Yahoo Autos Has There Ever Been a Better Time to Go Off-Roading?
Back in college, I took a trip to India and visited the Corbett Park nature preserve. Just to get across the park, we had to ford a rushing river about two feet deep, then drive up over the steep embankment on the opposite side. Our vehicle, a Tata Sumo—basically an Indian Land Cruiser—steadily bumped its way across the river, though there were a few moments when I wondered if we'd be swept downstream. When we reached the far shore and clawed up onto dry land, I told the driver, "Wow, amazing what you can do with four-wheel drive." He laughed, shook his head, and replied: "No, not four-wheel drive. Two-wheel drive!" We just dropped into a river with a rear-wheel-drive truck? I liked this guy's style.
And that's because I'd always believed that off-roading is what you make of it. As in, the thrill of off-road driving depends on the margin between success and failure. If you're driving a Corvette on a rough dirt road, that can be more hard core than driving a monster truck through a mud hole. In high school, I did plenty of off-roading in my dad's old 1987 Dodge Ram D-150. Which wasn't four-wheel drive, either. Therein lay the challenge. I found that speed was a pretty good substitute for traction, most of the time.
How is any of this relevant to you right now? Well, because maybe you're looking for something to do that's sporting and outdoorsy and somewhat solitary. Off-roading can be all of that, and you don't need a Chevy Colorado ZR2 or a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon to do it. Whatever terrain is a challenge to your particular vehicle: that's off-roading. Last year I took a Kia Telluride up an inadvisably difficult trail in Uwharrie National Forest. It was a riot.
On the other end of the spectrum, I've driven a Hummer H2 SUT up to the Ouray Pass outside Telluride. It wasn't that difficult for the Hummer. But the guy I saw bombing up the trail in a stock first-gen Subaru Outback? He was getting some thrills. Because he genuinely didn't know whether he'd make it.
