WHO'S COMING TO THE MUDBOG? March 22

torkliftrob · Mar 24, 2008

Pain is relative. The weekend before, I dislocated a rib & ate everything in the medicine cabnet, washed it down w/ 5-6 shots of Crown, then 5-6 beers for desert. Then, I thought it would be a good idea to throw (literally) the jeep back together and try the bog 1st. I made it to the beginning and couldn't find 4wd, got stuck, stepped out the pass side (don't know why) and got stuck again, lost my boots falling down, puked where I fell. BUT I DIDN'T SPILL MY BEER. Camo has the pix.

Camotanker · Mar 24, 2008

torkliftrob said:
Pain is relative. The weekend before, I dislocated a rib & ate everything in the medicine cabnet, washed it down w/ 5-6 shots of Crown, then 5-6 beers for desert. Then, I thought it would be a good idea to throw (literally) the jeep back together and try the bog 1st. I made it to the beginning and couldn't find 4wd, got stuck, stepped out the pass side (don't know why) and got stuck again, lost my boots falling down, puked where I fell. BUT I DIDN'T SPILL MY BEER. Camo has the pix.

true!!! i saw it. lmao

Spanaway Mudder · Mar 25, 2008

Sure is a bummer nobody stepped up to the plate and challenged each other to a drag or pull off!!

Maybe next time!!

Spanaway Mudder · Nov 5, 2008

Btt

Anybody hear from Rob at all?

lets bug him to get this going this year!!!:corn:

torkliftrob · Nov 6, 2008

Uh, I don't think so. It took me months to get the county off my back. Also, I still have mud in the "wash area" that apears to be breeding. I clean it out and it just re-apears from nowhere.
Plus, I don't have the Kubota anymore. Times are hard and I had to get rid of it.
On the other side of the coin, I do know a few secret mud-bogs around here. Nothing that you could have 125 beer-drinking NWW attend, though.

Spanaway Mudder · Nov 6, 2008

torkliftrob said:
Uh, I don't think so. It took me months to get the county off my back.

Did they say anything about permits? or how to go about having a event like this? Your bog has been mentioned a few times lately..would nice to hear some input from ya about how to avoid the "man" if you have any...

Thanks for having it and putting up with the a**holes!!:awesomework:

torkliftrob · Nov 6, 2008

They tried to bust me for "having an event, such as racing, without a permit" and also "moving and grading dirt without a permit". I told the investigator that we were just having a BBQ and she dropped the "event" charge right away. The dirt deal was another story. They wanted to come out and bring "experts" to see how bad I "damaged" the planet. I told them the field is zoned agriculture and I disc it every year. I said they could come see for themselves but they'd have to see from the road, since I wouldn't let any gov A-holes on my land.
We talked back and forth about how the county and state wanted to handle it. Finally, they said they HAD to see it. I offered to email pix to save them the trip and she actually agreed. So I took some great pix of dirt, grass, rocks, real interesting stuff (I actually did disc the field over). She called the next day to say the "experts" were dropping the charges.
I asked what the difference is between turning a field with a disc and turning it with a Swampper. She said that Jeeps aren't considered to be "agriculture". I informed her that mine was a classic Willys and they actually were originally built for farm / ranch use. Also, tires do a much better job breaking up the root base of grass than a disc could do in 20 passes (so I was saving fossil fuels to boot).
She said she actually thinks the county is stupid but they make the rules. They want to see pretty little tractors pulling stuff (that they don't even know the stuff does). Not open-header trucks & jeeps with drunken rednecks behind the wheel.
I seriously doubt there's any way I could "legally" pull it off again. The Enumclaw city attorney lives on the other side of my back pasture and I'm sure he's the jack that turned me in (he's a real :masturbanana[1]: ). In January or so, I may look into it (to see if they'd even consider issuing me a permit).
I'd have to do a few things different, though. I'd need to get a couple more pressure washers and set up a pre-wash area on the back lane.
I still need to finish my jeep. I'm looking for another set of axles. My D30 needs a pinion bearing and I'm not a big fan of the FJ40 offset in the rear. We did manage to get it airborne a few times in Naches (before one of my boys tore the collector off the header). If anyone's interested in trading axles, I'll give info.

Gibby1 · Nov 6, 2008

A couple of things on this. You do need get a permit, just in case someone complains. You can get a temporary use permit and that activity is allowed up to twice per year. There are a LOT of hoops though. You also need to get a fire marshalls permit which includes the need to do site maps, manage fire safety etc and they WILL show up on site to check it out.

The biggest headache you'll have is wetlands. If you have a mudbog, unless it's man made, you probably are doing this in a wetland. Also being zoned agricultural is much different than having agricultural use. If your use status is agricultural there are a lot of different things you can do, specifically involving wetlands, but driving jeeps through the wetlands, doesn't count. They will make you do a full wetland study. If you have any desire to keep your land from being delineated as wetland, it's not worth the risk.

Even if the use is agriculture, and you can legally farm your wetland, should you ever choose to build something on that land or change the use, you'll be screwed for ever.

I tried to do these on my property as well... and we had to cancel an event 2weeks before it happened. The county was OK with the event as long as they were confident that it didn't involve any wetlands. I wasn't willing to spend the $20k to get everything done that they wanted.

Don't count on your attorney neighbor turning you in. There is a group that watches this website and most other off-road websites that has been turning in people like you for a couple of years now. Per the people at Pierce County, our complaint came from someone who doesn't live even in Washington and has no idea what the site is like. They found our event advertised on the internet, filed a complaint at Pierce County so they had to follow up. It's a Sierra club or similar type of org. That same year 5 events that I know of were cancelled, some were even fully permitted but they found a way to stop the event from happening.