Originally posted by Alec
Gerald,
I'll probably have my g/f with me. We'd be happy to ride with you, but would like to use Splat for at least a good portion of the trip. IMO no use driving all over the place just to ride.
BTW, she's not Becca and Michael, Randall, and Kris all approve 
Well then you all need to find me a good Texan woman too
Alec, I don't want to come off as harda$$, but IMO you wouldn't have much to do at Tellico and yes you are right; that's a long way to come just to ride along.
The only run you could do at Tellico unassisted is Trail 3, assuming you could survive on Trail 4 long enough to get to 3. You probably could fall down trail 6
but there's no way you could go up it. If it is completely and totally dry, you have enough lift to traverse 8, which is easy after a few minor ledges on the north side of the loop. But I've only seen it completely dry one day (even during dry weather there is always runoff from the mountain crossing the trails and there are several creek crossings throughout).
Trail 3 is one trail (not a loop) so you could go out it and come back and be finished in half a day and then have nothing else to do for the rest of the weekend. In an absolute best case scenario during rare totally dry conditions, you could go up trail 4 with a few strap assistances and "fall" down trail 6
, but it would at least double the time required to finish for the rest of the group. If it is wet, you wouldn't even make it 20 yards: I am not sure if you could even get up the entrance to Trail 4 without a strap and then you would require the strap dozens of times.
The "easiest" trails at Tellico (in order, from easiest to harder) are 3, then 4, down 6 and up 8 .
I personally wouldn't mind taking you in since I am kinda curious as to how you would fare, and you've now got enough clearance that your underside wouldn't get destroyed. But there is one major consideration we need to remember regardless of how I feel. Trail 4 is the key trail and gets you to most of the other trails in the area. As such, it is a sort of "highway" and always busy. There are few places to pull over to let vehicles by since the trails are cut into mountainsides and are very narrow. Being pulled through Trail 4 will quickly result in a pileup of better built rigs traffic-jammed on your rear bumper and would make you a very unpopular fellow to a lot of very mad rednecks in a very big hurry.
To put the difficulty in perspective from your experience, Trail 4 is comparable (but tougher) to taking the clockwise loop at Top of the World in Moab, except it is mud covered in slimy wet leaves and stuff. So up the ante in your imagination and make the ledges and obstacles a little harder on that Clockwise section at Top of the World, insert a couple of much tougher obstacles (such as a thigh-high ledge at Fain's Ford that must be climbed out of a river with wet tires), extend it to a few miles long, and then cover it all with mud and wet leaves. Welcome to Tellico.
95%+ of all vehicles at Tellico have at least 35" tires and a locker, over 90% have winches, over 50% of them sport 40"+ Swampers with both axles locked, and everyone who has wheeled there for more than a day has body damage of some sort (most are bashed to hell). It is no place for a 2wd.
You can check the Virginia run threads about GWNF and another group of us are checking out a place or two in Georgia next month that you could probably join on, but not Tellico. Perhaps we can schedule a GWNF or Georgia run for you to join in this summer. It would be great to see you out here this summer and we'll be checking out a lot of places besides Tellico to run at.
Maybe an underdrive unit for 2wd low range? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....................
? It sounds like a lot of people are interested. However, when it all comes together it will probly be a lot less people there than expected 
