One of motoring ’s ironies is that only 5 percent of sport - utility vehicle are taken off - road . To many owner these all - terrain conveyances are nothing more than trendy modus vivendi accessories . But to the participants of the Jeepers Jamboree , driving the Jeep is an artistic creation .
Jeeps venture from the paving material at about twice the rate of all sport - public utility company . But even at 10 pct , they ’re underused . That ’s a shame , for even the plushest Grand Cherokee is extremely capable in the coarse terrain . In fact , Chrysler President Robert Lutz has rule that every Jeep vehicle must be capable to escape the agonizing Rubicon Trail .
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Lutz could scarcely pick a tougher proving priming . traverse 70 miles of scenic vistas , bowlder - strew gully , and semi - suicidal descents , the trek through California ’s Sierra Nevada Mountains is a mecca for serious off - roading . It ’s the website of the original Jeepers Jamboree and the theoretical account for a cavalcade of off - road Jeep trips nationally .
These events attract thousands , from trail - indurate veteran in jacked - up CJs to families in lustrous Cherokees getting their first taste perception of off - road drive . They demonstrate not only the go - anywhere tenacity of a Jeep but the camaraderie this special vehicle can inspire .
Jeep , of course , was bear to the hinterland . Its original military parameters were for a light troop transport that could defeat the most inhospitable geography . Even before World War II had end , its peacetime commercial and recreational possible action were being plotted .
In 1944 , Willys - Overland build several prototypes of civilian Jeeps , and by August 1945 , the first CJs were proving their nerve all over the United States . They were used for everything from farm vehicles to personnel office carriers . They transported sportsmen into the field and even perform public serve .
As early as 1946 , a group of jeep possessor in remote Bountiful , Utah , had sour Sunday excursion up and down the meandering mountain roads of the Wasatch Range into a worthful community resource .
gift sure circumscribed mightiness of policing , the group became known as the " Official Bountiful City Jeep Posse . " lie of 27 jeeps and 54 man , the posse evacuated the injured from a mountainside plane crash , organise search parties for missing individual , and served as climb up biz warden . Its most important occasion was to rush in firefighters during the first critical hours of a forest fire .
The February 1948 outlet ofPopular Mechanicsdescribed the posse ’s endeavor to snub a road up a mountain , providing a intense write up of the little 4 x 4 ’s stoutness :
" The lead landrover jump up the steep incline and at one of the dangerous spots it got out of control . The driver leap to condom , but the car roll down the slope like an ungainly snowball . It turned over 20 times by actual count before landing upside down , suspend in some Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . It take ten man to get it back up the cliff .
" Once back on its four bike the rugged landrover went back to town under its own power ! To be sure , it needed a new windscreen , some new headlight and a few dent had to be pounded out of the body , but it was ready for the next attack the watch over Sunday . "
exchangeable excursion were being run out anywhere the road ended and adventure start . Learn about the Rubicon Trail on the next page .
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Rubicon Trail
The original Rubicon trek was in 1952 . Mark Smith , Ken Collins , and a group of their friends – most of them phallus of the Georgetown Divide Rotary Club – organise it to bring away dollar sign into the region ’s depressed economy . The path was based on a course blazed by Native Americans and afterwards used by stagecoach .
A mental testing bunk by four Jeep Universals and 12 men was followed in August 1953 by the first Jeepers Jamboree . It attract 150 participant in 55 jeep . They skirt the shoring of delineation - mailing-card Lake Chiquita , scratch their way down the " Big Sluice , " encamp overnight at lush Rubicon Springs , then bounced on to magnificent Lake Tahoe .
Even from the beginning , mankind and womanhood of all ages took part . There was Dan Bassi , who had been a stage driver along the Rubicon Trail back in 1904 , and Beatrice Luce , of Georgetown , who admit to being " past LXX . " Some of the machines were old - timer , too . Several Jeeps were of World War II time of origin , and one was a Model MA – one of the original 1940 Willys pilot vehicle . That MA is today the centerpiece of the Jeepers Jamboree Museum in Georgetown .
The one-year four - day Rubicon head trip was an instant success . By 1974 , organizer were force to specify a limit of 400 vehicles and 1,500 citizenry . Demand touch off a second Rubicon misstep ( for up to 200 vehicles ) , and the two consequence are now held each year in July and August . Participants come from all over the world .
The Rubicon Trail itself intersect private farming held by 20 separate prop owners . Rubicon Springs in fact has been purchase by Smith and some of his associates to be maintain in its natural state . The route is capable to any 4WD vehicle - weather permitting - and the Jeep Division of Chrysler makes regular function of it as a testing solid ground . The original Jeepers Jamboree is now an sovereign corporation with single rights to the " Jeepers Jamboree " name . It open its run to Jeeps and to the older , smaller Toyota Land Cruisers and British Land Rovers that were Jeep ’s only contemporaries in the early sidereal day of the Rubicon .
In the later 1980s , the Jeepers Jamboree concept was apply to issue in other states under a disjoined entity called Jeep Jamboree USA . ( Jeep Jamboree USA is a division of Mark A. Smith Off - Roading Inc. and is underwritten by the Jeep Division of Chrysler Corporation . ) Get details on Jeep Jamboree USA on the next page .
Jeep Jamboree USA
Today , 25 of these three - Clarence Day Jeep Jamboree USA events are held in 21 body politic . They take place from February through October and are strictly limited to Jeep vehicle . Events on the 1994 calendar included the Red River Jamboree in New Mexico , the Mohawk Trail Jamboree in Massachusetts , and the Ghost Town Jamboree in Nevada . Each attracts an average of 100 jeep and roughly 500 participants , half of whom are first - timer .
Both the Jeepers Jamboree and the Jeep Jamboree USA events appoint fee , which let in meal but not lodging . The full four - twenty-four hours Rubicon trip , for example , costs $ 235 per somebody , while the shorter Jeep Jamboree USA effect cost $ 160 per grownup , less for baby .
Some Jeepers , particularly those with easy access to off - road running , avoid these spate excursions . Their primary objection is that moving large numbers of Jeeps through the wilderness dictate too many compromise , including some bumper - to - bumper running – an incongruous survey when you ’re air mile from civilization .
allow , a lone Jeep pounding through the brush , as if in some TV commercial , is a uniquely satisfying image . And functionary in pick out areas , such as the region around Telluride , Colorado , actively promote unorganized four - wheeling on mountain trail .
But with ever - soaked controls on public and private state , Jamborees are the only way many Jeep owner get to feel their vehicles off - route . Indeed , as the San Jose Mercury News ' Bob Scheid report from the Rubicon Trail , " The ability of these vehicles to proceed where common sentience shouts ' impassable ! ' is dumbfounding to the city - bred number one wood . "
Jamboree officials range off - road lead by grade of difficulty on an rise scale from one to 10 . Most trails accrue in the four to eight ambit . Some Jeep Jamboree USA route earn a nine . But the Rubicon Trail proudly lays claim to the only 10 military rating .
received practice on Jeep Jamboree USA head trip is to make available several track of vary difficulty . The assemblage is divided into wagon train of 50 or so jeep . Progress along the road is usually steady until the group come upon an obstacle : Say it must descend a gully , ford a creek , then shinny up the adjoining slope . Jeepers waiting line up , take on the challenge one by one , then arrest again to expect for the rest of the chemical group . There can be lots of waiting . But that ’s fourth dimension to talk Jeep or to wander over and offer encouragement as each appendage of the caravan tackles the obstacle .
Driving through these obstruction requires the noesis of some Jeepers rules and tricks , which you could con about on the following Thomas Nelson Page .
Jeepers Rules and Tricks
Regardless of how free - form or how structure the off - road experience , there are Jeepers principle and magic that apply every bit .
Some are simple , such as anticipating a four - roulette wheel - drive spot and engaging four - rack driving before you get puzzle . Others are not as obvious . For instance , driver should grip the steerage wheel with thumbs outside the rim . Do otherwise and the steering bicycle ’s radius could do some awful damage as the wheel reacts to the encroachment of hitting a logarithm or rock ‘n’ roll .
Even mildly undulating terrain provides an instruction in the time value of land clearance and suspension travel . Cherokees and Grand Cherokees get along amazingly well just as they come from the factory , though lowering tire force per unit area to 22 psi helps the stride to flex and grip rock outcrop .
By comparison , Wranglers and CJs , with their short wheelbases , more - small reason clearance , and relatively limited pause traveling , can benefit from larger non - commonplace tires and suspension lifts . One trick is to unplug the Wrangler ’s front roll barroom , which frees the suspension to accommodate widely unlike side - to - side elevations . Aftermarket locking differentials and winches are utile , and towage hooks are require on all trails with a paygrade of four or higher .
Engine alteration are rarefied . Most off - roading is done at a stroll pace , and even Jeeps with four - cylinder engines have enough torsion to rise most any slope . The key are grip and gearing – and not just for last uphill . Few self-propelling sensations contender shifting a Jeep into first cogwheel , setting the transfer shell in scummy range , and swear against all instinct as the machine noses well down a grade too steep to walk . experience Jeepers know to stay off the brakes in such situations - and to seldom employ the clasp .
" Jeeping well is a fine art , " Pete Lyons write inCar and Driverafter his first Rubicon . " First of all , velocity has no place on this sort of trail . You must maintain what I ’ve started calling the Jeepers Creep . You just chug - chug along in the depressed gear available , usually store your foundation completely off the gas . . . . You open up the accelerator pedal for warm little fusillade of torsion to surmount a boulder . If you ’re repel a manual transmission , you are not supposed to utilise the clutch – too much endangerment of burning it out . Even if the engine dies , you ’re imagine to restart in paraphernalia , without declutch . It ’s gruelling to remember that in a crisis . "
help oneself Jamboree participants remember such dictum is the line of prescribed volunteers familiar with each trail . Their on - sight advice about geartrain selection or precisely where to place the tires to avoid hanging up on that boulder is priceless information to neophytes and old-timer likewise .
AutoWeek’sWes Raynal , poise to drive a horse wrangler through a New York stream on the Adirondack jamboree , got this direction from a trail volunteer : " just take it behind , try not to let the body of water hit the base of the windshield . And do n’t worry about those scrape noises . "
" Yeah , right , " thought Raynal . " As it release out , " he said , " we made it across the pool with no problems . "
On the next Thomas Nelson Page , teach about an obstruction of the Rubicon trail called the Sluice .
The Sluice
There is expiation to be found in more sedate off - roading exercises , as well , and Jeepers appreciate glide gently down a woods path beneath a canopy of leaves – specially in an candid CJ or Wrangler . If there is one spot that embodies the challenge , exhilaration , and spectacle of true Jeeping , it is a discussion section of the Rubicon cognise as the " Big Sluice . "
The Sluice is actually a dried waterfall , a parachute - like descent amid pitiless granite boulders – with a grievous 45 - level turn befuddle in for good measure . It is only 30 to 40 yards long , but it can seem to extend for Roman mile . One driver negotiating it paused to glance at his inclinometers . His Wrangler was tilted leave 35 degrees and tipped frontward 55 degrees .
" Those who ’ve drive the Sluice insist it ’s the worst individual trail open to vehicles they ’ve ever seen , " adjudge Mark Williams inFour Wheelermagazine . " The margin for error is very small , and for those who do n’t give the terrain the respect it demand , the winch cable length waits …
" On a hillside next to the discharge , " Williams wrote , " where the granite provides desolate spots in between the scrub , hoi polloi seat [ after already having done their time on the rock ] and prepare to watch the next dupe . . . . [ They ’re ] call off , pointing , cheering , support . . . all watching the vehicle straight below negotiate the cunning Boulder and discriminating drops . The towering tree cater shade and coolheaded piece of cake , but it seems that every driver who passes through shift a fret in the first few moments . "
" The ideal Jeep would have a hinge in the middle for this section , " observedCar and Driver’sPete Lyons .
The Sluice is the exclamation decimal point to a 7.5 - Admiralty mile pegleg of the Rubicon that can take up to 14 hour to span . Veterans say the intermediate amphetamine is minus two mph . But the Sluice also is the last hurdle before encampment at Rubicon Springs , which present another powerful symbolization of Jeeping : The company .
Hoedowns here are fabled , and set a standard other Jamborees have yet to match . They ’ve been that style from the showtime .
Before the very first Rubicon head trip , organizers flummox detainment of an former World War II arm carrier and hauled in enough pine decking to build a 16 x 32 - foot dance pavilion , complete with a shiny linoleum trading floor . In the 2nd year , a piano was brought in . slash to the back of a Jeep truck , the instrument was rather dreadfully out of tune by the prison term it arrived at Rubicon Springs . " But it did n’t seem to matter , " organiser Collins recalled , " because no one else was in melodic phrase , anyway ! "
Rubicon Jeepers expect unexpected amusement . Some geezerhood there are bluegrass musicians . serenade the encampment on one occasion were the Twelve Singing Nuns of St. Celeia ’s Chorale . Another year , a Scottish bagpipe ring came march out of the brush .
And to replace the out - of - tune spinet , a Hughes 500D helicopter has recently set down a shiny black concert grand piano , complete with classical pianist . ( The eggbeater always is on standby in case of medical parking brake . ) In 1974 two participant – Charles Donahue and Susann Marie Bernard – were hook up with in a ceremonial occasion held at Rubicon Springs .
smashing food is another Rubicon custom . Steaks , Gallus gallus , and fish are helicoptered in and grilled over coals . The typical trip ’s computer menu include 2.6 tons of meat , 1,094 dozen egg , 500 pounds of pancake mix with 60 gallons of syrup , 1,500 pinna of corn , 35,000 slice of bread , 255 pound of butter , and 150 Ezra Pound of umber . include among the supplies , by prescribed calculation , is 9.4 miles of toilet paper .
solid food and festivities offer up a suspension from the severeness of the Rubicon . Some Jeep adventures extend no such respite .
In 1978 , Smith , Collins , and some of their colleague undertake what Smith stigmatise the ultimate Jeep trip , a 21,000 - geographical mile odyssey from Tierra del Fuego , at the southern tip of South America , to Prudhoe Bay , Alaska .
Two years of intense planning preceded the Expedicion de las Americas . Five raw CJ-7s were battle tested on the Rubicon Trail , then shipped south to begin the ordeal .
The journey consumed four months . While eking out a lead through dense South American forests , the Jeepers lived off the ground , eating alligator , Iguana , Scarlet McCaws , and whatever else could be dash , trapped , or hooked .
Between Panama and Colombia they encountered a nearly heavy 250 - mile expanse of hobo camp and swamp . " It was 10 times longer and 10 times rough than the Rubicon , " Smith said . " On an intermediate Clarence Shepard Day Jr. we would make two to three mile . One mean solar day we exercise for nine hours and only moved 500 feet . "
Within this peg was the 110 - mile Darien Gap . It had been cut across only once before by fomite , when a 1972 British Army excursion did it with 250 men . It took the British 100 days , and eight Colombian Marines were lost . The Jeepers ' hybridization was made by 14 North Americans , three Colombians , and 25 Indians . It take 30 days . There were no casualties .
The only modifications to the CJ-7s on the Expedicion de las Americas CJs were the addition of winches , special lighting , brush guards , and carriages to bear provisions and cans of additional fuel . Even the tyre were close to Malcolm stock sizing , at a modest 31 x 11.5 R15 , and were fitted without abatement modifications .
Adventures like this seem at odds with the opinion that relatively few Jeeps speculation off - route . Those that do , however , seem to wear their clay and gouge like badges of honor . And their driver tend to sport a certain smiling and walk . Some lifestyle . Some accoutrement .
come up out more about the Jeeper ’s lifestyle with details on Camp Jeep and Jeep 101 on the next Thomas Nelson Page .
Camp Jeep and Jeep 101
Recently , DaimlerChrysler Corporation has been using off - road Jeep consequence as a promotional and marketing tool . coterie Jeep and Jeep 101 are two such exercise . The experience has been eye - opening both to new convert Jeep vendee and longtime DaimlerChrysler employees .
" There ’s no mode I ’m expire over this bowlder . " That ’s what Lou Bitonti kept thinking when he attended a Jeep Jamboree on the Rubicon Trail , in the early 1990s . Recently assigned to Jeep Division , Bitonti enjoyed the experience enough to get down thinking about a new result . He come up with Camp Jeep .
Dating back to 1953 , the Jeep Jamborees were " probably the first proprietor loyalty programs , " recalled Bitonti , now fourth-year managing director of Jeep brand orbicular marketing . Camp Jeep , which began in 1995 , was expected to elaborate the off - roading experience to an even wide audience of patriotic owners .
" We know who we are , " Bitonti said in an interview , and what the Jeep brand means . While determine what Camp Jeep would dwell of , they kept asking themselves one authoritative doubtfulness : " Is this something Jeep can do ? " Is it appropriate for the Jeep experience ?
Initially set up at Camp Hale , Colorado , which had been the military headquarters of the 10th Mountain Division during World War II , Camp Jeep consist of 25 trail , color - encrypt by difficulty like ski runs . Seeking to provide a " peak experience , " arranger look for ways to " take somebody out of the comfort geographical zone , " so that person accomplishes more than he or she would have thought potential . Blending merriment and education , participant learn to drive safely off - road .
drive is n’t the only outdoor activity . Each day could include hiking , biking flock climb , crafts , mountain embarkation . Photographers from National Geographic might show camera bug how to charge in a professional manner . Organizers are always test something new . In 2000 , Camp Jeep had remote control - control plane as well as a sizable grouping of historic Jeeps .
" Anybody who comes to Camp Jeep should be able to participate in 70 pct of the activity , " Bitonti advised . " When that babe closes at 6 o’clock , they ’re exhausted . "
Now taking piazza at Charlottesville , Virginia , Camp Jeep is very kinsperson orient . Among the more than 8,000 people who attended the three - day event in 2000 , a thousand were under 10 years of age . In the evenings , Camp Jeep has featured such entertainer as Kenny Loggins and Sheryl Crow .
For DaimlerChrysler Corporation , Camp Jeep has been an " chance to meet with the owners , one - on - one , " Bitonti said . Engineering Roundtables are the first event people sign up for when they make plan to look . " We instruct them as much as we can , " Bitonti added , noting that it ’s necessary to explicate exactly why engineers came up with this suspension , or that steering cogwheel . Only Jeep owners are invited to hang .
Not long after Camp Jeep got underway , the company come up with Jeep 101 . instead of inviting people to the canyon , they would bring the canyon – or at least , a smaller - scale agency of them – to urban areas around the country . Drivers in this program would have a flight simulator in the car . Off - road class are " dependable but also reasonably challenging , " Bitonti said .
invite to Jeep 101 are proprietor who are coming out of leases , or have had their vehicles longer than three years . owner of competitive vehicles are also invited to advert . Jeep 101 has been in full look in each of the dozen or so city where it ’s held each year .
DaimlerChrysler Group also participates now , setting up a mini proving flat coat for the company ’s regular rider cars . DaimlerChrysler also continues to host more than 30 two - day Jeep Jamborees each year , at various off - roading sites in North America .
