Damage to The Wayfarer

Tackled the Wayfarer today in a standard 300 Tdi Disco with Grabber AT's.

After the third gate (if I remember rightly) there is a section that has come away. There is now a pool of gloopy crappy mud that leads instantly to a two foot plus shelf of very solid mud on the right hand side. Someone has placed two sleepers down in the gloopy mud but the mud is so sloppy they are as good as useless. The gloopy mud must have sank half a foot when my tyre was in it and the left hand side was tilting the Landy to the right, harder into the mud. There was no way my Disco was getting up there and after several runs at it I had to admit defeat. Good job I don't have airbags because it was basically a crash!

The rain was worse than I had seen predicted and the whole track was basically a river. This section looks like it has been worn badly by the rain.

Also, all the gates had been left wide open and one (possibly the second one) even looked like it had been rammed off its hinges!

I didn't take any pictures of the damaged part or the gate unfortunately. I was concentrating more on not flipping my vehicle.

Just thought I'd mention as I had to make the decision to turn back, after being over halfwayish.

Has anyone on here been recently/this weekend?

Have you ever been greenlaning before?

I think you might need to go out with some experienced chaps or chappesses before you attempt any more trips out.

Funkykipper said:

Have you ever been greenlaning before?

I think you might need to go out with some experienced chaps or chappesses before you attempt any more trips out.

Click to expand...

Yes and no.

I've not been on an organised green laning trip before but I have done plenty of off-roading and driving 4x4's in the heaviest snow you can get in Wales down the most rural tracks in my work, responding to incidents and rescuing people etc. I've also been across if mountains in a Mountain Rescue Fender (as a passenger admittedly). And I've seen plenty of motorists stuck in the mud and rescued them.

I am local to this area also.

But I get your point.

The gates on the Wayfarer have always been a bit iffy. The one just before the climb to the top has been on one hinge for a good few years.

But on the up side, alot of work has been done to drain the route properly as the part between the first and second gates at the LDC end was almost impassable at one point.

It is a very popular route and without regular maintenance it'll suffer and i'm sure be closed until such a time that it's brought back upto scratch.

You went on your own?