Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
The skies were clear, the ground was wet, and that was good enough for the 2,500 participants who showed up to test their vehicles’ mettle in the annual Mountain Mud Festival Saturday, March 4.
Some 1,000 four-wheel-drive vehicles, from as far away as Arkansas, Texas and Wisconsin, crowded onto some 40 acres of private property on Berlin Road, where the event has been held for the last four years.
Rigs of all kinds, ranging from stock street vehicles to the wildly modified, including one Suburban with dual tires on all four wheels, sprayed mud far and wide as they negotiated obstacle courses, powered up a steep, wet hill climb, tested their power on the drag strip, climbed over boulders and tried to fight their way through deep pools of liquid mud in the bog holes.
Despite the free-for-all atmosphere, there were few mishaps — nothing worse than a few flipped rigs whose drivers escaped without apparent injury.
“Everything’s gone real smooth,” said Nancy Frick of the Santiam Four Wheel Drive Association, which has put on the event since the mid-1970s, when it began as an association play day on the upper end of Foster Lake after it had been drained during the winter. “Everybody’s having fun, trying the mud.”
Scott Cook, 40, of Salem, watched rigs barrel up the hill climb. Cook, who has been coming to the event for years, said he got there early to beat the rush, taking a dozen runs up the hill climb and eight trips down the drag strip in his 1978 Toyota pickup, which he’s had for 18 years.
“When it gets busy like this, people start getting crazy,” he said as trucks, with engines screaming, lurched up the slope. “That’s when the fun starts. It’s amazing what people do.”
Cook noted that most drivers play it safe. He recalled seeing a rig roll last year with children inside, but noted that all of them were wearing five-point harnesses and the occupants all just unhooked themselves and crawled out.
“They did it right,” he said.
Matt Crawford, 38, also of Salem, was surveying the action during a lunch break with his wife Theresa after a morning in the mud.
“It’s just a lot of fun to come out here and play in the mud, trying not to get hit by other people,” said Crawford, who has been attending since 1995. He said he likes “sanctioned” events such as the Mountain Mud Festival because “you don’t get into trouble.”
Particularly, he said, he likes to check out what other four-wheel-drive enthusiasts have done to their vehicles.
“It gives me ideas of things to do — or not to do — on my vehicle,” said Crawford, who drives a 1995 Jeep Wrangler. “Some stuff works out here and some doesn’t.”
“It’s all about the tires,” added Theresa Crawford, who said she mostly “just watches.”
“Obviously,” grinned her husband, glancing at his own mud-covered clothes and her clean outfit.
Frick said there is some question as to whether the event will be able to continue at the current Berlin Road site, where it has been held since the Army Corps of Engineers refused to grant the permit to allow it to continue at the lake. The Berlin Road property is up for sale, she said.
“If it sells, we may need to look for a new site,” she said.
But although some participants were discussing that turn of events, they weren’t missing the opportunity at hand.