chaosjake
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Near where I grew up in West Virginia, there's an old road right-of-way called Peddler's Glory that I've been itching to try ever since I got my Gladiator in January. Local legend says it was named after a 19th century Yankee peddler who was traveling along the main road across the county and got ambushed by highwaymen in this remote valley, putting up a valiant fight to the last, but ultimately ending up robbed and murdered. Though it was laid out in the 1700s and was a main route connecting local settlements, it was largely abandoned after the state highway was built to accomodate automobiles in the 1920s. Nevertheless, it technically remains a public road, even having a county road sign at the top end, where it joins the state highway that replaced it.
I've been a passenger in TJs and XJs that ran the trail from the top down, but I've never driven it myself. I don't know if my old Tacoma would have made it through the technical sections, and my K5 Blazer was just too dang big to fit between some of the trees. Not really knowing the trail, I didn't want to run it on my own, so I was glad when a couple of my friends were up to go wheeling when I was down there visiting my mom last week. My buddy Chris had just put his two-door JK back together, after wrenching on it for several months to install Dynatrac axles and ARB lockers and a bunch of other upgrades, and he was looking to test it out. He knows the trail well and he's a good spotter, so I figured he could get me through... and he has a winch just in case.
Before we hit the trail, Chris wanted to do a shakedown run on some of the dirt roads around the county to make sure nothing was going to blow up on him. He and his girlfriend took the lead in his black JK, his brother Matt went next in a stock Hydro Blue JT Willys, and my wife and I brought up the rear in my stock Hydro Blue JT Rubicon. We drove around on maybe 20 or 30 miles of country roads to make sure Chris had tightened everything down and topped off the fluids, then we came up to Peddler's Glory from the bottom of the mountain. (You can see a timelapse video of this down at the bottom of the post, which ends with the same creek crossing that starts the video above.)
Matt didn't think a Gladiator was going to make some of the tight turns and narrow passes between trees, so he hopped in with my wife and me, then Chris led us up the last few miles of dirt roads. Peddler's Glory turns off of the "main" dirt road near an old strip mine, and it gets narrower and narrower, until a creek crossing marks the beginning of the technical terrain. At the second creek crossing, you can see the old stacked stone footings for a road bridge that's long gone, and if you turn right/upstream, there's a small waterfall that short wheelbase vehicles can climb. Chris went off to climb the waterfall, and I stayed on the road.
While he got up the falls successfully, when he went to turn back up onto the road, his Jeep slid sideways and almost rolled over on what should have been a simple climb. Luckily, he had the winch to help keep everything pointed in the right direction while he crawled back up to the road.
After the second creek crossing, the old road takes a sharp left and goes straight up a steep hill, with several rock ledges that are fun to crawl up. I picked a dumb line on the first one and ended up getting stuck pretty well on my LCA bracket, but we stacked a couple of stones so I could drive out pretty easily. We had to stack stones a couple more times later on, but those were both places where the only gap between the trees that was wide enough for a Jeep had a breakover that was too steep for the JT wheelbase.
After coming down off the hill, the old road follows a creek bed for the next several miles. Over the past century or so, the creek has jumped its banks enough times that it's often hard to be sure if you're driving up the creek or the road bed. The land on both sides is posted No Trespassing, but you can see where four wheelers and side-by-sides go onto private land to play. If you decide to take this trail, please respect the posted signs, so we don't lose a local favorite to gates. As long as you stay on the road bed or in the creek, you should be fine.
Speaking of side-by-sides, we ran into a couple of guys who were out playing in the mud right when we got to the most technical part of the trail. I had been following Chris up the creek, but there was a tree down blocking the way. As we both backed back down the creek to find a new line, we suddenly had an audience, and they were sure we had lost our minds. They kept telling us that there was no way for a Jeep to make it through Peddler's Glory, especially not coming from the bottom up. Unfortunately, my phone overheated and I didn't get video of this part, because getting the JT up out of the creek bed, across to the old road grade, past the bottomless mudhole that would have definitely swamped my engine, between the trees on a 20 degree camber with an inch on either side, and back down into the creek was some of the trickiest driving I've ever done.
After a few miles, the trail starts lifting up out of the creek bed, and it slowly turns into a normal dirt road at the top. We broke out of the trees onto the top of the ridge just in time to watch the sun set below the horizon while we were airing up our tires. A young kid driving a lifted XJ about drove into the ditch waving at us when he saw that two Jeeps had just come out the top of Peddler's Glory.
All in all, I was really impressed with the JTR. This was the hardest trail I've tackled in it yet, and it performed really well. On a trail through the deep Applachian woods, the turning radius and breakover angle made things complicated a few times, but that was expected, and we could always find a way through. I got hung up on the LCA brackets a few times, and I banged it down hard on the rock sliders a lot of times, but I didn't see anything worse than a few scratches on the frame rails, and I woke up the next morning and drove back to Boston with no issues. Between rock ledges and deep, slimy mud, I used the lockers a good bit, and I did have to stack rocks a few times, but I never needed a snatch strap or winch cable to get back out of trouble.
Have any of you guys taken a JT through Peddler's Glory? If not, I'm going to claim I was the first!
Edit: Google is your friend. These guys did it first, so maybe I was the second JT through Peddler's Glory? I'm going to take credit for being the first to do it going up the mountain.
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