Three of us did a local rock crawling trail called Motino Wash out in the SoCal desert Saturday. Behind the Big Bear mountains if you know the area. We crawled our way up the backside of Big Bear and then ended up on top in Big Bear, somewhere around 7800' at the top. No rain, clear skies, a bit dusty at the most. No mud expected. Beautiful. Cool, bright sun, no wind, patchy snow.
So we're bopping along on dry & dusty dirt trails on top of the mountains heading for the highway when we start picking up some mud. Then more mud, then LOTS of mud. My TJ had no upper doors on and only a bikini top... the back was wide open. More details... my 35x12.50 tires stick out a lot. No fenders. I had my elbow out when it starts getting pelted with mud. Ok I pull my arm in. Then the mud got even worse & we're hitting some mud puddles... big mud puddles. Mud now frigging everywhere and I can't keep my windshield clean from waves of mud washing over it.
Today I went out to view the Jeep in my driveway and thought, ok my neighbors are going to come calling and knocking on my door saying "Jerry, about your Jeep". I pulled/pushed on a few larger muddy outcroppings and since drying overnight they're now like concrete.
Shit. I don't normally worry about my Jeep being dirty (my wife has refused to ride in it for a couple years now due to the dirt) but this is bad enough that it has to be cleaned. That means taking everything out including the big aluminum box in the back that is holding the rear carpeting down. Standing inside my TJ with the high-pressure soapy sprayer at its semi-yearly cleaning always gets funny glances.
Only one time before did my Jeep get anywhere near this muddy and that was with mrblaine. He & I went out late one night maybe 16-17 years ago to rescue two teenagers who had buried their parent's Wrangler and Grand Cherokee up to their frames in deep soupy mud at a new housing tract right after major rains. The kids gave us $5 in quarters for the local coin-op carwash to wash the mud off which didn't do much more than wash off maybe 10 lbs. of mud leaving 50 lbs. behind underneath lol.
I don't think even my local coin-op carwash is going to handle this for anything less than $15-20 in quarters. No more mud for me. Once maybe, twice is inexcusable lol.
These pics in reverse order... whouda thunk a Jeep would end up like this after the last photos below showing how the day started. I must have been bamboozled.
So we're bopping along on dry & dusty dirt trails on top of the mountains heading for the highway when we start picking up some mud. Then more mud, then LOTS of mud. My TJ had no upper doors on and only a bikini top... the back was wide open. More details... my 35x12.50 tires stick out a lot. No fenders. I had my elbow out when it starts getting pelted with mud. Ok I pull my arm in. Then the mud got even worse & we're hitting some mud puddles... big mud puddles. Mud now frigging everywhere and I can't keep my windshield clean from waves of mud washing over it.
Today I went out to view the Jeep in my driveway and thought, ok my neighbors are going to come calling and knocking on my door saying "Jerry, about your Jeep". I pulled/pushed on a few larger muddy outcroppings and since drying overnight they're now like concrete.
Shit. I don't normally worry about my Jeep being dirty (my wife has refused to ride in it for a couple years now due to the dirt) but this is bad enough that it has to be cleaned. That means taking everything out including the big aluminum box in the back that is holding the rear carpeting down. Standing inside my TJ with the high-pressure soapy sprayer at its semi-yearly cleaning always gets funny glances.
Only one time before did my Jeep get anywhere near this muddy and that was with mrblaine. He & I went out late one night maybe 16-17 years ago to rescue two teenagers who had buried their parent's Wrangler and Grand Cherokee up to their frames in deep soupy mud at a new housing tract right after major rains. The kids gave us $5 in quarters for the local coin-op carwash to wash the mud off which didn't do much more than wash off maybe 10 lbs. of mud leaving 50 lbs. behind underneath lol.
I don't think even my local coin-op carwash is going to handle this for anything less than $15-20 in quarters. No more mud for me. Once maybe, twice is inexcusable lol.
These pics in reverse order... whouda thunk a Jeep would end up like this after the last photos below showing how the day started. I must have been bamboozled.
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