Our group for the weekend included a wide range of driver skill and vehicle levels. There were also three new Toyota FJ Cruisers that showed up to run the trails.
Every summer for the past six years, a group of wheelers from up and down the East Coast has gathered to meet and hit some trails. Such is the history that led to this, the 2006 East Coast 4Runner Jamboree.
This gathering continues each year as the cycle of the wheeling season turns. It's time to see old friends and make a few new ones. Another year has passed, and that usually means new mods have been added to the rigs and the time has come to try new challenges.
This year, the event returned to Paragon Adventure Park in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The August weekend included two full days of trail rides, with a third day for those who had a little more time to play.
The group gathered Friday morning at the 4x4 park to split up into several groups. There were 4WDs that were near stock to partially tubed rigs set up with big tires to tackle the tougher trails in the area. We enjoyed a sunny day of running trails and saw routes with names such as Chicken Run, Upper Blueberry, Turtle Trail, and Rattler's Tail. The participants spread all over the park and tackled varied terrain.
As part of the end-of-the-day playing, much of the group headed over the Q trail, which is a hillside site of former NEUROC competitions. This nasty slope has some huge boulders and rock slabs, with some gaping holes sprinkled in to make it more interesting. About a half dozen rigs attempted and conquered this challenging hillside, some not without significant effort.
Saturday was another good wheeling day, and the group had grown in size as other participants arrived. The afternoon threw a few light showers our way, but not enough to dampen our trail spirits. We managed to find a bit of mud on some of the trails, and some guys dove right into the slop.
Given the number of vehicles and trail miles covered, the carnage for the weekend was fairly reasonable. There was some knuckle damage on one Toy's axle and a broken sector shaft on a steering box. A couple of tire problems and a leaf spring repair were also a part of the weekend. Most repairs were easily handled in camp and didn't stop anybody from wheeling the rest of the weekend.
There's already talk of next year's event and the event name will most likely be changed to the East Coast Toyota 4x4 Jamboree. You can contact organizer Allen Dickenson at fort.knox@verizon.net for more info. Maybe we'll see you there.
The scenery here is awesome. The thick woods grow very green in the summer and shade much of the trail area. Several pipeline roads criss-cross this area, and the park has added numerous new trails in the last few years to keep things interesting. | 
We tackled Chicken Run as a Friday-morning warm-up. John Baldwin lives fairly close by in Red Hill, so he's used to crawling the Pennsylvania rocks in his '88 4Runner. | 
It's not often you see nice, later-model 4Runners on trails such as this, but Ace "Ninja" Laserna uses his '97 4Runner for double duty. It spends its winters in hunting camp and summers exploring trails on the East Coast. |
We found some areas of the park to be a little wetter, making the loose, slick soil an added challenge. Rocky Meadow delivered just that mix in the middle of some amazingly overgrown woods. | 
Frank Torbert from Maryland used his 36-inch Super Swamper Iroks to climb a piece of the NEUROC area. His first-generation 4Runner has been set up with tough trailrunning in mind. The top and stock doors came off to enjoy the warm weather. | 
Suspension flex helps make for better traction and stability; however, everyone loves a nice wheelstand too. Crawling the rocky slabs could put you off-camber or cause you to teeter at times. Traction was great on the rough, dry rocks. |