I almost forgot I had this thread going! So here's an update on the progress of the Endurance and my brother and I's trip on the High Water Mark Trail in Arkansas. I'll start first with the Arkansas trip. We ran the trail in early March with the intent of avoiding heavy spring rain and water crossing to deep to safely cross. My little brother had just sold his 1989 Jeep Comanche, was taking his new 2016 Tacoma on its inaugural overlanding trip and likely first time ever seeing dirt roads. We filmed our entire trip with a single DSLR and two gopros. Overall the trail was relatively mild but with heavy rain and high water levels the trail can become very slick and muddy and water crossing impassable. The crossings themselves are almost all rock bottoms with cobble ranging from baseball size to bowling ball size and bigger in some sections. The Buffalo River should be walked first before any attempt at crossing, there are a couple different places to cross the river. Use good judgment and cross at the safest point for your group. The river does have enough current to push your vehicle, this should be taken into account before crossing as well. Don't let any of my warnings discourage you as this is a great trail to cut your teeth into overlanding!
https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/folder/498232a7-73f1-41d2-a392-d8327fa2361d/?layer=GaiaTopoRasterFeet
This is the GAIA GPS track that we used for the trip. The recorded track is about 90% accurate.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChmMZPI2n0NjgxXJOwaoqXQ?view_as=subscriber
This is the video link to our YouTube channel as well. Be warned the video is about 40 minutes long.
Now on to the build section of the post! My first order of business for the High Water Mark Trail was to add a Snorkel to The Endurance.
The worst part of the entire install was drilling into the fender. Sence the snorkel was designed for 2008 and up Hummer intakes, I did have to modify the intake slightly to make it work, along with RTVing the snot out of it to ensure it was watertight. Along with the snorkel I purchased a new set of 33 inch BFG KO2s which performed flawlessly on the trail. I was genuinely surprised that these tires live up to the hype.
More recently my little brother got me a set of Smitty Built traction mats for my birthday. I bought the MaxTrax rear tire mount and had to wait three months due to a back order, but the Smitty Builts fit pretty well on the mount. I haven't used them yet but I will definitely post about it when I do.
I also put in a new head unit into the rig. The factory unit finally quit on me so I decided to get a nicer unit that has GPS, a Reverse camera, Bluetooth, and AUX input. It makes those long highway drives a bit easier.
https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/folder/498232a7-73f1-41d2-a392-d8327fa2361d/?layer=GaiaTopoRasterFeet
This is the GAIA GPS track that we used for the trip. The recorded track is about 90% accurate.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChmMZPI2n0NjgxXJOwaoqXQ?view_as=subscriber
This is the video link to our YouTube channel as well. Be warned the video is about 40 minutes long.
Now on to the build section of the post! My first order of business for the High Water Mark Trail was to add a Snorkel to The Endurance.
The worst part of the entire install was drilling into the fender. Sence the snorkel was designed for 2008 and up Hummer intakes, I did have to modify the intake slightly to make it work, along with RTVing the snot out of it to ensure it was watertight. Along with the snorkel I purchased a new set of 33 inch BFG KO2s which performed flawlessly on the trail. I was genuinely surprised that these tires live up to the hype.
More recently my little brother got me a set of Smitty Built traction mats for my birthday. I bought the MaxTrax rear tire mount and had to wait three months due to a back order, but the Smitty Builts fit pretty well on the mount. I haven't used them yet but I will definitely post about it when I do.
I also put in a new head unit into the rig. The factory unit finally quit on me so I decided to get a nicer unit that has GPS, a Reverse camera, Bluetooth, and AUX input. It makes those long highway drives a bit easier.
