What did you do WITH your Jeep today.

[IdowaJeeper]

Got the wheels and tires and lift all done this week, so today washed it up and took some glamour shots at the city park with my dog.

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[aldo98229]

Took to the mountains for some peace and relaxation

Nooksack River Valley, WA

 

[dragoneggs]

Took to the mountains for some peace and relaxation

Nooksack River Valley, WA

How are you liking your Gladiator? Miss your Wrangler?

 

[mrtm1970]

Last week…used the jeep to remove some unwanted (procrastinated like a year) new oak trees growing in front of the house…found them to be damn slippery fellows…

 

[aldo98229]

How are you liking your Gladiator? Miss your Wrangler?

I like it a lot.

Sometimes I miss the maneuverability of Wrangler 2-door, that is it. Other than that, I like Gladiator better.

 

[IdowaJeeper]

Today I broke the Jeep's off-roading cherry and went into the woods specifically to find some nasty roads and see how the lift and new Mickey Thompson Baja Boss ATs do.

I didn't really find anything too challenging for the Jeep or the tires.

I did go places that my lifted Tundra couldn't go due to wheelbase and clearance, but I didn't use 4wd all day. I turned traction control off and went some pretty places all in 2wd. Articulation seems to be much improved with the lift as I tried to get tires to lift off the ground on some obstacles. I videoed the trip for my YT channel, so will have to review the video to see how much flex I got.

 

[IdowaJeeper]

Video of my trip is ready...

 

[HydroBlue22]

Today I broke the Jeep's off-roading cherry and went into the woods specifically to find some nasty roads and see how the lift and new Mickey Thompson Baja Boss ATs do.

I didn't really find anything too challenging for the Jeep or the tires.

I did go places that my lifted Tundra couldn't go due to wheelbase and clearance, but I didn't use 4wd all day. I turned traction control off and went some pretty places all in 2wd. Articulation seems to be much improved with the lift as I tried to get tires to lift off the ground on some obstacles. I videoed the trip for my YT channel, so will have to review the video to see how much flex I got.

Why are there no trees and/or vegetation in those pictures?

 

[IdowaJeeper]

Why are there no trees and/or vegetation in those pictures?

Because that area was clear cut logged. Basically, the logging company comes in and harvests every single tree in a few hundred acre area. Usually, the next spring, they come in and plant a few hundred new trees that will grow and be ready to harvest in another 50 years.

Clear cuts are ugly and seem wasteful, but they make sense in the long run. Deer and elk love them, since the abundant light exposure means more grass growth and food for herbivores.

I prefer selective logging, in which mature trees are left every 50' or so in order to help speed up the healing process of the area.

When my folks had their little 5 acre cabin site logged, they went for selective logging and still made $50k+ in timber sales and ended up with a very nice-looking landscape with abundant grass and trees.

 

[Heimkehr]

I avoided yet another running doe. Full credit to the LED lighting upgrade that I recently installed...and the attentive driver.

I won't ride at night at this time of year. Recurrent close calls while in the Jeep are forcing me to consider rationing my driving, too. Autumn 2024 has thus far been one of the busiest that I can recall, in terms of deer movement.

Stay frosty, kids.

 

[Cire]

I went out to Hidden Falls Adventure Park in central Texas.

Definitely a fun place to play with your Jeep.

 

[IdowaJeeper]

I went out to Hidden Falls Adventure Park in central Texas.

Definitely a fun place to play with your Jeep.

Such a foreign concept to me, having grown up in Idaho with millions of acres of wilderness. The idea of setting a couple hundred acres aside for people to run around in with Jeeps and ATVs is quite ridiculous.

But, after today in which I traveled about 35 miles off-road on public Forest Service land, and then private timber company land, and not finding any trails or roads very challenging, the idea of designating a specific area for off-road vehicles seemed to make more sense.

I'm sure there are some amazing Jeep routes through Idaho that are beautiful and challenging. But with timber companies and the government becoming more and more anti-citizen, they are closing off almost all of their lands to normal folks who just want to go off-roading and camp.

 

[Save The Manuals!]

I avoided yet another running doe. Full credit to the LED lighting upgrade that I recently installed...and the attentive driver.

I won't ride at night at this time of year. Recurrent close calls while in the Jeep are forcing me to consider rationing my driving, too. Autumn 2024 has thus far been one of the busiest that I can recall, in terms of deer movement.

Stay frosty, kids.

While not a deer encounter (although my 15-acre yard and rural neighborhood are FULL of them), I got to test out the Jeep's brakes when a mail truck driving slowly on a two-lane 55mph county road, running its flashers as if it were delivering to the mailboxes along the road, decided to make a left turn into a driveway just as I was getting ready to pass it. No squealing tires, no ABS, just good brakes and braking technique. I attribute it to all those quick stops I practice on my motorcycles at every opportunity.

I'll probably upgrade to LEDs one of these days (another one of those packages I didn't want to spring for when I know I can get something good aftermarket). They've made a huge difference in my 2013 Bug and 2018 NINJA 650; the 2023 NINJA 400 came with LEDs stock. I also added aftermarket auxiliary LEDs to both bikes so they'll catch sight of deer on the shoulders and in the ditches much sooner.

 

[aldo98229]

Such a foreign concept to me, having grown up in Idaho with millions of acres of wilderness. The idea of setting a couple hundred acres aside for people to run around in with Jeeps and ATVs is quite ridiculous.

But, after today in which I traveled about 35 miles off-road on public Forest Service land, and then private timber company land, and not finding any trails or roads very challenging, the idea of designating a specific area for off-road vehicles seemed to make more sense.

I'm sure there are some amazing Jeep routes through Idaho that are beautiful and challenging. But with timber companies and the government becoming more and more anti-citizen, they are closing off almost all of their lands to normal folks who just want to go off-roading and camp.

Yeah. Pretty much everything here in Western Washington is behind locked gates, too.

The problem is that people go into the woods and do stupid stuff, break things, dump all kinds of crap, start fires, etc.

One time I saw an ice cream freezer dumped on a steep ravine, 15 miles up a logging road. I am sure it was a bitch to fetch and haul out. People just suck.

There is a nice trail not far from here where people dump old mattresses, couches and batteries. The DNR closed off the trail over summer and had volunteers clean it up. It reopened it a month ago and put a sign not to dump stuff or the trail will be closed again. We will see how long it stays open.

BC and California seem to strike a much better balance between the interests of the public, the DNR and the logging companies. They manage to keep thousands of miles of forest roads open to the public year round.

The Canada border is only 20 miles north of here; they have forest roads going in every direction.

 

[JJ_WA]

I avoided yet another running doe. Full credit to the LED lighting upgrade that I recently installed...and the attentive driver.

I won't ride at night at this time of year. Recurrent close calls while in the Jeep are forcing me to consider rationing my driving, too. Autumn 2024 has thus far been one of the busiest that I can recall, in terms of deer movement.

Stay frosty, kids.

I hear ya! I was driving to the exit gate at McChord Field (Joint Base Lewis-McChord) just after dusk yesterday and didn't see two grazing deer until I was parallel with them! Right across from Burger King, where I'd never expect to see them.
Stay frosty, indeed!

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