I was passing through Gilmer, TX with a little time on my hands this morning and decided to pop in to the TMTC offroad park located just outside of town. The guy at the front gate was nice enough to let me drive in to check it out for a few minutes for free. I planned just to drive down the main road check it out and leave. Needless to say, I met a couple of jeepers on the main road who pointed out a couple of trails on the map that would provide a more scenic route back to the main office. I took the "Angry Jeep" trail down and planned to take the "Pipeline" trail back to the road only to find the Pipline trail closed down just before I made it back to the main road.
fter turning around and making my way back to the Angry Jeep trial to go out, I discovered that the slick rock at the bottom of Angry Jeep was inpassable for my open diff liberty. Now I was truely LOST in Gilmer.
I didn't know how to get back to the main road. Luckily I ran into a group of guys from the Land Rover club in Houston. I figured that a frankenlifted Liberty could keep up with them and if I followed them long enough I would get back to the main road.
My jeep acquitted itself well and only need winching once on a rocky hill that was successfully traversed only by two of the five Landrovers which were equipped with Traction Control.
Even the lifted Defender with ARB's needed a pull after it sprang a leak in its air line and the locker failed. Note... If you get ARB lockers, invest in steel air lines.
Well, to make a long story short, I made a few friends and earned some respect for KJ's among the Land Rover crowd. On the way out I stopped by the main office and paid for a great morning of wheeling and purchased a membership at the offroad park.
In conclusion, the TMTC offroad park in Gilmer is well worth a trip and offers over 1800 acres of trails rated from one to five diamonds. It also has camping faclities and is very reasonably priced.