When the rain finally ended on the second day, we went to investigate the trail. As soon as we left the grass, our boots sank a couple of inches and were nearly stuck fast. Retreating to the grass, our boots looked like they were encased in heavy wet concrete. The light gray clay turned out to be "bentonite," a heavy, very clingy and very slippery type of clay. With plenty of water and food, and in a rather nice grassy meadow, we opted for a few more days of camping while the trail dried out. After three days of sunshine, the trail had become solid enough that we decided to drive on. Halfway up the saddle, we hit a patch of still-wet clay and began spinning our tires. Walking up the trail with Pull Pal and winch cable, we were amazed at how the consistency of the bentonite changed depending on how wet it was: Hard as concrete when dry, a heavy bottomless goo when fully saturated, and slippery as black ice when in between. Nasty stuff! We winched and drove and winched some more that morning, reaching the gravel road by mid-afternoon. We looked back at the trail and realized that thanks to all the winching, we had indeed "trod lightly." Besides, the winching had been fun.
We drove to an established Grassland campground where after a refreshing hot shower, thanks to our "Unlimited Hot Water Camping Shower," we retired to our tent. In the morning we packed up, filled our drinking water jerrys and headed southwest towards the "Elkhorn Ranch." Although the "ranch" can be accessed via gravel road, we choose the "scenic" route, a number of faint lines on our maps.
At the first sign of mud we stopped to investigate; we had learned our lesson. Discovering plain old-fashioned mud and not bentonite, we pushed on. We drove through a number of cattle grazing areas, being careful to leave all the gates as we found them, and forded a number of narrow, muddy creeks.
Navigating became tricky as we encountered numerous trail intersections. We drove by choosing the trail that headed in the general direction of the ranch. With the "distance to waypoint" display on our Garmin GPS getting smaller, we knew we were on the right track.
As we dropped into the river's floodplain, the trail became wetter and muddier. We engaged our rear ARB Air Locker and forged on; the ranch lay just on the other side of the river. We hadn't thought much about the river crossing, as we had already crossed that same river a number of times and it had always had a sandy bottom and gentle entry and exit ramps. As we approached the river we realized this time it was going to be different. The entry ramp into the channel was steep, heavily rutted, and very muddy. With gravity's help, we thought we could get down into the channel, and were glad we didn't have to come back this way, as we didn't think we would be able to climb the bank. The river itself was wider than when we had crossed it before, and we could not see the bottom. We could, however, see the trail exiting the river on the far side, so obviously this was an established ford. We engaged the front Air Locker and got a bit of momentum to navigate the rutted entry ramp. We felt the truck slide on its skidplates into the water, and after a bit of tire spin, the Mud Rovers bit into the bottom and pushed across the river. With water rising to below the headlights, we accelerated to create a bow wave. The exit ramp looked a little better than the entry ramp had. It was heavily rutted and very muddy, but not as steep and had reassuring large trees directly ahead in case we needed to winch ourselves out of the stream. I was about to gun the engine for a bit of bank-climbing power when we saw it. Nailed to a post right in the middle of the trail on the top of the bank a big "No Trespassing" sign.
We could not go forward, nor could we go back. I had no illusions that we would be able to drive up the ramp and there were no trees to use as winch anchors. One thing was sure: if we stopped moving, the water current would quickly dig under our tires and we would find ourselves "aground" on the river bottom. While I drove in a wide circle in the middle of the river, my co-driver studied the topo maps searching for a way out. She found another ford about a quarter mile downstream, and as I turned the Discovery downstream, I wondered what other surprises the river held.