Paragon

[cookiedan@domain.elided (Daniel Nees)]

Binder wheelers,
   I got home from Paragon park in Hazleton, PA. This is a 15000 acre
privately owned mountain strip mine that off-road clubs can wheel on. 
   Mike from Off Camber Crawlers was kind enough to allow us to tag
along with them. 
   This place is an off-roaders paradise. The main road over the moutain
is a steep climb over rocks and stumps.At the top of the mountain is a
short patch of rock crawling. Most of the trucks had little problem with
this section with adequate spotting. The new TJ's were really impressive
with their 4 coil set-up. The Big trucks like Broco's and the one
Ramcharger had a little problem because of their size, but weren't that
bad.
   Rob Cavaleri found that he had differnet ratios in his axles and was
jack rabbitting all over the mountain. He ended up driving the trail in
2 wheel drive. 
   Joe Costanzo had little problem on this section either.
   I shot this section with no spoters and had no promlem at all. I was
a lot of fun and now I can't wait to get to Colorado in August!
   Once we got to the bottom of the mountain we came to this big mud
puddle. About 50 yards long by 10 feet wide, by 1 1/2' deep, with a hard
bottom. Everyone had a good time playing in that. Even Cavaler got his
truck dirty!
  After that we went to drive the mini-Rubicon. About 10 feet from the
top of the trail I blew up my Auto tranny! Rob had to drag me backwards
out of the trail over all the boulders. I managed to jam a large rock in
between the front tire and the fender which we had to highlift over. I
then had to get towed out of the woods by a Cherokee Chief :-(. (Thanks
Mike for that)
   Once I was out of the woods and onto the pavement I was able to drive
back to the hotel in first gear. (See my next post for what happened to
the tranny)
  We had a great time wheeling, even being towed out of the woods was
fun, I had to avoid the rocks on the trail. 
   We will be having a Triple Diamond Fourwheelers trip to Paragon some
time next year. (After I rebuild the tranny and fix the engine) I would
encourage anyone interested in doing some mild to heavy wheeling, and
doesn't mind leaving some paint in the woods, should consider joining
us. 

Dan Nees
cookiedan@domain.elided
The
"Good" 1979 Scout II  345/auto 
The
"Bad" 1971 Scout II 304/T-18 
And the
"Ugly" 1979 Scout II 345/auto 

http://members.tripod.com/~IHCaholic/scoutindex.html