 Back to Trail Reports Main Page |
Story by
John
Farley |
|
Great
Smokey Mountain Venture '99
Since this was our first time to Tellico, we decided to take the first few days easy. We signed up for Trails 1,4, and 5 with Bob as our trail boss. Bob and his crowd where from the Central Ontario 4x4 Club and we had wheeled with them in the past, so it seemed like a good plan for us. They have been making the trek for the past 8 years and knew the trails like the back of their hands.
We where in awe as rig after rig passed by us. Well-built Scramblers, CJ-2As and Hybrids seemed to be the pick of Tellico. It's really amazing what is street legal in North Carolina. The only draw back to the scheduling was that we didn't have a lot of time to see some of the other rigs doing the harder trails that we would be tackling later in the week. |
Our
trip started at 8:00 Wednesday morning. Who would have known that the
20 hour drive would take us 36 hours? Between seasonal fairies, burnt
trailer brakes, and bad directions, we made the final destination at
Murphy North Carolina. As we set up camp we started to relax and
registered with Tom for the trails the next day. 
There
was little difficulty in trails for the day. Several water crossings
and some rock ledges made for some interesting obstacles, but the day
went without any problems. The laid back feeling at the Smokey
Mountain Venture made the whole vacation much more enjoyable .
Considering there were 120 trucks on the mountain, it was very evident
that the behind the scenes co-ordination was running perfectly. Their
timing of groups was perfect. As one group would stop at the water
crossing for lunch, another group would come down from the other
direction and pass through the creek. This was crucial since many of
the trails are on the side of a mountain, with little or no room to
pass.