Badlands Off Road Adventure's
Basic Off-Road Clinic
2 Day Version
in Anza Borrego
By DChenster (10/6/2005)
There are a lot of people going Off-road, many people learned by experience, some by trial & error, and some are learned by wheeling with experienced driver. For me, since I like drive off-road and do go off-road once in a while. But frankly, I am a really bad driver, on road and off road, and I figure maybe take a class will be beneficial for me and my vehicle.
After in depth research on the web and forums, many hour of comparison and carefully compared. Few are available in southern California, especially with time & budget constrict. There are two that are standout :
Badlands Off Road Adventure - Find that from fellow TundraSolutions member
Bill Burke's 4-Wheeling America- Read from 4WD Toyota owner magazine which he was the editor
The Badlands Off Road Adventure by Tom Severin was chosen due to budget, location, and availability.
I registered the Basic Clinic for Sept. 20th, which he contacted me to notify me about equipment, and some safety information, Release of waiver of liability, survey of vehicle form, and some other forms. Few days before the event, there are some fire near hungry valley CA, so he had to move the class to Anza Borrego with brand new schedule, and since I am going to stay there, I signed up for second day too. I arrived on Friday night at Palm Canyon Inn at Borrego Spring at 9 Friday morning, because the lecture class was hosting there Saturday morning at 7:30.
I drove there after work on Friday the 29th, which it's excellent drive. There is not too much traffic for Friday afternoon at 5 south (in California), get on 76 on Oceanside, 70, S2, and than S22. On the way down S22 which was a stretch of road coming down to Borrego Spring (next to Anza Borrego), there are no one on the road, so I was driving very slowly with window down. It's not too warm, and the weather is just lightly warm with distant light around the Borrego Spring, and it's great with light dry wind in the cabin. The Palm Canyon Inn are just at exit of the S22, which I checked in and to the room and get to sleep for early day tomorrow.
Waked up a little early, but since I was new at location, so I didn't get the breakfast, but it's okay, I usually don't do breakfast. Walked around a little, took some picture near the Inn and find Mr. Serverin's vehicle and chat a little before we start the class. We check my vehicle out to make sure it's safe. we follow the Badland's own check list, but the check list works basic check list for most standard check list for most of the clubs. Then we started the class.
There are three vehicles besides instructor's highly modified vehicle:
Jeep wrangler - large tires, raised, suspended, changed axels.
2006 Toyota FJ cruiser 4x4- from what I know it's pretty stock but with a little option
2005 Toyota Tundra 4x4 limit rear access cab
Caution:
This class was usually held at Hungry Valley, but due to fire hazzard around the area, Tom hosted at Anza Borrego, also there will be body damage on the vehicles
Here it goes:
Day 1:
This is the Palm Canyon Inn's main office building right next to S22 and Palm Canyon Road, the building has few meeting rooms, bar and lounge, and a small store.
View from main office to Palm canyon road
Sign of the Inn
one of the Inn's building and the vehicle in the front is own by Badlands'.
Few more view of the Inns
The Swimming pool
The Inn also have RV park with picnic table
Another swimming pool
The front
While we took a break we did the bubble test, which it demonstrate how far we can see the ground from inside the cab. The view of the field are pretty bad, we can't see nothing around passenger side, but right side is pretty good if we took a look with our head out of the window.
This is the Famous Hi-Lift Jack, Tom did a demonstration for people who may want to get better equipment for the future
After 4 hours of lecture, we break for lunch and go for the actual driving in the area
We drove for half an hour to get to the road that leads "land fill" and we find a place to get off the paved road to get to off road location. There are few ATV, utility vehicles around.
Since this class is mostly just basic off-road class, which include a little sand, hill climb, little rocks, and down hill, we had to deflate our tires put on 4WD low range, and make sure it's in good clearance if there are air bags on the suspension. Also it shows how much bigger footprint are compares to regular footprint for the sand driving. Notice my tires are bulged out a little with 18 PSI instead of usual 35.
We played follow the lead for half hour, and go up & down few times on the wash to get us to familiar the 4WD & Low range since I am not familiar with low range power and power
Here is standard steep hill, which Tom show us how to go up, back down, and other stuff. Than we went up and down few times ourselves with different way of going up and down. It's not difficult, but it's a way to get familiar with different technique of up and down.
This is the small bump that damaged my license plate and bent it, because I figure my approach angle are to low, so I speed up and got over it.
We finished one section, so we get on the road with out inflate and went to the next area. Notice the bulge on the tires? it's running 15 PSI (I think). Most tires don't have problem as long as we go under 50 MPH and don't take fast turn.
Since we are near dark, so we go for the wash, sands, and easier stuff, but still give some demonstration and different terrains.
Around 7, we finish up and get back to the Inn. We had an excellent rib dinner at Inn, we chatted a little and that's it for the first day.
Links to other useful sites:
Anza-Borrego state park website