The Crew
Allen Dickenson (me) and co-pilot Joe Russo - Falls Church, VA - ‘95
4Runner Limited
Bill Miranda and co-pilot Andy - Leesburg, VA - ‘90 4Runner SR5
Dale Roberts - Rockville, MD - ‘93 4Runner
Patrick J. Skelley and co-pilot Soren - Bedford, VA - ‘93 4Runner SR5
Mike Care - Winston-Salem, N.C. - ‘98 4Runner
The Trail
The primary trails we hit on this trip were Edinburg Gap and Gauley
Ridge Rd. To get to Edinburg Gap, take the exit for Edinburg / Rt.
675 off of I-81. Go east on Rt. 675 until you reach an ATV loading
area on the right. The trailhead is on the left, directly across
from the ATV loading area. Gauley Ridge can be accessed from Rt.
612. Approximately 15 miles west of Harrisonburg, VA on Rt. 33, take
a right onto Rt. 612. Continue on Rt. 612 until you come to a church
on your left. Rt. 612 takes a couple of turns before the church,
but just stay on 612. Immediately after the church, take the gravel
road on the left. About 100 yds. up the gravel road there are a couple
of cut-offs to the right. These cut-offs lead to Gauley Ridge.
Friday, Dec. 11
I left work at about 5:00 with my truck packed as full as I’ve ever had it. I had to drop off a couch in Harrisonburg before heading out to the trails, so I had to do some careful packing. I was the first to arrive in the meadow near Switzer Lake where we were to camp, so I just threw on some tunes and relaxed in the warmth of my truck until others arrived. Bill and Andy were the first to arrive. The first glitch of the trip occurred when my alarm armed after I got out to greet Bill and Andy. My doors locked with the windows up and my keys in the ignition. We tried several methods of getting the doors open to no avail. Mike was the next to arrive and we commandeered his cb antennae to try and hit the power lock button. No luck. Then Patrick pulled into the meadow. After a few more attempts with the antennae, Patrick asked if he could mess around a little in my wiring harness in the back. I figured, what the hell, so I said o.k. After a little probing around, Patrick shorted a wire and my rear glass rolled down!!! I crawled in and unlocked the doors. Content that I wouldn’t be sleeping under my truck, I disarmed my alarm to prevent further mishaps.
Luckily for us, the Forest Service cancelled the fire ban in the GW
National Forest beginning on Friday, so we built a nice campfire to keep
us warm in the cold mountain air. It was supposed to get down into
the 20’s, so we all sat close to the fire and drank a few beers and discussed
the typical campfire topics. Finally the cold got the better of us
and we warmed up the 4Runners, crawled inside and hit the hay.
Saturday, Dec. 12
The plan was to meet Dale and Joe at the Food Lion on Rt. 33 at 10am and head to the trails, but we got a late start from the meadow and didn’t get to the Food Lion until almost 10:30. We saw Dale, but no Joe. I headed over to the Shell station and saw Joe there…standing next to his ’97 F*rd Mustang GT! I told him I knew that a big V8 is cool on the trails, but I didn’t think the Mustang would articulate very well. He told us that his pick-up was having clutch problems, but he still wanted to come along, so he rode along with me.
We left from the Shell and all agreed that it was time for a little grub, so we made our traditional stop at McDorman’s Grocery, a small country store on Rt. 33, for some of their country ham sandwiches before heading out to the trails. I believe the total count was in the neighborhood of 14 ham sandwiches.
We then hit a couple of the loops off of Rt. 33. The loops are just trails that wind around through some mud holes, crossing the river at spots and eventually rejoin Rt. 33. The mud holes were a little better this time due to the rain that the area has gotten lately. Bill seemed to be having a little difficulty climbing some of the small washouts that we were hitting. This seemed unusual, but I just attributed it to country ham on the brain at the time. We decided to crawl up the river some since it was pretty much just a dry rock bed. We went a ways down river until we reached a nice rockface that would make a good backdrop for a group shot. Bill was last in line and was still having problems. He got hung up on a rock just before getting to where the rest of us were and out of curiosity I watched to see if his front wheels were spinning. I could hear that his rear tires were spinning, but his fronts weren’t doing a thing. When he finally got free and parked next to us I looked and confirmed my suspicions…..his hubs weren’t locked!!! He’d been running in 2wd the whole time! It was pretty impressive that he’d made it to where we were in 2wd, but he agreed that locking the hubs would be a wise choice.
After getting a few pictures of the trucks lined up against the rockface, we all decided to head north up to Edinburg to hit the trails there. We stopped back by the Shell to pick up Joe’s car on our way out and drove up I-81 to Rt. 675 and stopped at the ATV area so that Joe could park and jump in with me.
The
first part of Edinburg Gap is passable with a stock truck (well, a stock
Toyota anyway), but includes a couple of nice twisty sections and steep
climbs. One section gave Bill a little trouble when things got twisted
up and tires were lifted and spinning on both axles (Bill and I will be
installing an Old Man Emu coil spring lift on his truck on 12/18, so he’ll
have a bit more articulation to play with). A little more throttle
and Bill got passed it. Patrick got passed the obstacle fine, but
with his usual flair for the dramatic, he lifted a front tire about 2 feet
off the ground in the process.
We continued on until we approached an obstacle that Bill and I remembered
from a previous trip. It’s basically a small mesa that sort of sticks
out from the mountain-side. You have to climb up on one side, then
it levels off for about the length of the truck, then down the other.
It’s not a very difficult obstacle, but the climb up is kind of off-camber
and if the wheels slip off of the narrow rock ledge, a rollover is very
likely. Unfortunately, there was a group of ATV riders parked up
on the mesa taking a break. Seeing as how the trail actually goes
around the mesa, we decided that we would just bypass it this time and
continue on.
From here on out the trail itself is basically a rough 2wd fire road,
but there are some neat berms off to the side in several areas that provided
us with some playtime. 
I
tried one in particular that had a steep drop off on the downhill side.
As I crested the berm I became high-centered. My truck was resting
on the nerf bars, which were bending up into the body seam. The only
damage was to the seam, which can be easily bent back into place, but I’m
now convinced that I need to have a pair of real nerf bars / rock-sliders
made and welded to the frame. This would provide me with high-lift
points and would protect the rocker panels MUCH better than the Smittybilts.
Dale gave me a tug off of the back of the berm. Patrick then climbed
up the berm from the other side, putting a slight ding in my ego, but I’ll
just chalk it up to the berm being more passable from that side.
A
little further down the trail we came upon a ditch running along the right
side of the trail. Bill learned that he could put his right side
front tire down in the ditch and get it nicely twisted up. Mike tried
it after Bill and then it was Patrick’s turn. I spotted him down
into the ditch because of the sharp drop off down into it. I directed
him to his left a little, but his truck wasn’t quite lined up right and
he couldn’t get out of the ditch forward due to being too twisted up, so
he backed up out of the ditch to try it again. He then proceeded
to try a little more speed instead of moving more left. When his
rear came down the bank his rear bumper slammed into the top of the ditch.
When he pulled away we saw that the passenger side of his rear bumper was
hanging 
down
quite a bit. His custom rear bumper has a center section that he
built but includes the flimsy stock side sections. It was the flimsy
stock side section that got slammed up into his rear quarter panel, putting
a nice little dent right under his tail light. A little tugging and
pulling put his bumper straight again, but the dent caused some paint to
chip off. Nothing a little primer and some Krylon won’t fix!
Just then a hunter came up behind us in his old truck, complete with
dog kennels on the rear. I took a picture of his dogs and he asked
me if I was “…one of them there anti-hunter folks or animal rights folks…”
I assured him that I just thought his dogs were cool and that was that.
We
continued on up the trail until we came to a pretty nice hill climb that
follows some phone and power lines up the side of the mountain. 
We
all made it up and down without incident. At the bottom, Bill decided
to try to go down the hill a little from the trail. There was a pretty
big berm to get over first, but he made it, only scraping the normal stuff
– front valence, transfer case skid plate and rear trailer hitch.
The rest of us followed him. Mike hit his front and rear trailer
hitches pretty good on the berm, but made it over just fine. I gotta
give him credit, it takes guts to take a ’98 4Runner out and wheel it like
he does.
After climbing back up the hill and over the berm, we stopped at Woodstock Tower to get a good view of the valley. One of these days I want to climb the tower in the daylight. It really is a spectacular view.
After we left the tower we drove Joe back to his car and decided that
we were all ready for some dinner. Since it was getting late and
it was raining, we decided to stop at the Golden Corral in Harrisonburg.
After thoroughly stuffing ourselves and saying goodbye to Joe, we headed
back out to the woods to set up camp. Instead of the meadow, we chose
a more covered area on the other side of Dry River, a campsite we had stayed
at before and the site of the now infamous “Troll Woman” incident.
We threw some cheater logs in the firepit with a large log and lit it up,
hoping that it would catch in the slight sprinkle we were getting under
the trees. After a little while it was clear that the fire wasn’t
going to get very big, so out came the white gas! I’m pretty sure
Bill is a closet pyromaniac (as most guys are). Over the course of
the night we went through about half a gallon of the gas. Amazingly,
no eyebrows were lost in the process. After a few hours of discussing
all things manly in a very politically incorrect way, we all decided to
get out of the rain and get some sleep.
Sunday, Dec. 13
As has become tradition, I was the last one to wake up the next day (with the aid of Bill’s air horns). We packed everything up and headed out towards Rt. 33. It was again decided that country ham sandwiches would be needed, so we stopped at McDorman’s again. This time the tally was slightly smaller, perhaps only about 10 sandwiches.
After leaving McDorman’s, we headed back Rt. 612 to the trailhead for Gauley Ridge. After a wrong turn by yours truly, we were on the trail. A little ways up the trail we came upon a trail that headed up to the left off of the main trail. Bill led the way over the 2 berms at the start of the trail. I followed, clearing the first berm easily. I took the wrong line on the 2nd berm however and got a little high-centered. Patrick jumped up & down on my rear bumper a little to give me some traction and I unstuck myself. Taking the correct line (to the left) made things a lot easier. Unfortunately, about 200 yds. up the trail it came to a dead end and we had to turn all the trucks around and head back down.
Next, we came to the spot where we had cleared a large tree off of the trail on a previous ride. We all decided to take the hard way around, through the creek bed and up the embankment. Bill went first. After getting over the large rock at the base of the embankment, Bill climbed right up it. This seemed odd seeing as how he had to be winched up it the first time and it was raining this time. Everyone made it up with the right line, without anyone smacking 4Runner tree.
We
continued up the trail, crawling through the creekbed at one point and
passing the boulder that nearly rolled Joe on a previous trip. At
the top of Gauley Ridge, we decided to go right instead of left, which
would have taken us to Long Run Rd. since we had never been that way.
Mainly all we saw from here on out was just 2wd fire roads. It was
kinda cool though because there were some nice whoop-de-doos on the road
and we all got up some speed and were catching air under all 4! Try
that with a solid axle up front and you’ll be making friends with the chiropractor
REAL quick!
There were a couple of cool side trails with huge mud puddles or big
berms to play on, but for the most part, the rough stuff was over.
However, I did try going down the side of the mountain under some power
lines at one point. When it was decided that the berms in front of
me to get back onto the road were too big and may cause an end-over, I
decided to go back up. First I tried to turn around, but it became
quickly apparent that the hill was too steep for that when my rear started
to slide down. I know that if I’d continued trying to turn around
my rear would have swung around and probably set me on my passenger side.
I made the decision to try backing up the hill. 
My
first attempt did little more than getting me back to the point where I
was facing straight down the hill, eliminating the rollover factor.
However, my wheels were spinning in the loose dirt. After 1 or 2
tries, I decided to pull forward onto the berm a little and use some momentum.
It worked! I backed up the hill with a little tire spin and some
steering wheel see-sawing. I think Mike was a little disappointed
because he didn’t get to use his winch. Maybe next time Mike!
When we got back on the fire road, we came around to where the 2 big berms
were and Bill had tried to climb up the hill. I think he knew he
would do little more than get a little vertical for a photo op, but it
did look cool!
A short while later we reached civilization. We decided to call
it a day and stopped at a gas station to air up, unlock the hubs and say
our goodbyes. Despite the weather, it was a great trip with some
good 4wheeling, only minimal damage and lots of laughs.
If anyone has any questions about the trails, feel free to contact me
at fort.knox@verizon.net.
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