Hey all,
I have not been off pavement with my Forester, yet. I have had off road though. I have a 91 Ford Bronco, and these were some of the best off road vehicles back in the day, with an independent front suspension and front and rear locking differentials plus a load sensing transfer case. Its a machine!
I have two really fond memories. The first one was driving out on the indian rez in Minnesota. When the snow thaws up north, you know it can wash out a road, bed and all. I came up on one of these a couple of years ago, and roads dont get fixed very fast on the rez. So there were two choices, drive through it, or go around. Since the detour was about 100 miles, I went through it. The gulley was deep and wide enough to swallow the Bronco whole, but I drove through it carefully, went down one side and then up the other without scraping anything.
The second memory is where I got to experience Lo range. I had never used it until that time, and I experienced its usefulness. Its for pulling other people out of the mud. I was at a pow wow, and a friend of mine got his MINIVAN stuck in the mud. He went out on a section of property he wasnt supposed to, got locked in there, tried to find a way out and then got stuck. He had to crawl outta there and come back to the pow wow, and he found me. We drove up to the gate, it was a protected watershed area, and luckily the resident there happened to be home, and unlocked the gate. My friend was extremely apoligetic, and just wanted to get his van back. The deputy was nice enough to let us in, and he even loaned us a 30' snatch strap.
We drove out to his van, which was up past the wheels in mud, other than that it ws pretty clean. We dug into the mud and found a part of the frame, and then just hooked onto my tow hitch. I started off in Hi range, would get to the end of the strap and just stop. So I got Lo range andthen the fun began. I had him put his van in reverse to help with the tug, and I would run the length of the strap at full throttle. I snatched on it 5-6 times before I finally got some movement. The first pull was about 5 feet. I told him to get back in the van after we inspected everything, and put it in reverse, I would snatch the final time and I was not stopping until we hit solid ground.
To him, solid ground was out of the hole. I snatched the final time, felt the van pull out of the hole, and then get resistance. I floored it, and felt my Bronco start to slide sideways. I steered to try to find traction, and was sliding sideways back and forth. I stopped for a second, shifted back into high, and then floored it again. Now I was getting results. I pulled him a good 100 yards before stopping. He stepped on his brakes right after he got out of the hole, so I dragged him wheels locked onto solid ground. And his van was covered in mud, big time. The route we had just came looked like a tractor pull contest, my ruts were over 1 foot deep.
And I only had a STOCK Bronco, using Bridgestone Duelers.
I can dream about doing stuff like that with my Forester right?
Derek
