From production models to heavily modified trucks, jeeps and custom buggies, rock crawlers are designed to tackle the roughest and most unimaginable terrain.
These adventurers avoid the boring, busier roads and look for routes that take them into deep gorges and over scree fields that even cattle and antelope avoid.
Tim Haid is president of the Back Country Crawlers in Casper and spends many weekends driving around the Poison Spider OHV Park, a BLM property littered with giant boulders, ravines and basically the most inhospitable landscape for even the most powerful four-wheel drive vehicles. It’s a 284-acre “playground” on the site of a former bentonite mine near Casper.
It was here 20 years ago that he discovered that Jeeps are not just suitable for driving on open roads.
Today, Haid and his wife Ashley spend their free time exploring switchbacks and old mining roads and playing on the rocks throughout the western states from Arizona to Montana.
Much of that time is spent crawling over obstacles at around 3 km/h at extreme angles that seem to defy the laws of physics, without the vehicle falling or tipping over. The slower you have to go, the greater the adrenaline rush.
The Haids are always looking for new obstacles to overcome, so they jumped at the opportunity to join more than 100 other rock crawlers for a trek at Wagonhound Off-Road Park in Hot Springs County. The annual trail run included a guided tour in the morning and smaller groups exploring the park and obstacles in the afternoon.
“It’s fun just to be a part of it,” said Ashley Haid, who couldn’t wait to get going as they waited for their guide and the Jeep group to assemble.
She says she would never have gotten into the sport on her own, but since her father, brother and husband are all avid rock climbers, Ashley Haid is happy to join in – even if she does get out and watch when the rocks become too intimidating.
“There were just super steep, steep parts where I thought, ‘Oh, we can’t do this,'” she says, shaking her head. “My husband just crawls over it like it’s nothing. And I think, ‘Oh, okay, this is easy.'”
On the way
Finally it’s time for the guided tour through the Wagonhound Off-Road Park.
Ashley Haid blocks the wheels of the Jeep for her husband before getting into her converted yellow Jeep.
The leaders, Dave Firebaugh and Bill Knighten, both of Thermopolis and members of the local club that built the park, line up the crawlers and side-by-sides. There are several groups that hit the trails, ranging from custom-built buggies that tackle the toughest obstacles to Jeeps ready to play on the tamer terrain.
The first challenge was crossing Cotton Creek to get to the actual trails. While the Jeeps crawled up the muddy bank with relative ease, the side-by-sides skidded and drove up the bank on three wheels instead of four.
“That was nothing,” said Tim Haid, laughing. “But you can see why you need the right equipment on these trails.”
The trail quickly forked. The left route was relatively flat, while the right trail descended steep ravines. The group immediately split into two groups, with Knighten leading those who described themselves as “flatlanders” along the easier trail. The Haids and other modified Jeeps followed Firebaugh to traverse more challenging trails and ravines.
It wasn’t long before the group stopped and Firebaugh pointed to a pile of boulders and slippery rocks.
“This is where the buggies will be,” he said. “It’s one of our newest obstacles and it’s a lot of fun.”
The group moved on and the next stop was to enjoy the view as they reached the top of the park.
While some members of the group stopped to take photos, one of the jeep drivers started to climb over a rock that protruded from the ground. He got stuck and backed up to try again, with his wife calmly holding on to the handrail.
“I love the smell of the sage and just being outside,” Ashley Haid said as she watched the Jeep drive away and then turned her attention to the wide open spaces around the group. “We don’t watch TV or stay inside. That’s what we live for!”
At the next stop, her husband decides to tackle the rock face. On the first pass, he chooses what he calls a gentler route that takes him effortlessly up the rocks. Next, he decides to try a more challenging ride on the smooth rock.
At a very slow speed, sometimes as low as 3 km/h, Tim Haid revs his engine and drives straight up the rocky cliff that most people would avoid. His flat tires stick to the smooth rock and the entire tire appears to be coming off the frame. To the layman, the tires appear to bend and deform in impossible ways reminiscent of cartoon cars.
His rear wheel gets caught in a sand hole and dust kicks up as he skids. Haid backs up and tries again. This time his entire rear wheel slams to the left. After a third attempt, he finds a way over the rocks and the next jeep turns off.
It’s all about technology
When rock crawling, whether with a Jeep, buggy or a stock vehicle, cyclists want to modify their vehicles to meet the challenge.
It’s not just about roll cages, suspension and locks, but also about having the right air pressure in the tires. Haid explains that letting the air out of the tires goes a long way in helping them grip better and conform better to rocks and boulders.
“You drive straight up and your tire takes the shape of the rock you’re hitting,” he said. “The weight of your vehicle hits the rock at exactly the same time, so you immediately have a lot more traction.”
Rock crawling enthusiast Matt Wallace said people shouldn’t be intimidated by the sport as it is suitable for all skill levels, not just those with seemingly insane death wishes.
“Anything you have with four-wheel drive is a great entry point,” he said. “You can start on dirt roads and gravel roads and then move into more and more extreme areas.”
Keep it legal
On BLM lands in Wyoming, it is illegal to leave the designated hiking trails and crawl over the boulders or ancient waterfalls that make this sport so exciting.
As a result, most rock crawlers with their buggies and modified vehicles seek these challenges outside of the Cowboy State, since motorized vehicles are restricted to the designated trails on BLM land. And there are so many of those in Wyoming that it can be difficult to spread out and find more challenges.
With the construction of the Wagonhound Off-Road Park near Thermopolis on a ranch where cows don’t dare roam, Wyoming residents now have a new legal place to roam.
“We just wanted to give people the opportunity to ride their bikes closer to home,” said Travis Winger.
Winger is president of the Central Wyoming 4X4 Club in Thermopolis, which spent years looking for a suitable site for a park. The conditions included many challenging boulders and difficult terrain.
The Wagonhound Off-Road Park is the only private off-road park in Wyoming and attracts rock crawlers and other off-roaders from all over the U.S. To build the park, the club brought in a local rancher to show him what rock crawling was all about.
“We drove up to an example of an obstacle that we would like to cross,” Winger said. “Afterward, he got out and said, ‘Don’t ever let me get in one of those things again! You guys are crazy. But if you want to do that, I think this is a perfect area for you, because my cows don’t go where you want to go.’
“There’s a lot of unexplored terrain and a lot of potential that we haven’t tapped into yet. At 3 km/h, it’s the biggest adrenaline rush you can have. It’s very slow speeds and very controlled.”
Low impact
The sport requires a careful and controlled approach as drivers maneuver their vehicles up, down and over formidable natural obstacles. Rock crawlers say their impact on the environment is surprisingly low due to their low speeds.
“We’ll go back there on April 1st when we reopen the park in the spring, and you won’t see a trace of where we were the year before. That’s because we’re going so slowly,” Winger said. “We’re not digging furrows and we’re not tearing anything up. We’re just climbing over it.”
By the time the morning’s guided tour at Wagonhound Off-Road Park came to an end, even Ashley Haid, who is still a little cautious about climbing over rocks, was ready to get back on the trails.
Next time she wants to get even more out of herself.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at [email protected].
