Intro to Off-Road - Yankee Springs (Beginner's Ride)

This is a BEGINNER'S RIDE ONLY. If you have a lot of experience in off-roading, and/or would consider yourself to be considered advanced, please do not sign up for this ride. We will be scheduling some advanced only rides for 2023.

This ride is to help encourage some of our less experienced or brand new off-roaders members. We will discuss what the in's and out's of what a trail ride typically entails. We'll go over topics like traction control, airing down, how to put your rigs in 4-Wheel Drive, and how to traverse specific types of trails. We will also go over safety, recovery, navigation, communication devices, and many other things. This will be a really informative ride for those who have little to no experience in Jeeping off-road. This ride will most likely take longer than our typical rides, and since this is set up for you guys who have little to no experience in trail riding with us, you're probably wondering how long our rides usually last then haha. Typically our trail rides last anywhere from 1.5 - 3 hours. It all depends on the trails we're on, conditions of those trails, how many Jeeps we have with us, how fast our group is willing to travel, and some other things. 2 hours roughly is normally our avergage ride time. I'd expect this ride to be at least 2.5 hours. With the topics we need to discuss and giving you all the hands-on experience during this ride, I'd say to plan on this ride being about 4 hours to be safe. If we have 20 people sign up and every single one has never been off-road before and doesn't know how to put their Jeeps in 4-LO, then our ride will take longer so everyone has the chance to learn how to go wheeling safely and properly, and that will take some time. No biggie either way if it's quicker or not, but I want everyone to know what to expect since this will be new/newer/newish to you all. Since you are most likely new to signing up, PLEASE read the statements below this description fully. Our typical trail rides description will look like this. We will let you know where we meet up, what time, who your Trail Leader and Tail Gunner are, the Trail Captain's Info in case you need to reach out, Important Ticket info, mandatory DNR info on the 20 person rule, and a Disclaimer.

We will meet at the Merle Boes Yankee Springs Marathon Gas Station in the parking lot.

Meetup Location: 11300 M-179, Middleville, MI 49333

Driver's Meeting: 10:00 AM, and leaving promptly at 10:15 AM. (Please arrive early.)

GMRS Radios are not required, but very highly recommended.

Any questions, issues, or comments can be sent to:

Trail Lead: Kyle Kelly-(812) 584-5163

Trail Tail: Dave Rice-(269) 760-8241

If you're unable to attend this ride and have already signed up for any tickets, please reach out to anyone on the Facebook page so we can open up your tickets for others who can attend.

Important Club Member Notice: GRJC tickets will be used for member check-in. One ticket is required per person. Each club member that wishes to receive club credit for attendance to this event, even if part of a larger party attending, must register for their own separate ticket so that they can be checked-in and their attendance linked to their personal membership account.

As of February 2, 2016, per DNR rule, no more than 20 persons per group are allowed to attend an event on state land.

Do Not Interrupt Public Land Use -or- Unfairly Use Public Resources:

"Unlawful to hold an event without appropriate DNR permit(s). 'Event' means a single, structured, organized, consolidated, scheduled meeting or occurrence, on State land, which may have a fee/ donation required for participation or attending and/or involves more than 20 persons. ... The focus is balancing the event use with other public access and use."

Sources: SLU Rules R 299.921, Rule 21 (item #e) and R 299.922, Rule 22 (item #n).

We GRJC and its members, will abide by this rule.

Disclaimer: Participation in any GRJC Event is at your own risk. GRJC is not liable for any injury/damage/etc that could occur. Also, any attendee to a GRJC even may be asked to leave if their behavior does not meet our family or safety standards.