Wheelin' For Hope 2022 — Jendra's Adventures

Every year, the American Cancer Society, in conjunction with Relay For Life, host an event in Nelson County Virginia called Wheelin’ for Hope, as a fundraiser to benefit cancer research. The event is hosted by Oak Ridge Estate & Farm, on private land owned by the Holland Family.

Being private land, this event, along with one other in the fall, are generally the only opportunity for full size 4x4’s to explore and go off-road on the property. This year, the event was held from April 22-24, 2022.

This is a registration only event, with a limit of 200 vehicles permitted. Once registered, you have access to the event itself, as well as primitive camping on the 1-mile racetrack area for the entire weekend.

This was my first time attending, and I was taking on the trip with Andrew from hobbytrap.com, and members of the CORE 4x4 off-road club Kathy, Rick, and Steve. We arrived on-site late Friday, and after checking in and collecting our shirts and meal tickets, we made our way to the “family camping” part of the field, and started setting up camp.

It was really interesting seeing the variety of vehicles and builds who had signed up for this event. While it’s an “all breeds” event, which means there are no restrictions on make or model, it was definitely a Jeep Wrangler heavy event. Rick and Kathy were one of 2 Toyota FJ Cruisers, Steve had the only Grand Cherokee, and Andrew was in the only Nissan XTerra we saw all weekend.

After having dinner, we hung out and chatted a bit about what the next two days would look like, with Andrew being the only member of our group who had attended this event before. In store for us was 2 days of guided wheeling around the Oak Ridge area. We would meet in an open field, in 10 lines of 20 vehicles each. Each line will be a group, which will be guided by a “Trail Guide” who will guide the group through the trails in the area, and assist with navigating obstacles. We will stay with that same group on the second day, to ensure that we don’t repeat any trails that were covered on the first day.

After a driver’s meeting, we got into the vehicles, did a quick radio check (CB and GMRS this year, as everyone, including CORE, is in this odd radio protocol transition period), and then hit the trails! The trails in this area were surprisingly tight! My Jeep Wrangler is the longer 4 door model, but is still not a particularly large vehicle, and I had my work cut out for me to navigate the tight and twisty trails. After a bit of driving, we made our way to the first challenging obstacle, a rocky climb with 3 lines to choose from. First was a smooth dirt climb, which served as the bypass for the other 2 lines. The other two consisted of a medium rocky climb, and a hard steep rocky climb. I opted for the middle line, which presented a fun challenge. Most vehicles took this line, with a couple smaller vehicles with larger tires tackling the steeper climb successfully.

After this, we continued through the trails, which stayed tight and twisty, and had regular rocky sections that presented challenges along the way. It was not necessarily a smooth dirt trail, with occasional rocks, but rather a consistently challenging trail, with some more difficult sections scattered throughout the trail, along with several fun water crossings.

After breaking for lunch, we hopped back on the trails, and continued along, with some fun challenging climbs and descents. One obstacle of note, a rocky path that I had taken, led to an unfortunate meeting with a tree! I had expected to stop right before the small (3 inches in diameter) tree, in a tight turnaround spot, but ended up touching the tree sideways, causing it to get wedged between my front bumper and driver side fender flare. Attempting to back out resulted in bending the fender flare, breaking a clip underneath, and creasing the fender flare. It’s a fairly minor bit of trail damage, and one I should be able to fix pretty easily with some replacement plastic tabs.

After that incident, some more forested trails brought us to the final obstacle for the day, a river crossing, with a steep rock climb out of the river. This challenge was particularly interesting, given that the river crossing made our tires wet, which immediately made for less traction on the climb out, in addition to the steepness of the climb. We all made it up though, with little drama. A couple of folks got stuck, but backing down, adjusting their lines, and driving back up with some enthusiasm got us all up! I turned on both front and rear lockers in my Jeep, and managed to idle up the obstacle in a very undramatic (my preference) way.

That ended day one, and we headed back to camp to have dinner, and sit in on the raffle, which offered a variety of off-road equipment. To enter the raffle, you purchase a strip of tickets, which you tear off half the ticket, and put the other part in the barrel. As prizes come up, they draw tickets, and announce winners. Rick and Kathy hit the jackpot, winning a winch in the raffle! After a long evening of going through the raffle, we returned to our tents, and sat around and talked about the events of the day.

The next day, we got back in our lines, and resumed the trail ride with our guides. Sunday’s trails were a bit less tight, and had some broader areas, and even a few wide open fields that we traversed through between forested sections. We had some unexpected excitement, where Rick and Kathy accidentally slid off the side of the trail. The initial plan by the trail guide was to winch the rear up. Unfortunately, it was a sideways pull, which resulted in the vehicle behind them snapping their winch rope. Reassessing the situation, we decided on anchoring the rear, and we used the FJ’s front winch to pull them back onto the trail. After that, we continued on, making our way through a beautiful and technical section of forest.

Overall, this was less challenging than day 1, with a final rocky climb that many of us bypassed. We figured we had a great weekend, and were able to return home on our own steam, so let’s end on a good note. After bypassing that obstacle, we just had to make it up one last river crossing, and a super slick muddy hill climb, and we were done! After a couple of retries on that hill climb, we got out of the forest, and ended the ride back at camp. After packing up, we hit the road and headed home, after a fun weekend with some amazing company. Thanks to Andrew, Kathy, Rick, and Steve for a great weekend on the trails and at camp! Look forward to the next one!

For more pictures, check out the Gallery!

Wheelin’ For Hope 2022

Flagpole Knob Milky Way Hunt

Southern GWNF Trail Exploration