So it had been a while since I uploaded video of off roading. People have been asking for it, and here it is. So I made my way out to the Ozarks to film the eclipse and ran into my buddy Jason Harris, the owner of Ozark Overland Outfitters. And he said, meet up with me. I can give you some time. We’ll take the troopy and the forerunner, and we’ll go hit the telephone trail.

This is the trail that I go to test tires. This trail is absolutely no joke. Between the rock shale drops, climbs, steep turns, rutted out roads, and deep muddy tracks, it’s a really good place to get in trouble. And as soon as I took the forerunner onto the track, that’s exactly what happened. A simple climb turned really ugly. Well, I’ll let you see the rest. How about that? Just before I headed back east, I had just detailed the truck completely.

Step right up, don’t be shy because you will not believe your eyes. She’s right here behind the glass. Know you’re gonna like her. Cause she’s got plan. You can look inside, you get to talk to a pretty girl. She’s everything you dream about. She’s a beauty. And she was clean as a whistle. Now, if you don’t know, this truck has a Dana 60 in the rear, custom drive shafts, dual transfer cases by Marlon Crawler, 37 inch tires, triple bypass king shocks all the way around, two inch over, long travel in the front, she’s supercharged.

She’s got a triple shifter inside. She’s got rcv performance axles all around. And this truck is pretty much ready to go. It is an absolute beast. I built it to be an absolute beast. But the Ozarks even gave the 80 series problems. That’s scary. With all that in mind, taking the forerunner to the Ozark trail for the first time ever, at least I had Jason Harris and his dad, Leon Harris, in their turbo diesel troopy, to guide me.

And if I broke the truck, well, Jason was going to have to fix it. It is what it is. But let’s check this out, because this was pretty awesome. And you got to bear in mind, we’ve only got a camera on his truck and a camera on my truck. And once in a while, I was able to jump out with a camera. But we could have got much better footage, is what it is.

And for all the overland off road youtubers out there, you know that the cameras do not do the trails any justice. These trails are incredibly steep. They’re incredibly rutted. So half the time, you’re driving at a 45 degree angle. And remember, Jason’s doing something that most people do not do. He has a mid condition right hand drive turbo diesel from the Middle east troopy with a fresh alucab install from Alucab themselves on thirty five s.

And he’s out here wheeling it for real. Nobody does that. So to give you some perspective on the next climb, what I’m coming down in, in the 80 series right now, I’m about to show you us going up in the troopy and in the forerunner. These are serious climbs, and the camera just doesn’t seem to pick it up. So I just wanted to put that out there. I’m still shaking from the adrenaline here.

This is steep and scary. That’s not what I did. I went the hard way on the other side, and that’s just because I couldn’t see. And bear in mind, here I go. I’m approaching the exact same climb. But prior to this, when we aired down, I just pulled out my tire stems and kind of winged it. I only dropped my tire pressure to 29 pounds. I fixed that later, but at this point, I didn’t.

All right, so after that, I still hadn’t noticed that my tires were still way over inflated. And I kept rolling and following Jason. Now, Jason is your average midwestern guy. Very humble, very God fearing. But he loves the ch. He loves the camera. And whenever the camera’s on, he takes the hard trail every time, because he wants to show off how well he’s got his leaf sprung turbo diesel.

Troopy dialed in with 35s on it. And you can’t hate him for that. You got to love it, man. I mean, the guy’s actually out there whipping this truck like no one else does. I hadn’t been on this trail in two years the last time I was on this trail. I believe. I believe I was in my eighties series. I don’t think the forerunner has ever been here, but checking out the trail again was amazing.

It wasn’t as wet and muddy as it usually is, because when this place is muddy, it’s insane. This is the place where I literally got the drone footage of the water going all over my rooftop tent. You can’t beat that. Just when I was getting my confidence back from not being able to make that ledge climb the first try, Jason goes up this trail, and I watch him, and I watch him, and I give him some space, and he’s kicking side to side, but he makes it up there, and I’m like, that’s no problem.

I can do that. No issue. But at this point, I still don’t realize that my tires are massively overinflated. And as I go up here and make the climb, I got a good speed going. I slide sideways, and that’s where things get ugly. I’m a little stuck here, brother. Is it bad? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s behind me. Turn. Turn, driver, just a little bit. Be loud so I can hear you.

Yep. Go slow. Okay. Turn a little bit more, driver. There you go. Okay. My front locker’s on, I believe. Okay, what do I do? Straighten out. Now back on off. Doing good. Stay over that way a little bit. I will. I can’t see a thing, brother. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Now I know how we get, brother. Whoo. Got a little scary because we hit the trail at 05:00 at night.

We didn’t have much time to set up cameras, and I was in a five foot ditch. I had slid sideways, and every time I tried to go forward or backwards, I was sliding closer and closer to the wall. The truck was tipping over. If Jason didn’t walk me down, I would have been in a world of hurt. Plus, I had nowhere to winch from. So when you hear his old man going, oh, man, that’s excited.

That’s an excited guy from Missouri, it looked like I was in trouble. Oh, man. After that, I dropped my tires down to 18 pounds. And while I was catching up to Jason, he was doing this sick climb. Now, he’s open front and rear differentials, but he’s also got a turbo diesel with crazy low torque. He was on the side of this thing, just chewing it up, man. It looked like he was gonna.

I don’t even know what it looked like, but it was crazy. And sadly, I was a good distance away, so it was a tough. It was a. I wish I had a better camera on it, put it that way. But I’ll tell you what, he did it, man. Him and his father. No joke. His father’s awesome. So, with my confidence still pretty shook, I took the other side, which means I did a lot of gardening on the way up, as you can hear.

But it is what it is. Desert pinstriping. It’s got nothing on the northeast, I’ll tell you that, even though we’re in the midwest, but whatever. So, after we were done, we’re actually making a trek to a location that’s several miles away. And the closer you get to it, the worse the trails get. So we were twisting and turning, and you can hear it clicking in my truck. That’s not my tires rubbing.

My 37s don’t rub at all. Not at all. What you’re hearing is the massive dana 60 rear u joint that I put on there that didn’t come from east coast gear supply. I did it myself. And what it’s doing is it’s hitting my RCI skid plate every once in a while. I trimmed it back so it wouldn’t hit, but when you’re flexing it this much, you’re gonna have a little rubbing.

If you ain’t rubbing, it ain’t racing. I think that’s what they say. At any rate, we’re heading to my favorite campground that you’ve seen in videos numerous times. Or maybe you haven’t and you should. So I’ll leave a link below. Watch them like them. Subscribe comment or don’t. Right now we’re heading to the place that I had previously sunk my 80 to the wheel wells and had to use every winching technology I had available to me to get her out.

Fortunately, it wasn’t as wet as it was when I was here previously, which was in the winter time. But it’s still a gnarly trail. It’s an amazing trail. And if it’s wet, you better know how to winch and you better know how to drive because you’re getting stuck one way or the other. Unless you’re rolling with nitto mud grapplers, which I may or may not put on the forerunner.

I’m running 37 inch by 12. 5 km three s currently and they seem to be doing alright. But that can change at any moment. So right now we’re approaching the exact place that I sunk the 80 series in mud. And fortunately it’s not as wet as it previously was. Because this is the is spring and I sunk it in the winter. It. So with those water crossings out of the way, it was pretty much smooth sailing for the next couple of miles, heading to the ultimate water crossing and ultimate exit.

Because the last road to get out of here is no joke. It’s incredibly tight. It’s carved by water and it’s all shale or granite or whatever that stone in Missouri is. But. But it’s no joke. And that’s where we were heading. The best thing I had going for me in the Ozarks is I grew up four wheeling in the northeast New Hampshire Maine, where the roads are incredibly tight and you have to basically thread the needle through the woods.

He’s got a fresh desert tan paint job on his troopy and my truck is flat, is bright black. So we were really trying to get through here without knocking too many trees down. I put my metal tech front bumper to the test. I hit a tree pretty hard, and the bumper withheld it, no problem. So I was pretty stoked about that. And Jason is not too afraid of scratching his truck up.

But here’s a little secret. He has a professional paint booth in his shop, and he’s a professional auto body painter as well as an overland rig builder. So he’s got that one little ace up his sleeves. It is what it is. And if my truck gets too scratched up, you know what I’ll do? I will rhino line it. Because I always wanted a tan truck. I never wanted a black truck.

This was the only trd pro that I could find that still had the transfer case shifter instead of the stupid knob and didn’t have a key fob. Because where I live, people steal your car with a laptop, and your car doesn’t care. So I was all about it, and black was the only thing I could find. So just like a video game, we arrive at the final boss, and Jason brings the troopy down here.

And once again, the camera does not show you how, how difficult this descent into the water is. This is twisty, rocky stuff, and there’s everything in the world to damage your vehicle surrounding you. But Jason’s, this is old hat to him. He’s done this trail a dozen, dozens of times, I’m imagining, and I’ve done this trail a dozen times, and fortunately, the water was lower, or unfortunately, whatever.

But it always makes for a good water crossing shot here. I’ve gotten that shot here dozens of times, at least three times. But whatever, this is hands down one of my favorite camping spots ever, because you’ve got everything in the world here surrounding you. Firewood and fish, everything you need to survive in the woods. Good to go. I’m just going to let this last couple of minutes run and let you enjoy the scenery, because it is beautiful here.

The Ozarks has a landscape unlike any place else I’ve ever been. It’s very heavy with water. Water. And when it rains here, the ground absorbs the water like a sponge. But yet somehow you can cross a stream while it’s raining, come back an hour later, and that stream will be a foot deeper. I had no idea about that whatsoever at all. But it’s still an amazing place. If you ever go to the ozarks, make sure you go with someone that knows the way around, because getting lost out here could be a problem.

Everything out here is poisonous, venomous, I should say, and very abundant. Lots and lots of snakes, spiders, etcetera, which is why I love this place. So we finally make our way up and out of here. And like I said, this last trail is no joke whatsoever at all. The 80 series had a problem on this trail a couple of times, but every single time you come here, the terrain is different due to the weather, winter, spring, etcetera.

There’s so much flowing water here that the trail is constantly changing. And I noticed that big time this time around. At any rate, it’s almost time to put her in four wheel high and air up the tires again, because I did drop my tires down to 16 pounds and she went great. Fortunately, I’ve got a tundra rack in the front by solo motorsports that helps push those tires side to side because thirty seven s at sixteen foot pound, sixteen psi.

That’s a lot of weight. This poor thing’s got to turn. And a stock or even a Land Cruiser 200 steering rack wasn’t going to do it. So, big shout out to solo motorsports. They make serious racks. So that was one hell of a trail ride. And finally we make it back out to civilization. I’m back in two wheel high and I plug in the morflate, four in one inflating hose to my arb onboard air.

I didn’t stick with the morflate because it was too big of a compressor. I couldn’t mount it under the truck because it wasn’t waterproof. The arbs inside the truck works out perfectly. I run it off my s pod, good to go, and it takes about seven minutes to go from 16 pounds to 40 pounds on all four tires at once. With the more flight system, which is pretty badass.

The hose system is. I always thought it was stupid to have that setup, but I’ll tell you what, it brings all the tires up to the exact same psi, which is phenomenal. And one bad thing I found out was my east coast gear supply e locker. The switch didn’t work, so when I needed my rear locker, it didn’t work. But fortunately, the front locker run off. My s pod worked out really well, so there’s that.

At any rate, if you enjoyed this video, make sure you hit that. Like share and subscribe. Leave a comment below and I will return the favor. I am out. .

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