[khan_sultan]

Originally Posted by sudev

Trail Blazing #4 on 20th November.

All participants are to bring their own tents, sleeping bags and staying paraphernalia. There would be a small service charge

Every one gets food for them selves plus some more....

Wow.. I will be in Delhi on 20th/21st and would like to attend this one. How to go about it?
Don't have a vehicle and neither tents/staying paraphernalia

[sudev]

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

Wow.. I will be in Delhi on 20th/21st and would like to attend this one. How to go about it?
Don't have a vehicle and neither tents/staying paraphernalia

That's what friends are for!! Ride along with me.
Extra tent - YES
Extra sleeping bag - NO

Only keeping fingers crossed that evening mosquito menace subsides by then and we do not have to change date. Will know in couple of days.

[sudev]

Much delayed TB#4 happened today morning without much announcement (only a notice of FB on Friday evening). Got a bunch of seven vehicles together. Two Grand Vitara, Three Pajero, One Endevour and One X-Trail



Eight, ninth and tenth did not wake up / join in fearing too much downpour meant no shows or perhaps hangover from Saturday night. What ever.

[phamilyman]

Sarkar,

this is a parking lot picture - itni mud toh sohna road pe mil jaati hai. get us more action shots

[sudev]

Jaldi kya hai sarkar....

To start the day off we were to meet at 0600hrs at end of Golf Course road, Gurgaon.

At 0410hrs my phone rings. Riiiinnnngggg Riiinnnnngggg....

Me in sleep trance: Yes???
Voice on the line: Sudev sir good morning
MIST : Good Morning (speaking very pleasantly while cursing inwardly)
VOTL : Sir, OTR hai naa??? Its been raining since the night???
MIST : Aaur bhi mazaa aayega tab to (It will be greater fun)
VOTL : I just wanted to be sure. Else I will go to sleep. Just come home from a party
MIST : Just be there at 0600hrs sharp

That is the kind of fools (including me) who wake up early morning to go Off Roading in their expensive SUV's trying to cross such mucky terrain in middle of jungle:

[sudev]

....before I slept again I could now hear rain on the glass pane. Hard and strong. And then my alarm clock chimed 0430hrs. The time was set to give me, and more importantly my better half, 45 minutes to get ready and have a nice cup of tea before leaving house for rendezvous point and be there by 0600hrs. After all is there point in madness if you do not involve your life partner in it??

For reasons of my safety I will not reproduce the conversation between 0415 and 0430hrs. But let is be recorded for record that I was at the meeting point dot on 0601hrs - a minute - no more late.
Me : Ah here we are
Alka : Yes here we are. But where is every one else?
Me : They should be here any minute now
Alka : It is still pouring and I doubt any one would come.
Me : At least the guy who rand us up at 0410 will

I started fiddling with GPS and such. For few moments there was lots of coolness in car car cabin and it wasn't just due to the car air conditioning. Riiiinnnngggg rinnnnggggg riiiinnnnng.....

[sudev]

Me: Yes?
Ranjan: Sudev I am near by...
Me: (Thinking good at least the chill is taken care of) I am parked in middle of road with blinkers on. You cannot...
Ranjan: Sudev but my car has died on me. It refuses to start!!
Me: What??!!
Ranjan: I was driving towards you on the golf course road and it died suddenly and now refuses to start
Me: Okay wait let me see what we can do.

I was in a quandary should I leave the rendezvous point and miss out other lost souls or go and help Ranjan. However just then I saw Kevin Oakly drive up with his family in auto box 4wd Ford Endy. So leaving him to gather the flock I sped away to locate Ranjan "some where on the golf course road"

Fortunately by the time rain had petered out. When I located Ranjan, Sandeep Kwatra - in his XTrail driven by his daughter - was also at hand. We decided to tow Ranjan to R.P. and then have a look under the bonnet.

Me: Ranjan tow belt?
Ranjan: Yeah its in the boot. I will get it.

Ranjan disappeared towards the back side of his car and soon we heard some cuss words

M: Kya hua? (What happened?)
R: Tow nahin hai
M: What you come to OTR and no tow?
R: Service ke din nikala tha. Forgot to put it back
M: Sandeep tere pass? (You got one Sandeep?)
S: No. I do not have a tow rope

I took out one from my car and tied two of them with it. (I mean the vehicles but could have easily been them) SUV Trail Blazers are like that. Coming for off road fun and no tow rope! Recalled some calls from yesterday:
Tushar: Sudev sir, tow rope nahin hai? Kahan se milega? (Where do I buy tow rope from?)
Hitesh: Sudev rassi chalega? (Will hemp rope do?)

At least they were trying to get prepared.



By the time we got Ranjan's car towed to R.P. three more Pajero's had made it. A quick round of calls to three more people confirmed their preference of sleep over OTR on a rainy Sunday morning.

Ranjan had got a pair of Hella's fitted to his car few days back and the wiring had been messed up. So it was wisely decided to park the vehicle and pick it up only on return.

[sudev]

The area we were to go off road is between Behrampur and Bhandwari villages. The track climbs a hillock and then runs along a ridge.


The climb portion is very rocky and one has to drive real carefully else great harm to car is possible. A bit of spotting got the lower slung vehicles through at few rocky out crop points:



Then the route becomes narrow as it passes through thickly wooded area full of Acacia Kikar trees.



Thorns and scrub make it interesting drive. And water from rains meant ever time your windscreen brushes low hanging branches the vision blurs:


The same route had been done by MGE last weekend. And reportedly fourteen vehicle had got stuck at this point and could only be towed out using a tractor........

[sudev]

The first great challenge soon came. The fact was we were without a tractor or winch and only two tow straps (Kevin was the other guy) and some rope lengths. So we all stopped to examine how to tackle this slush fest with deeply rutted slippery track:




I drove my GV through thicket and stone and found a path through. Then I returned back through the slush only to get stuck at the very end.


Next Sandeep drove his XTrail through but got stuck sideways with front and rear tyre's in different ruts. But before we could now rescue him we had to get o the other side. From this side it was not possible to do anything. So the first Pajero went through with lots of momentum. Jumping. Sliding. Spinning. Slithering. It did make it through.



The second Pajero:


And even the Endy made it through with lots more drama and action:

[sudev]

Till this hurdle all were trying to keep their feet (footwear correctly) clean but the slush and all the walking made them "clean" enough for every one to forget keeping them dry and clean. With a tow jerk from Pajero we were able to pull the XTrail out from the other side and continued.


Next to get stuck was Kevin's Endy with classic one front wheel one rear wheel spinning uselessly position and H/T tyres did not help any:


A side tug pulled it out to area where it could gain traction. You can imagine how slippery the conditions were as we were able to pull a giant Endy sideways turning it on its axis.

[sudev]

A break for breakfast in midst of a rocky outcrop clearing was time to relax. Cool wind and over cast sky made it ideal point for every one to enjoy the break. Also instant review and analysis of what had happened till then.

Every one had food for them selves plus more! On top the welcome pratha and aloo subzi courtesy Hitesh. He had got his mother and servant up at 0400hrs to make enough stuff to feed a platoon. So the break for breakfast was longish.

The next on trail was more slush. More rocks. More fun. Then we came to two stream beds.


The Pajeros at lead went through without a hitch the angle of approach and departure were well within the limits of this capable beast. Endy struggled a bit but Kevin had got hand of keeping momentum. A bit of bump and grind but he did go through after adjusting the trail a bit:


X-Trail struggled a bit as angle of approach was not sufficient. Sandeep kept his cool and made it through:

[sudev]

While Sandeep was trying to cross the stream beds I tried finding alternates route by going deep in to the jungle with very tight spaces





Not that GV had any problems in going through the stream beds when the way was finally cleared by Xtrail:



The happy Oakley family at the end of mornings endevours with their Endeveour:


The only remaining task was to tow Ranjan's stricken car to a garage. Hitesh and Kevin stepped in and gallantly helped him out.

Thanks every one looking forward to Trail Blazing #5

[rishi_kapoor]

Nice read Sudev, as always, you have articulated it very well. Missed the fun, will surely join on next trail blaze.

[Endeavour333]

Just 1 question, how did only 1 of the Endy's front and rear wheels spin? were the other 2 not spinning? Since the Endy has a limited slip diff at the rear shouldn't it have locked the differential when it sensed too much difference in rotational speeds of the rear wheels which would then result in all 4 wheels locked and spinning at the same rate?

Also, these kind of events are EXACTLY what I am looking for but is there nothing of this sort in Chennai?

[sudev]

The owner - Kevin - was also under the same impression that the rear has LSD and it should not have been stuck. We tried it again and again just make sure that there was no special "switch" or setting to engage LSD. So either LSD was not working or not available.

There is a lovely photo set by Abhijeet Kothale on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...00000317073436

Enjoy.