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Trip report is still being worked on as I'm still trimming clips..
My wife and I tried to race a cold front headed towards Northern Texas.. and we made it. Kind of. The plan was to spend half a day at Merus Adventure Park and then another day hiking at Caprock Canyons State Park. We got to Merus and it was practically empty. There was maybe less than 6 other vehicles that I saw all day--mostly Jeeps. It's a $25 entry fee to access the off road trails and best of all, they do not allow dirt bikes or side by sides.. so the park was pleasantly quiet and with the 20 mph winds it was just us and rustling trees.
https://earth.google.com/web/data=M...ENjYwOEQ1MDMxQkU4RTlGNEEgAUICCABKCAjVgKuoBhAB
I'm not a fan of clawing my way over rocks so we stuck to the less rocky beginner trails. I lowered the tire pressure down to 20 psi, put MTS into dirt mode, engaged 4HI, and off we went. We entered the canyon by driving down Landry's Landing which a series of switch backs during a 17 degree angle 200 feet down the canyon wall. From there, we made our way through a twisting wash out to join the Northbound trail. Landry's Landing can be considered two-way but there isn't much room to pass.
After we came down the canyon face, we met up with another trail that lead to an opening (a makeshift helipad) and posed for a few pictures.
After a short break for photos and taking in the breathtaking views we continued north, passing a few intersections with a few other trails as well as one of the more expert trails called LiteBrite... yes that one is named after the duo.
There was a small trail called Kate Punch Out.. a shortcut or maybe a spectating spot for people doing the more extreme "Kate the Great" trail where we stopped for another short break to enjoy the views. (below)
After a short period we continued North on the.. eh.. Northbound until we reached its most norther point which doubles as a campsite. Doing a u-turn we headed back south down northbound. We backtracked the entire route until we reached the turn off for The Drop In (below). While this was listed as an entry to the base of the canyon, it's wide enough for two-way. Without having a spotter on top to tell me if anyone was coming down, I figured this was the best way out of the canyon, popped it into 4LO and crawled my way up. I'm not sure how accurate the angle gauges are but I do recall at one point it saying almost 25 degrees. The Taco handled it like a champ, even without engaging the rear locker.
We reached the top without breaking a sweat (almost feels like cheating) and made our way down the final trail for our trip--the East Rise Trail. At the end of this trail is the park's GMRS antenna (GMRS radios are required), stopped for about 30 minutes to soak in the canyon views as a cold front started to make its way towards us.
We aired up our tires (took almost an hour.. I need a better compressor), and started to make our escape towards Amarillo. We made it to Amarillo, but not before the nastiest mud rain I've ever seen repainted my truck rusty brown. The next morning we departed Amarillo and headed home to South Texas where it was much warmer.
I do have a lot of pics, gopro and drone videos to go through to make a single video but that'll take some time... I'll update this thread once it's been compiled.
All in all, I highly recommend this park, especially if you live in Lack-Of-Public-Land Texas. There are not many places for us Texans to go off-roading. It's massive, it's reasonably priced, and the staff are very friendly--and best of all, they have remote camp sites (something our state parks don't have) where you can just pitch your tent without having to worry about noisy neighbors. We spent about 5 hours in the park and covered about half of the beginner trails. The next time we return we'll be doing more of the green trails and grab one of the camp sights. We were hoping to do some star gazing but that cold front disappointingly covered the entire sky.
My wife and I tried to race a cold front headed towards Northern Texas.. and we made it. Kind of. The plan was to spend half a day at Merus Adventure Park and then another day hiking at Caprock Canyons State Park. We got to Merus and it was practically empty. There was maybe less than 6 other vehicles that I saw all day--mostly Jeeps. It's a $25 entry fee to access the off road trails and best of all, they do not allow dirt bikes or side by sides.. so the park was pleasantly quiet and with the 20 mph winds it was just us and rustling trees.
https://earth.google.com/web/data=M...ENjYwOEQ1MDMxQkU4RTlGNEEgAUICCABKCAjVgKuoBhAB
I'm not a fan of clawing my way over rocks so we stuck to the less rocky beginner trails. I lowered the tire pressure down to 20 psi, put MTS into dirt mode, engaged 4HI, and off we went. We entered the canyon by driving down Landry's Landing which a series of switch backs during a 17 degree angle 200 feet down the canyon wall. From there, we made our way through a twisting wash out to join the Northbound trail. Landry's Landing can be considered two-way but there isn't much room to pass.
After we came down the canyon face, we met up with another trail that lead to an opening (a makeshift helipad) and posed for a few pictures.
After a short break for photos and taking in the breathtaking views we continued north, passing a few intersections with a few other trails as well as one of the more expert trails called LiteBrite... yes that one is named after the duo.
There was a small trail called Kate Punch Out.. a shortcut or maybe a spectating spot for people doing the more extreme "Kate the Great" trail where we stopped for another short break to enjoy the views. (below)
After a short period we continued North on the.. eh.. Northbound until we reached its most norther point which doubles as a campsite. Doing a u-turn we headed back south down northbound. We backtracked the entire route until we reached the turn off for The Drop In (below). While this was listed as an entry to the base of the canyon, it's wide enough for two-way. Without having a spotter on top to tell me if anyone was coming down, I figured this was the best way out of the canyon, popped it into 4LO and crawled my way up. I'm not sure how accurate the angle gauges are but I do recall at one point it saying almost 25 degrees. The Taco handled it like a champ, even without engaging the rear locker.
We reached the top without breaking a sweat (almost feels like cheating) and made our way down the final trail for our trip--the East Rise Trail. At the end of this trail is the park's GMRS antenna (GMRS radios are required), stopped for about 30 minutes to soak in the canyon views as a cold front started to make its way towards us.
We aired up our tires (took almost an hour.. I need a better compressor), and started to make our escape towards Amarillo. We made it to Amarillo, but not before the nastiest mud rain I've ever seen repainted my truck rusty brown. The next morning we departed Amarillo and headed home to South Texas where it was much warmer.
I do have a lot of pics, gopro and drone videos to go through to make a single video but that'll take some time... I'll update this thread once it's been compiled.
All in all, I highly recommend this park, especially if you live in Lack-Of-Public-Land Texas. There are not many places for us Texans to go off-roading. It's massive, it's reasonably priced, and the staff are very friendly--and best of all, they have remote camp sites (something our state parks don't have) where you can just pitch your tent without having to worry about noisy neighbors. We spent about 5 hours in the park and covered about half of the beginner trails. The next time we return we'll be doing more of the green trails and grab one of the camp sights. We were hoping to do some star gazing but that cold front disappointingly covered the entire sky.
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