Last week we went down to Florence, OR to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area where my wife took a women's offroad riving course. The event was put on by AEV (American Expedition Vehicles) and TAP (The Adventure Portal). It was free to any lady with a jeep. There was openings for up to 10 Jeeps, we ended up with 8 (plus all the instructors) It was an incredible course and really gave my wife a lot of confidence driving offroad in less than ideal conditions. This was way beyond my expectations of how informative and well done it was, We were on the sand for about 12 hours, definitely not a simple little seminar.
We headed out from Florence at 7:30a and got right into it, the trail to the staging area where they would be doing the "classroom" instruction was a bit flooded..
The last Jeep in did get stuck so they had an extraction to do right off the bat. They used 2 Jeeps just to make it quick and easy
This being the Oregon coast, as you can imagine, there was some rain and wind. They had to move Jeeps to both sides of the shelter to block the wind and also so they could tie them down. Everybody came prepared though, so no problems.
Chris Wood from AEV is a great instructor. Did a great job of going over safety, how to look out for the people with you, things to watch for because of fatigue, or as in this case, cold and wet. He explained in simple terms the mechanics of how 4wd works and why. Things you should carry with you, one of the guys he had there was from Snohomish County Search and Rescue, he talked about getting lost and what happens when they are out searching. Chris had a lot of good ways to explain concepts and make it simple
They went over winching and rigging, obviously not in real depth, but good enough to keep careful people out of trouble. They had us (as I was her car pool dummy, I got to learn a lot too) practice with the winching signals, working together to work a winch safely
We headed out from Florence at 7:30a and got right into it, the trail to the staging area where they would be doing the "classroom" instruction was a bit flooded..
The last Jeep in did get stuck so they had an extraction to do right off the bat. They used 2 Jeeps just to make it quick and easy
This being the Oregon coast, as you can imagine, there was some rain and wind. They had to move Jeeps to both sides of the shelter to block the wind and also so they could tie them down. Everybody came prepared though, so no problems.
Chris Wood from AEV is a great instructor. Did a great job of going over safety, how to look out for the people with you, things to watch for because of fatigue, or as in this case, cold and wet. He explained in simple terms the mechanics of how 4wd works and why. Things you should carry with you, one of the guys he had there was from Snohomish County Search and Rescue, he talked about getting lost and what happens when they are out searching. Chris had a lot of good ways to explain concepts and make it simple
They went over winching and rigging, obviously not in real depth, but good enough to keep careful people out of trouble. They had us (as I was her car pool dummy, I got to learn a lot too) practice with the winching signals, working together to work a winch safely
