Gravel, Dirt, and a little bit of Snow!

Last weekend a few Subaru diehards met up to go drive around some fun back roads south of Glenwood, IA.  Filling out the roster to brave the cold were a couple of Imprezas, WRXs, a Legacy GT Wagon, and an Outback XT.  We spent a good 2 hours zipping about these beautiful roads together.  Ever-changing grip levels made for a fun challenge for drivers, but none of us had any trouble staying on the road.  Ironically, a 4x4 Pathfinder that our camera guy drove was the only one who managed to get stuck until we pulled him out!


The snow had just fallen the night before, but it wasn't very deep.  It had managed to drift on and off parts of the road, so one second you'd be sliding sideways on snow and the next, you were on dirt or gravel and the grip would change suddenly.  Our pack of enthusiasts managed to make playtime of these conditions and had a blast tooling around in these AWD machines.

The mixture of dirt, gravel dust, snow, and ice cemented the backsides of our cars.  We spaced the cars out most of the time for safety, but also to keep flying rocks away from windshields!

We've used these roads before, as I have yet to find another like it in the area.  The steep walls of dirt are like canyons carved through the hills.  The winding dirt roads in these secluded areas feel like a Stage Rally!  There's hardly anyone else around, so the hoonigan Subarus are free to enjoy the roads together.

Despite the bitter cold and conditions that would normally deter people from joining our pack of pretend rally drivers, we had great turnout and a wonderful time along the Waubonsie Trail.  Most of our cruise routes are on warm sunny days with nice clean cars, so it's fun to get out and get dirty once in a while.  Breaking the mold makes events like this stand out, even if there's only a handful of us who get to experience it.