Pennsylvania Rausch Creek Rides

Next trip July 13, 2019, 8am, be there or be square :geek:

So it's looking good for a forum run, so far me & @Camdenst are in, looking to get some more locals, possibly @jazngab , @chino1969 & anyone else in southeastern PA, Delaware, Jersey, northern Maryland that can make it to beautiful Schuylkill County Pennsylvania for a day that is sure to leave your TJ worth a few bucks less, lemme know
 
Next trip July 13, 2019, 8am, be there or be square :geek:

So it's looking good for a forum run, so far me & @Camdenst are in, looking to get some more locals, possibly @jazngab , @chino1969 & anyone else in southeastern PA, Delaware, Jersey, northern Maryland that can make it to beautiful Schuylkill County Pennsylvania for a day that is sure to leave your TJ worth a few bucks less, lemme know

Willy, thanks for the invite. Will let you know as time gets closer; alot going on. Does Rausch Creek have beginner trails? I'm way past the day when I did dumb shit and am far more cautious these days.
 
Does Rausch Creek have beginner trails? I'm way past the day when I did dumb shit and am far more cautious these days.

yes sir, the maps below show the trails by difficulty. The greens are the easier ones & most abundant followed by blue, black and red. I too have gotten the dumb assery out of my system long ago, though it experienced a brief return engagement with the TJ that too has *mostly :LOL:subsided so I'm perfectly content doing greens all day. It turns out that they're some of the most fun trails anyway as Rausch delineates their ratings mostly by rock size/content so a more difficult trail while having larger rocks can be otherwise relatively stable & uneventful topographically while the easier trail can be a real twisty/bendy off-camber roller coaster - I'd rather move along & cover ground while going up, down & sideways than slowly crawl over large rocks...
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*Edit: we can also have it both ways, there are cop outs everywhere & it's pretty common for some people in the group to do certain trails or obstacles while others loop around & meet back up. I'm prone to disappearing into the unknown & quickly returning
 
So far no luck getting someone to cover me but not giving up yet. Got a couple more people I can try to beg😬
 
I miss wheeling at Rausch Creek. Moved to the west coast 7 years ago.
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My old CJ making the climb up the power line near trail 5 entrance.
 
Are Bruce and Lynn still in charge of the park? The forum seemed to die out a couple years ago.

I'm not really sure, though I've communicated with Lynn by email a couple years ago for off day reservations & other questions. And yea the forum is weak, and the guy that used to run 'wheel with us' gave it up to live in his jeep & shoot a youtube series so while it's still up & running no one is minding the store hahaha
 
Yes. Pretty much the same crew runs it. It’s still as good as ever. Was just there last week with my buddies Early Bronco club...

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July 13, 2019 a/k/a TJ Forum Day at Rausch Creek

Really fun day with Reggie (@jazngab) & Trevor (@Camdenst) along with my @Chris like buddy that, like @Chris, is also named Chris, and like @Chris also drives a (clears throat), JK 😁

The main part of the video (starts at 2:23) is a trail 38C which I’ve only done once before, that rocky portion just before it was 38B which I had forgotten about & would’ve rather avoided but it went well. 38C is like a roller coaster, one minute your seatbelt is holding you from falling into the dash & the next you’re staring at the sky, repeat, sooo much fun. Look for the part in the middle where we go into the water very briefly, going down into that pit I’m pretty sure the front passenger flare is dunked in.

I think one of the trickiest things about the terrain here is the effort that goes into avoiding the omnipresent trees which often force you into lines you wouldn’t otherwise pick, most often when mixed with rocks – look for one section of the video were I squeeze through two trees & it looks like the opening is about an inch wider than the TJ.

Part of the video is Reggie yanking me out of a ditch, that was a stupid turn I took while aiming for a really cool hill climb, when I went down I could feel the shovel lop off the leading edge which was fine but going backwards the rear of the shovel dug in which made it tough to get back out. After that Trevor successfully got into the trail I was aiming for, though about a Jeep’s width to the right which was the smarter line. After the f-up my balls shriveled up & I passed on following him, pissed I didn’t get his run on video because it was really impressive – the LJ Rubihara is a monster & he really knows how to drive it. And kudos to Reggie who went everywhere on 31s, I’m always amazed how capable these TJs are in any configuration.


some other random photos:

Gotta feed the beast, around 6am

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it's a beautiful drive to the park

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arrival around 7:45am

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hard to tell where the 'trail' even is sometimes
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Trevor assessing the conundrum
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Chris's turn to add two cents. Problem was my front bumper was gonna dig in with any more forward movement, only way out was from whence I came
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while we were parked here an 'Offroad Consulting' green trail ride wagon train passed us by, looked to be around 20 Jeeps many of which were shiny new JLUs, really glad to see that people are buying those things & taking them out on the trails. They sure are beautiful vehicles though I'd opt for the two door version
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As always I'm already looking forward to the next trip, not sure when that'll be but soon
 
I need to get back out to Rausch sometime. I might be in the area with the Jeep around end of August until mid September.

I think I've done the trail ~2:58 in the video. It is sure a good way to see how your suspension works.

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Amazing Day. Thanks for leading Marc, couldn’t have done it without you.

yup, anytime

I need to get back out to Rausch sometime. I might be in the area with the Jeep around end of August until mid September.

I think I've done the trail ~2:58 in the video. It is sure a good way to see how your suspension works.

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Yea that looks like it, it’s buried at the bottom of the northeast property & takes a couple hours to get there but it’s worth it, there’s a ton of fun stuff to do on the way – I think it took us about 5 hours to get there & back yesterday. It is a good & bendy workout down below

If you're coming down let me know in advance & we'll get something together, I'm around all summer
 
Following this thread. I’ll be up at Rausch on Aug 30 and 31st with a possible Sept 1st run as well. The 31st will be a members ride for my local Jeep club here in the DC area. Maybe we can meet up on one of the other days.
 
so it's on for an 8am kick-off this Saturday at Rausch (August 31st), I'll be stopping by to meet @sjalkian but not part of his group, I'll be with my buddy Pete in his land yacht JKU, what he gives away in size & breakover he more than makes up for in sheer will power, he's awesome - any last minute long shot takers lemme know, @jazngab @chino1969 @Camdenst

I think we're slated for girlfriend dirves TJ Offroad Edition #2 also :oops:😁
 
I too won’t be able to make it Saturday. Enjoy.
 
so it's on for an 8am kick-off this Saturday at Rausch (August 31st), I'll be stopping by to meet @sjalkian but not part of his group, I'll be with my buddy Pete in his land yacht JKU, what he gives away in size & breakover he more than makes up for in sheer will power, he's awesome - any last minute long shot takers lemme know, @jazngab @chino1969 @Camdenst

I think we're slated for girlfriend dirves TJ Offroad Edition #2 also :oops:😁
Hey man, it was great meeting you yesterday. Loved your TJ. We took your suggestion and did trails 38A and 38C. Great twisty steep trails with a couple pucker moments on 38C. Some other clubs members mentioned running into you guys as well. Overall, another great day at Rausch Creek.

Sarkis
 
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Hey man, it was great meeting you yesterday. Loved your TJ. We took your suggestion and did trails 38A and 38C. Great twisty steep trails with a couple pucker moments on 38C. Some other clubs members mentioned running into you guys as well. Overall, another great day at Rausch Creek.

Sarkis

good meeting you too, and yea I ran into some guys with VA tags, good group you've got there! 38 is my current favorite, I thought we were going to head into the northeast too but Pete wanted to go to J due to some recent changes, all weather related. It was treacherous & fun. I stayed away from trouble all day with a couple of exceptions.

I took some videos & strung them together, the first part of this is a little hill off of Trail A near the office, it was the last thing we did, I had never really noticed it before but it was fun. There's some shots of J from inside the jeep, then the rest is Pete doing some questionable things 😁, one thing I didn't get on video was his attempt at Shoot the Moon, he ended up mangling his stock side-steps & a couple of the brackets that hold them on, it was a little gruesome with a good bit of those blood curdling metal crunching plastic exploding sounds until we were able to back him out of there, you can see what's left of his step in some of the video below


some random photos:

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Reactions: jazngab
good meeting you too, and yea I ran into some guys with VA tags, good group you've got there! 38 is my current favorite, I thought we were going to head into the northeast too but Pete wanted to go to J due to some recent changes, all weather related. It was treacherous & fun. I stayed away from trouble all day with a couple of exceptions.

I took some videos & strung them together, the first part of this is a little hill off of Trail A near the office, it was the last thing we did, I had never really noticed it before but it was fun. There's some shots of J from inside the jeep, then the rest is Pete doing some questionable things 😁, one thing I didn't get on video was his attempt at Shoot the Moon, he ended up mangling his stock side-steps & a couple of the brackets that hold them on, it was a little gruesome with a good bit of those blood curdling metal crunching plastic exploding sounds until we were able to back him out of there, you can see what's left of his step in some of the video below


some random photos:

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Very cool man. Conditions were perfect. Barely and mud and the only stream running down trail we found the whole weekend was on Friday when we went up Crawl Daddy.

I was bummed we didn’t do 38B, but A and C were a total blast. Thanks again for the suggestion. The JKU who was leading our group wasn’t a fan. He didn’t even do 38B. Truly a TJ trail for sure!