Off-Roading a Little Truck

We’ve been off-roading a first-generation Toyota Rav4 for about two years. Silly, yes, but effective. The first Rav4, for all its Japanese-spec weirdness (the back door is a monolith that opens in the wrong direction, narrow seats, odd dash, looks like a decapitated monkey’s head), has some well-considered parts and design. A limited-slip locker was an option for the rear. The all-wheel drive (from the Celica All-Trac parts bin), Rav4s with the five-speed have an optional locking center diff. The engine was the nigh indestructible Camry four, Toyota’s ubiquitous 3S-FE engine, and the platform, though Corolla-based, has an absurd amount of ground clearance (which can be augmented with a lift kit from Old Man Emu). Of course, it’s nearly naked beneath and you’ll need to find protection (Armor Craft built some). Then again, there are so many of these out there that wreck-diving for parts at the junkyard is a piece of cake.

Off-Road Adventure In Someone’s Backyard
Anyone living in California’s Orange County with one good eye and even the slightest inquisitive nature has looked toward Saddleback Mountain or its neighbors (the ridgeline that towers over most of O.C.) and asked themselves, “Selves? What are all those little squiggly lines and grooves cross-cutting all over the faces of the mountains? Are those roads?”


If you spend your days content between the curbs, there probably won’t be much pleasure for you in reading further, but for those of you who’ve been suspended for refusing to leave the playground after recess, for the men and women who park on the lawn because there were no spots left in the driveway, for all of us who have looked at the two-track in a gully beneath an overpass and tried to figure out which freeway exit would take you there, those little squiggly lines are your adventure, your entertainment, your recess.

Accessing Orange County’s Cleveland National Forest
Find some quality national forest location, access the trail maps for it through an off-roader’s digest like any of the “Backcountry Adventures” books by Adler Publishing (4WDbooks.com) or on websites like dirtopia.com, and press forward with the equipment and timing necessary to make a trail run of your own.

Taken from the last point with a view of Lake Elsinore to the south, you can also see the southern reaches of Main Divide Road, headed for San Diego.

The main road running from peak to peak (and connecting to most everything else) is the Main Divide Road. Very original. Cruise Maple Springs Road (5SO4) up Silverado Canyon for a look at the township of Maple Springs (which might as well have grown out of the canyon like a flower grows from a crack in the sidewalk). Harding Truck Trail (5SO8) used to meet Main Divide too. Holy Jim Trail runs up Trabuco Canyon just past Cook’s Corner (off S18 or S19), but it hasn’t reached Main Divide for years unless you like a hike. There’s Blackstar Canyon, up to Beek’s Place—supposedly haunted, reputedly stalked by some dingbat with a penchant for shooting at travelers—which goes up through some delightful high meadows to Main Divide too (if you can stomach the mystery of the missing 250lb of explosives from a nearby mine). You can access Main Divide from the 15 too, off Indian Truck Trail (prepare to rough-ride through a few unfinished subdivisions), Bedford Road (4S03), Skyline Drive or Coal Canyon (from the 91 freeway). Our favorite access, though, is via the southern end of Main Divide itself, which trickles onto Ortega Highway (Route 74), just east or west of the El Cariso fire station. Mind you, Ortega is one of the CHP’s favorites, too.