Bill's Views on Most Everything

Willys Jeep Wagon

I have been involved in four wheeling since childhood.  Stuck up to the axles and high-centered in Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, and Wyoming.  I like to get out where the country is wild and there aren’t too many people around.  My favorite places are mountain passes in Colorado and the vast red rock country in Utah.  I am not a hard core rock-crawler with a vehicle jacked up in the air with near tractor tires whining and rumbling down the street.

I have had International Scouts, Nissans, Dodges, and my current Toyota Tacoma.  There is a long succession of Jeeps I have ridden in and driven.  I have also been stranded in them.  So, no Jeep for me, I just don’t trust them.  There are lots of choices in four wheelers, but not as many choices for cheap four wheelers.  I’m cheap.

1953 Chevy 2wd

I buy base model vehicles.  I even bought one without air conditioning.  4x4s aren’t particularly cheap, but it is not necessary to spend $50,000 for a nice rig.  My Dodge pickup had a small engine.  Oh, wait, it wasn’t even four wheel drive, although I treated it like it was.  I guess my willingness to use a two wheeler goes back to my youth, when we had a 1953 Chevrolet pickup.  That was in the days when the only 4x4s were old military Jeeps and the venerable Dodge Power Wagon.  Both were capable, but slow and fairly unreliable (35 mph in the Jeep, about 50 in a Power Wagon).  Dad and I went hunting and fishing in that old Chevy.  Dad was an amazing driver in the bad stuff.  He used to maintain the telephone line from Fruita to Cisco, Utah across that adobe desert in a two wheel drive pickup.  Up in the Bookcliff area, there used to be a pile of rocks at the bottom of a bad hill.  If it was muddy or snowy the driver would stop, load the rocks in the back of the pickup, go about his business, and unload the rocks at the bottom of the hill on the way out.

Two times we went places in that old Chevy where no sane person would go without four wheel drive.  Once, we were deer hunting up in the Douglas Pass country after a storm.  The road was muddy with that slick stuff Western Colorado is famous for.  We drove down into a saddle that was steep at either end.  We couldn’t get up the hill.  A newer pickup came by that had a limited slip differential, new at the time, and went right up the hill.  We had to put the tire chains on.

Battlement Lakes Road

The other adventure was going fishing at the  Battlement Lakes road on Grand Mesa.  That road wasn’t steep, but was full of big rocks and mud holes.  It was narrow, with little room to maneuver around obstacles.  Dad put that old pickup in second gear, not even the granny gear, and mostly idled along thar road with that old Chevy six lugging along.  The rocks in back rolled around and smashed my good spinning rod.  We met some guys in there in a Jeep.  They could not believe we got in there with a two wheel drive pickup.  I don’t think the fishing was very good that day, but no matter.

Scout I

After he retired, Dad got into four wheeling.  His first one was an old Jeep station wagon with a 283 Chevy V8.  That thing was good in the bad stuff, but leaked oil and had some ignition problems.  The next one was an International Scout I.  Pretty primitive, but capable with one exception.   There was a place on Elephant Hill in Canyonlands named Scout Slot.  It was narrow, in solid rock with a ledge that was in just the right place to break the transfer case of a Scout.

After that was an older model Jeep Cherokee.  It was pretty good, and it went around the White Rim Trail with some friends.  Next was a Scout II.  It was good, but one night coming off Elephant Hill it quit.  Dad and I walked to the Canyonlands Resort and got the owner to tow us with his Ford pickup.  We bounced a short distance and the Scout started.  The carburetor float must have been stuck and bounced loose.  I sold the Scout for the Dodge pickup.

2009 Tacoma

I did two wheel drive for a while then bought a Nissan Frontier.  It was capable, lasted quite a while, then I crashed it on ice in Glenwood Canyon.  Now it is the Toyota.  It is good, but I gave it a dent on Pearl Pass.  Now I have a Detroit Trutrac limited slip differential which should help.  Summer is coming, and I’m ready to get out there.