3 rigs that needed repairs, all within about 100 yards of each other.
My vid only covers Jeff and my recce run. All the carnage happened on our 2nd time up the trail a couple of days later with Brian and Ward.

Kong is my favorite trail ever. Shady, tight, tough. Nice trip report, thanks for sharing. At the end of that trail there is a serious waterfall we winched up and flipped a Blazer buggy on. It was great.

 

[smfulle]

We pulled up to the water fall and took some shots like we were going to take it on, but in all reality we couldn't do it without a winch. The forest service has blocked off the easy access points to the top of the waterfall.so we couldn't get in close there with one of our winch jeeps to help each other up it without going clear around a long ways and coming down a really rough trail so we decided to pass in the end.



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[Bart]

Very cool. Wheeling the Black Hills is on my bucket list.