Florida: Richloam Carnage report:

[Mr98Pontiac]

Started off great. We all met at 471 and hwy 50 at 10am. Got lunch and ice, and lots of gas & extra water.

We went down to NOrth carter pond road, where the 1st hole took me down! Tristian made it through fine, but I took the right side and my axles hung up a stump or something? A few hard snatches and I was out.

From there we hit a few little holes in the road, made a left on river land road, then a right down clay sink. That road is in good condition as always. We hung a left on school bus, the sides were nasty and muddy so we had alittle fun there. We came across Trail 6 Road. Took a right there, it looked promising, we went down a few other roads, Dave ripped his exhaust off in a nasty hole off of rocky ford road, we winched him out and we were on our way. We rode down to Lacoochie road, hung a right and went down Price road to get to Devil's Creek.

We got to Devil's Creek, couldnt tell where the road was becuase of the water and heavy coverage. Tristian eased out towards the creek, got about headlight deep and still had plenty of ways to go. We decided it wasnt a good idea and turned back. We TRIED to get to devil's creek again through Little Raulerson Rd, to get to May place, that was a no go, No way possible we could even get through it, not even a big truck 10x our size..lol

We got to Megs Hole camp, and came across the creek. It was about a foot deep a few months ago, Eric in the Jeep with the snorkel tried it out. They were up over the hood in the middle, current pushing them sideways, but he made it across! Needless to say none of us could get across that. lol On the way out we met up with Carl, He wanted to head back to the fence line, but once we got back down Little raulerson?? he got buried. I had to lock his hubs up for him, then pull him out..lol

He decided to head home, From there we ran back down lacoochie and hit Graveyard Road, short road, camp road and back out. Nothing too interesting there.

We decided we'd grow some balls and try to hit the East side of Richloam For those of you who dont know, this is the worst of the worst in richloam. One guy sunk a dodge on 44's!

We hit north grade road, ran into a few bad holes, from there it got from bad to worse.

We turned left on Story Road to hit the powerlines. The entire road was nearly a big ass nasty hole. We got through about 6 of them until Tristian got buried bad. (Only guy with a winch) It didnt look too bad, so I backed up, hooked to him and snatched him a few times, The last time I nailed him hard and buried myself super bad. The snatch cable had a ton of tension on it, so there was no way to unhook the strap from his truck to get the winch in. Eric in the jeep came, hooked to the back of me as well and snatched me hard back. I broke loose after a few hard pulls, barely was able to get out after rocking hard a few times. I hooked to tristian again in reverse hit him super hard and he was out. I decided I wasnt going to find out how much worse Story road was.
We were able to barely pull out of story road, from there we tried Elmer's Road. We made it down that road, and got to the power lines. It looked pretty dry, we ran about a mile and the super dry road was getting wet, and more wet the further we went. It was super tight where we were at so we had to back up about 1200 ft to turn around and head back out Elmers Rd. The power lines are always bad, but if it was that wet, that soon, it could only get worse.

Once we got back up to east grade, we rode about a mile, and came across a MASSIVE wash out, that had a good current and was super deep. Off to our left was 2 young guys in a 4runner on street tires, off the bank nearly ready to tip. We were all astounded.

Eric in the snorkel jeep took the 1st dive. The right side was up to his hood, which is too deep for any of us. He tried the left side and it was just under his headlights. That's safe for all of us.

Tristian hit it first, got through, I hit it next, water pouring in the cab, up to the headlights deep. Pulled out the steep embankment where the road was at least 2-4ft above the hole. We all got through the wash out allright. The guys in the 4runner begged us to try to get them out. A guy in a ford on 40's pulled him and broke a 50,000 lb tow strap. Tristian hooked the warn 8000 up, let them tie it to their truck, he ancored to a tree, away they went. We throught it was gonna be a go, but It didnt budge the toyota. It stopped the winch dead in its tracks, and was about to pull the tree from the ground. It was snapping under all the stress.

We tried but it just wanst gonna happen. We offered a ride to the gas station, they decided to stay.

From there we hit center grade and hung a right. a few BAD deep holes, me and tristian got stuck a few times but nothing we couldnt get out of. By that time we got to the main road, it was about 5:00. We ran from one end of the forest to the other, and on my odometer had 94.6mi. That's a lot of hard miles!

Until next time

[far_right]

nice summary of the trip

[LadyGator]

Wow, sounds like a good ride. Sorry could not make it ,had to work. I wondered if you hit that bad washout by the East Tower last time I was up there a couple weeks ago it was bad. Sounds like a blast yall need to get some pics next time and show the westerners what the swamp looks like. Let me know about the next one..... Great story I was right there with ya. I hunt that area. Cow camp on the North loop.

[Tug-n-pull]

Guess you have to see that type of wheelen once to get the full impact. Never been in the swamps and would love to go sometime. Thanks for the great account of the the trip. tug