Four Wheeling at Tree's Ranch

We had not been four wheeling since we left Michigan, and we decided to join the Jeep Nation club out of San Antonio on a run to Tree's Ranch, which is about 125 miles west of San Antonio not far north of the small town of Leakey.

Tree's is a 5500 acre exotic game ranch that opens one weekend a month for four wheeling.  It is in the Texas Hill Country, which has limestone hills several hundred feet in height covered with cedar and mesquite trees and cactus.  The ground is littered with broken pieces of limestone of all sizes, and the land is cut by creeks that are dry most of the year. Among the rocks live rattlesnakes and scorpions, although we did not see any on our trip.  As they say, the area is filled with things that stick, sting and bite. 

We ran the intermediate trails which required tires at least 33" in diameter up to 37".  (By comparison most full size SUV tires are about 28" in diameter.)  Our trails crossed creeks, went up and down very steep hills and followed dry creek beds.  The creek beds were filled with rocks and had numerous dry waterfalls that we had to climb or descend.  The adjacent photo shows my Jeep descending a waterfall.

As a testament to the difficulty of the trails, our run had a broken U-joint and transfer case yoke on one Jeep, a broken track bar on another and a severely dented rim causing a flat tire on a third.  We heard of a rollover on the extreme trail, but those guys are prepared for that with extensive roll cages.  The worst breakdown of the day in our group was a broken rear axle on a TJ style Jeep, which I will detail with a photo the following post. 

My Jeep, also a TJ, came through with only a severely dented front license plate holder and plate and a slightly dented rear license plate holder.  That happened when I got stuck between two rocks in a stream bed.  Another Jeep used its winch to bull my rear tires sideways to give me room to maneuver.  

Oh, yes, they say I almost rolled my Jeep on the same obstacle, although I did not notice it from inside.  Oops!

Tree's is an outstanding offroad facility, and we had a wonderful time driving the trails and socializing with the Jeep Nation folks.  We followed the day with a nice barbecue dinner.  I also won a tow strap in the door prize drawing after dinner Saturday night.