Wyoming Rock Crawlers Get A Huge Adrenaline Rush At 2 MPH

From stock models to extensively modified trucks, Jeeps and custom-built "buggies," rock crawlers are designed to navigate some of the harshest, most insane terrain imaginable.

These adventurers avoid the boring roads more traveled and seek routes that take them into deep ravines and over boulder fields that even cattle and antelope avoid.

Tim Haid is president of the Back Country Crawlers in Casper and spends many weekends wheeling at the Poison Spider OHV Park located on BLM land littered with huge boulders, ravines and basically the most inhospitable landscape for even the most beefed up four-wheel-drive vehicles. It’s a 284-acre “play area” on the site of a former bentonite mine near Casper.

This is where he discovered 20 years ago that Jeeps weren’t just for driving on the open road.

Now Haid and his wife, Ashley, spend their free time exploring switchbacks, old mining roads and playing on the rocks throughout the Western states from Arizona to Montana.

Much of that time is spent crawling over the obstacles at about 2 mph at some extreme angles that seem to defy physics while the vehicle somehow doesn’t fall off or over. The slower one has to go, the bigger the adrenaline rush.

The Haids are always looking for new obstacles to conquer and so jumped at the opportunity to join more than 100 other rock crawlers for a trek in Hot Springs County’s Wagonhound Off-Road Park. The annual trail run featured a guided tour in the morning with smaller groups exploring the park and obstacles in the afternoon.

“It's fun to just be a part of it,” Ashley Haid said, anxious to get on the trail as they waited for their guide and the group of jeeps to gather.

She said she would have never found the sport on her own; but with a dad, brother and husband who are all enthusiastic rock crawlers, Ashley Haid is glad to be along for the ride — even if she gets out to watch when the rocks get too intimidating.

“There's just been super steep, steep stuff that I look at it and I go, ‘Oh, we are not going to make that,’” she shakes her head. “My husband just crawls right over it, like, it's nothing. And I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, that's easy.’”

Hitting The Trail

It is finally time to go on the guided tour of the Wagonhound Off-Road Park.

Ashley Haid locks the jeep wheels for her husband before scrambling into their modified yellow jeep.

The leaders, Dave Firebaugh and Bill Knighten, both of Thermopolis and members of the local club that built the park, direct the crawlers and side-by-sides into a line. There are several groups going out on the trails ranging from custom crafted buggies that will tackle the most challenging obstacles to these jeeps that were ready play on the tamer terrain.

The first challenge was to cross Cotton Creek to get onto the trails themselves. While the jeeps were crawling out up the muddy bank with relative ease, the side-by-sides were spinning out and driving on three wheels instead of four to climb up the bank.

“That was nothing,” Tim Haid said with a laugh. “But you can see why you need the proper rigs on these trails.”

The trail quickly forked off, the left route going over relatively flat stretches while the right path led down steep ravines. The group promptly split into two, with Knighten leading those who dubbed themselves “flatlanders” down the easier route. The Haids and other modified jeeps followed Firebaugh to traverse more challenging trails and gullies.

It wasn’t long before the group stopped and Firebaugh pointed out a pile of boulders and slippery rock.

“This is where the buggies will be,” he said. “It’s one of our newest obstacles and a lot of fun.”

The group moved on, and the next stop was to take in the view as they reached the summit of the park.

As some members of the group paused to take pictures, one of the drivers of a jeep started crawling over a rock jutting out of the ground. He got hung up and backed up to try again, his wife calmly holding the grab bar.

“I love the smell of the sage and just being outdoors,” Ashley Haid said, watching the jeep before turning her attention to the wide-open spaces encompassing the group. “We don’t watch television or stay indoors. This is what we live for!”

At the next stop, her husband decides to tackle the rock cliff. The first pass, he takes what he calls a tamer route, climbing up the rocks easily. Next, he decides to try a more challenging drive up the slick rock.

At a very slow speed, sometimes at just 2 miles an hour, Tim Haid revves his engine and heads straight up the rocky cliff that most would drive around. His deflated tires grab at the slick rock and the entire tire seems about to break away from the frame. To the novice, the tires appear to flex and bend in impossible ways that are reminiscent of cartoon cars.

His back tire falls into a sandy hole and dust flies up as he spins out. Haid reverses and tries again, this time his entire backend slamming to the left. After a third try, he finds a route up the rocks and the next jeep takes a turn.

It Is All About Technique

When rock crawling, whether it’s in a jeep, buggy or factory stock, wheelers will want to modify their vehicles to meet the challenge.

Not only roll cages, suspensions and locks, it’s about having the right amount of air in your tires. Haid explains that deflating tires significantly helps them grip and mold to the rocks and boulders.

“You're going to climb straight up and your tire changes to the shape of the rock that you're touching,” he said. “The weight of your vehicle hits that rock at the exact same time, so you instantly have way more traction.”

Rock crawler enthusiast Matt Wallace said not to be intimidated by the sport which is for all skill levels, not just those who appear to have insane death wishes.

“Anything that you've got that's got four-wheel-drive is a great introduction,” he said. “You can start out on dirt roads, gravel roads, and start getting into more and more extreme territory.”

Keep It Legal

It is illegal on BLM land in Wyoming to go off a designated trail to crawl over the boulders or ancient waterfalls that makes the sport so exciting.

Therefore, most rock crawlers take their buggies and modified vehicles outside the Cowboy State to seek out these challenges since motorized vehicles are restricted to established trails on BLM lands. And there’s so much of that land in Wyoming, it can be difficult to branch out and find more challenges.

Now that Wagonhound Off-Road Park has been built near Thermopolis on a ranch where cows refuse to go, there is a new legal place for Wyoming residents to go.

“We just wanted to provide an opportunity for people to wheel closer to home,” Travis Winger said.

Winger is president of the Central Wyoming 4X4 Club in Thermopolis that worked for years to find property that would be suitable for a park. The requirements were lots of challenging boulders and difficult terrain.

The Wagonhound Off-Road Park is the only private off-roading park in Wyoming and attracts rock crawlers and other off-roaders from all over the United States. To build the park, the club took a local rancher out to show him what rock crawling was all about.

“We drove up an example of an obstacle that we would like to go over,” Winger said. “After we did that, he got out and said, ‘Don't ever let me get back in one of those things again! You guys are crazy. But if that's what you want to do, then this is an area that I think would be perfect for you because my cows won't go where you want to go.’

“There's a ton of terrain that's unexplored and tons of potential that we have not hit yet. It’s the biggest adrenaline rush you can have at 2 miles an hour. It’s very slow speeds and very controlled.”

Low Impact

This sport demands a meticulous and controlled approach, as drivers maneuver their vehicles up, down and across daunting natural barriers. The rock crawlers say that because of their low speeds, the impact on the environment is surprisingly minimal.

“We will go out there again April 1, when we reopen the park in the spring, and you will not be able to see one track from where we were the year before. That’s because we go so slow,” Winger said. “We're not digging ruts and we're not tearing things up. We're just climbing over them.”

As the morning guided tour comes to an end at Wagonhound Off-Road Park, even Ashley Haid, who is still a bit cautious about rock crawling, was ready to hit the trails again.

Next time, she wants to push the envelope even more.

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.