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Some moments to ponder and lessons to be learned.

The person capturing images comes into the trail attention fully focused on the upcoming jeep. OMG! he's right in the way and falling!



Thankfully, he recovers in a second and runs ahead while the jeep is still crawling up.



Gulbarga team. They came up in style without batting an eyelid or slowing down despite the scare. DOB! Interesting.


Do's and Dont's: Never ever get in the way of vehicles as they are coping up with greater odds and can loose control! Use the zoom!

The Thar comes up leisurely feeling at home in it's natural surroundings but closer than desirable to the tree.


"Madhkris! Where are you headed? Get back and come up again."


Gypsy came up fast and flying after revving a little. Low end grunt is definitely desirable.


Happy after the climb. "It's a great feeling."






Out of nowhere we come upon a vast flat piece of land where all stopped to regroup after the rocky descent and climb.
Biscuits and juice kept us refreshed in the heat.



Battle scars visible on the Thar. We discussed how to get rid of those without knowing what lay ahead. ;)

Arka/ Fazal and all,

Thank you for your compliments. We also understand the areas of improvement based on suggestions from you all and will work on.

BODA

Few photographs which I managed to take while marshalling.

experiences to share:

1) Sibi paul while trudging through rocks hit the diesel pipe below the tank of his CJ3B. Fuel started leaking with force. We thought of putting m-seal, insulation tape, cotton tape. Nothing works. Finally Sibi took out a jute thread from his jeep. just two wind on the broken pipe and tied the other end to chassis to keep the pipe in pulled condition. Problem solved. Whole OTR session on both days went on fine with this jeep without even a drop leak.

2) Gulbarga jeeper Mallikarjuna was driving down the last incline of trail 3. Came straight down on a two foot stump of a fallen tree. Bent bumper. Not just that, even tie rod(pipe) broke at ball joint. Result no steer for the front wheel. Mechanic in Gulbarga team, just went down under the jeep loosened the tie rod from other end by almost 8-10 threads. Pushed the broken end into ball joint and tightened the same. Put clips to secure the tie rod at both ends. Voila, started the jambori down to the camp.

3) Harish Murthy's 540 on a dangerous gradient in trail 3. He was almost to the top while he noticed the steering became totally free and front wheels not responding. I saw the tie rod has come out of the ball joint with check nut missing. I searched for the nut and found just below the jeep fortunately. Mechanic was summoned by walky.

I thought, we will have to put jack and lift the wheels and align them to insert the tie rod end into ball joint and tighten. Mechanic had a different idea. He said turn the steering wheel in the direction of disengaged wheel. Harish turned the steering and adjusted the insert hole tightened the nut which now was slipping too. A makeshift cotter pin fixed. All this took maximum time of 5 minutes.

What we learn from above :

presence of mind, knowledge of vehicle and fixing the problem in simple term to come out of situations.

Hi Dwarka,

The mechanic is actually a very good friend of mine, and your description fits him perfectly, that is "THE" MHD.ALI.

btw the cotter pin remove from the anti-roll bar:uncontrol

Regards,

Arka

Hi Arka,

Sorry for missing that part. Mhd. Ali is a genious in mechanics as well as offroading. agree:

Some shots from final recce which made 4th trail possible. Vivek Papaboost through the thorny bushes. Last shot is definitely not him :)

That looks like Grace's jeep not Papaboosts ...

If I am not wrong that is Mrs.Grace/(Anand) - Andy was in his CJ340 :)

Santosh;
Mrs. Andy turned out to be a great offroader too. Andy was Marshal and his newly restored CJ 340 was with his friend Basak. However the above pic as Dwarak sir has said is from an earlier Recce.

Akaash,

yes it is Andy Rao's jeep. I recollect now that the track has already been cleared by Vivek Papaboost. This is a incredible incline which i pressume is also a great winching point for most in track 4


Madhu, you are right. Malathi Andy Rao proved her capability on trail 4 and 3. Cool as ever. Kudos to you Malathi. Good training imparted by Andy!!

After regrouping from the climb, the convoy set off on the trail.


Where is the route? Why are they heading in the bushes?


It must be an unused track!





The thorns kept getting closer and closer.



We just kept going untill

STOP!




What now? Nothing was visible to the right. What was he looking at?

A sharp right and a immediate descent.



Sharp left

A road full of big stones laid out just wide enough to hold a jeep. it was a good descent where the wheels can drop of the big laid out size stone size rock road.

From here there was another sharp right.

Finally we landed up here.


See. I told you stay a little to the left.


A little further



This rock in the foreground bore plenty of scrape marks as the only way was over it.


Here the gypsy's fuel gauge showed EMPTY! :Shockked:. We checked the track at the back. Thankfully no signs of a fuel leakage. Also the engine temperature was on the high side. Opening the bonnet, we saw the coolant overflow reservoir empty! It would have been stupid to open the radiator cap!

Continuing slowly further we had a moment of confusion as to which direction we take as the lead vehicles had all crossed ahead while we were checking the gypsy. Quickly resolved by us walking a little ahead and finding the ribbons.

Past this another lesser difficult rocky descent and sharp right turn.
Madhkris followed by bantejas.







No photos in the section next as we were busy as spotting guys just trying to get past.

Another set of sharp turns during descent with compulsory brushing of bamboo trees to avoid rocks and immediate ascent on rocks. (I was shocked to hear one of the marshal saying over the radio as "I'm at tipping point!"

Past this we had another rock climb and a much awaited break. More about this in the next post.

Yeah - Dont bother with what the marshals talk over the radio.

We were inside some bamboo tree covered rocks while we heard.."I'm at the rock face", "I'm at the steep rock surface" etc..

But just imagine - How else would these guys identify the spots ahead:)

It was really superb on the BODA for their making of the trails and that too FOUR of them. :thumbs up

Maybe they could handout maps for next year!

I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of the trail, though the scores from the thorns making their mark was LOUD..

@Headers, you should've seen the scratches on the marshals faces too and maybe other un-imaginable places, as we continuedly did recces by taking turns. Glad to know you enjoyed, that was what the entire event was supposed to be made for.

Andy

Dear jeepers I am grateful for all of you who participated in the event and made it a grand success, I will share the sketch which I had made for the event marshals to understand the trail, the diagram is not to scale and also is a topographical rough interpretation of the actual trail layout. Any feed back on the effectiveness of the logistics are welcome.
with warm regards,
mpsreeni.