Rob,
I did end up going. It was a blast. It was run by 2 local Land Rover dealers but hosted by a group called OEX (
http://www.overlandexperts.com/).
There were probably 20 vehicles ranging from stock LR4's and LR3's to Range Rovers and older Discoveries.
The event was held in a privately held swath of about 8000 acres in Orange, Virginia. OEX normally runs 4x4 lessons here to groups and individuals and actually trains the military in 4x4 use. They have dozens of trails at all skill levels, creeks and rivers and hills and obstacles of all types. They also have some man made obstacles to go through (rock crawls and a deep pit of mud with inclines in and out I thankfully didn't get to experience).
They fed us breakfast and then we caravaned out to do a trail they first called 'moderate' and then later called it 'easy'. It was raining off and on, but it was an absolute blast. It was my first real off road experience in the LR4, so I was kind of strangely tense. It was mostly scenic trail runs in moderately muddy conditions, but there were plenty of pretty steep hills to climb and descend and a few creeks to cross. We went into some heavily forested trails too that made me feel like we were in Southeast Asia with very narrow winding, hilly and muddy trails with lots of trees (had to tuck the side mirrors in or they would have been damaged). There were 2 points where about half the cars had to be recovered. It was a sudden 2-3 foot drop in a very muddy trail followed by a pretty sudden 2-3 foot climb up a hill. Luckily I didn't get stuck at all. Then at another point there was a modest hill that was extremely muddy and many rovers had to keep reversing to the bottom to make it up. Much of the reasons we got stuck was because we were mostly n00bs I'm sure.
We had the rovers in low range all the time, mud and ruts selected.
After a few hours on the trail, they fed us lunch and then we shot some clay pigeons with shotguns. After that some folks were off to do more advanced trails that *might result in vehicle damage* according to the expedition leaders. So I decided I had enough fun for the day so we left without doing the more advanced trails.
The key things I learned:
> Leave the hitch at home if you have one! I didn't know to take mine off and it was locked in place. Luckily somebody else had a key that worked.
> In tight quarters, turn the vehicle at a tree when the tree hits your B frame (frame closest to headrest of front seats).
> Turn off DSC *before* you think you might get into a situation where you are spinning in mud.
> Don't try and power through when you are spinning out in mud on an incline. Back up a little if you need to and go slow and steady at about 2000 RPMs and let the LR4 figure out the climb.
> Trust Hill Descent Mode
It's scary not to hit the brakes going down a steep muddy hill, but the truck figured it out just fine.
> The LR4 is a fantastic machine!
I'd advise any and everybody to go on those events if you can make it. I'll be sure to go to the next one.
The picture below was before I got really muddy.
-Willie
