Georgia Traverse Trip Report

1000 miles of highway driving (there and back)
200 miles of trails (skipped the Alabama portion)

What is needed:

• A flexible schedule
• A willingness to spend 8-12 hours a day in the seat of your Disco
• A paper map (cell phone service is spotty)
• A "go with the flow" attitude

What is not needed

• Winch
• Recovery boards
• A whiny attitude

Left Thursday around noon to from Jax driving up through Atlanta. Engine was running real hot (for me) at 215 degrees. Turns out the two 9 inch lights i added pretty much blocked all the airflow to the radiator. Once I pulled them down, temps dropped to 207 running about 75 mph. No real issues getting up there - hit the trail outside of Crandall, GA just when it started getting dark. Drove for about 2.5 hours in the dark and those ridiculous 9 inch lights came in handy. National park camping was closed down but there were a number of state sites open. Most of the trails were forest service roads (gravel) and they were pretty well maintained.

Some beautiful country in North Georgia and great campsites along the way. Lots of people trout fishing and running dogs in the woods. Lots of folks just hanging out on the banks of rivers, camping and hanging out.


Directionally we got turned around a couple of times and some of the roads we went on were closed so we had to turn around and find another way. We finished the trail on Saturday around six and then backtracked to Tallulah again to hit some of the more technical spots a second time around. We grabbed a hotel Saturday night and were back home around 2 m on Sunday.

As for the trails, the only place that had somewhat technical 4 wheeling was outside Tallulah River Campground area which was pretty fun (we did it twice). Most of the other trails could be done in a subaru outback as they were all gravel. Most of the time the I was doing between 10-20 miles an hour on the trails. Never came out of 4 wheel high except for in Tallulah. Even then, traction control seemed to do just fine on its on. I only had to engage the CDL and go to low range once or twice. Also got a chance to try out the descent control - that was pretty cool and made some of the steeper decents with loose rock seem like nothing.

I did have one repeat problem on the trail that I need some help with - occasionally when any of the wheels seemed like they were under stress, I would hear a banging noise from the wheel well. It was loud and sounded like someone was hitting the wheel hub with a large hammer. It seemed to rotate around happening in one wheel well and then later another. It was intermittent, only happened on the trail and I was in high range without locking the diff. I was usually only going 10 mph and could not duplicate it on demand. I strapped a gopro under there to capture the sound but it was so loud the mic leveled the volume so it just sounds like little rocks hitting the frame. I have looked under the truck a couple of times - nothing leaking, broken or hanging down. I suspect its the shocks or springs somehow causing the noise but that is just a guess.

Also the trail was very dusty and the rear door seal did not seal well so a lot of road dust came in all over the gear in the back. The seal looks to be in good shape. Is this just a matter of adjusting the latch due to the weight of the heavier spare?

Tomorrow morning I am going to pressure was the underside and do a full inspection and tighten anything that might be loose. I would welcome any additional tips on post trip inspection.

I have a youtube video that is available now. It is raw footage and pretty long so run it in 2x until you get to some parts you might be interested in. Last 1/2 hour has some good offroad stuff.


Lake at Vogel State Park





Second campground