When you love wheeling, anytime you get out on the trails is a good time. That’s specially true when out with the NEXTerra. Some locations, however, seem to have that little something extra that make them favorites. To me, the Summit & MaBell properties have that something extra & I look forward to this club run every year.
We met at the Summit property the morning of the run & proceeded to check out the stock trail as a group first. After spending some time on the green trails, the modified group split off to run the harder trails. The harder trails at Summit require a minimum 32″ size tires, some lift & armor. And you better have them as the rock gardens can be daunting challenge. Negotiating boulders with mud slicked tires while nearby trees beckon your side panels get your heart racing pretty soon. With some excellent spotting, perseverance & trust in our rigs, we made it through the rock gardens, log bridges & met up with the stock group for welcome lunch break.
After lunch & a short drive on tarmac, we arrived at mighty MaBell. MaBell starts her uphill climb, on the rocks, right from the start sort of as a precursor to what’s to come. The challenges mount quickly with the trail continuing it’s steady uphill climb, first negotiating a rocky trail & then very quickly escalating to intimidating rock ledges. The ledges deserve respect & will extract their price for overconfidence, inexperience, or both. It takes a lot of spotting & calm nerves to navigate the many slippery ledges on the way to the top. We had many a heart stopping moment, some broken parts but most importantly a fantastic day. Pictures & video don’t do any justice, visit the forum for some of them.
Join us at the next NEXTerra event to meet some of the most welcoming people & enjoy the great outdoors. Tread lightly!
