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Valcea Offroad Day – 24 January 2010

Posted in "Art" ??, Beautiful Romania, LifeStyle, Travel with tags 1080p, Beautiful Romania, full hd, g-klasse, g-klasse offroad, hd, jimny offroad, landscape, mercedes g-klasse, nissan patrol, nissan patrol offroad, off road, offroad, patrol, ramnicu valcea, snow, suzuki jimny, suzuki jimny offroad, valcea, wallpaper, wallpapers, winter, x3m offroad valcea, y61 on 26 January 2010 by Watcher Romano

On January 24th 2010, I joined the X3M Offroad Valcea crew for a relaxing cruise in the mountains near Valcea. We took a 7 hour, 50 kilometers long stroll in a completely untouched area. As you will see, the snow was pure, clean and shiny white. “The warm sun” we enjoyed refers to the white balance only, because the highest temperature we encountered was -8 degrees Celsius.

I will start off with a few pictures of ‘action’ but will end this post with much more pictures of the beautiful winter scenery we were lucky to encounter:

: TYH Portrait

: 4×4 winter poster

: Really bad shot of a good moment

: A little bit of help uphill (if you slow down the boat, it sinks)

: Vitara action

: Dacos crazy action !

: Dacos crazy action !

: Team effort

: Tough even for ATVs

: Explorers

: What to do when your ATV’s tire comes off the rim

: Dacos Super Shot

: Lel winter portrait

: Lel winter wallpaper

: And now? Which way?

: Can you spot the Dacos? (1080p)

: Can you spot the Dacos?

: Winter Panorama (1080p)

: Winter Panorama (ultrawide)

: Winter Panorama (1080p)

: Winterscape

: Winterscape

: Forest in the winter

: Forest in the winter (1080p)

: Orchard in the winter

: Orchard in the winter (1080p)

: Winter Panorama (1080p)

: Winter Panorama (1080p)

: Winter Panorama (1080p)

: Winter Panorama (ultrawide)

The official thread of this trip is posted here.

As you have probably noticed, some photos are in the 1080p full-HD format. I would be honored if you used them as wallpapers.

By now, any visitor of this blog should already be aware of the existence of technical methods to automatically receive new posts: the RSS feed or via email.

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Olanesti Offroad Day

Posted in LifeStyle with tags Horezu, izvor 24, izvorul 24, jimny, jimny offroad, mitsunishi offroad, mtsubishi pajero, nissan patrol, nissan patrol offroad, off road, offroad, olanesti, pajero offroad, patrol, patrol offroad, suzuki jimny, y60 on 15 September 2009 by Watcher Romano

When: Sunday September 14th
Meeting Point: Ramnicu Valcea, Romania
Who: 15 cars, motorcycles, ATVs
What for:

Finish Point: Horezu, Romania

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Buzau – Izvoranu Offroad

Posted in LifeStyle, Non Travel-Related Photography with tags accident, forest, gu patrol, hill climb, mud, nissan, nissan patrol, nissan patrol y60, nissan patrol y61, off road, offroad, patrol, patrol gr, y60, y61, [atrol gu on 27 June 2009 by Watcher Romano

Saturday June 28th I took a trip together with 3 other Patrol drivers to Buzau, to watch the trial of the Buzau Extreme Adventure Cup. Since the trial was scheduled to start at 15:00 we decided to go for some offroad of our own

Here’s a movie that does not accurately depict how bad the portion was: laterla incline, mud, steep, narrow. Had we not had wheel spacers and negative ET wheels, we could never have made it…

Be sure to check the other videos from the same guy too!

Unfortunately my camera has benn dropped into a ditch of water and mud, so no more pictures from new events for some time now

Luckily, I still have tons of photos taken in previous trips that I still need to publish

PS: I got some more videos (PLEASE! watch WITHOUT sound!)

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Leaota Offroad

Posted in Beautiful Romania, LifeStyle, Travel with tags bucegi, cai salabatici, cai salabitic, cal salabtec, kdj, kdj120, land cruiser, land cruiser prado, lc120, leaota, nissan, nissan offroad, nissan patrol, nissan y61, off road, offroad, patrol, patrol y61, prado, salbatici, toyota, toyota land cruiser prado, toyota offroad, wild horse, wild horses, y61 on 15 June 2009 by Watcher Romano

This weekend was ‘offroad sandwich’ weekend (‘offroad pe paine’). Saturday I got some ‘extreme’ action near Sinaia : the mud in the forest on Cumpatu was considerably more wet and deeper than expected. But then,on Sunday, I visited an area with landscapes rivaling Curmatura Oltetului and Transalpina: the Leaota Mountains in Dambovita County. It was a good opportunity for the KDJ120 Land Cruiser to be ‘broken in ‘ outside the asphalt.

Most of the action took place on a great scenery, posing little trouble (one just neede tot go slowly, because there were a lot of rocks). However, we did manage to find a trail into the forrest that gave us a lot of headaches. Definitely will visit again! Here’s why:

: Directions

: Niste Tarani

: Ascent

: Safari Snorkel

: KDJ by WCR

: KDJ Fun

: Rough Spot

: KDJ – Tight Spot

: Rough Spot

: KDJ – Tight Spot

: WCR @ Leaota

: Wild Horse

: Wild Horse

: Where

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There’s no such thing as SOFT with Oresti

Posted in LifeStyle with tags 4x4mania, cheia, cheia offroad park, nissan, nissan patrol, offf road, offroad, offroading, oresti, patrol, vheia, y61 on 24 May 2009 by Watcher Romano

Cheia Offroad Park had an ‘open weekend’ on May 23rd and 24th. This weekend was the ‘soft’ trial. But of course, there is no such thing as “soft” with Oresti. In my opinion, the minimum requirements for completing the track on you own were Simex(like) tyres and a winch.

Here’s how it looked like – and keep in mind, I was not able to shoot the ‘heavy parts’ as I was driving:

: Teamwork

: Portrait

: Mission Impossible

: Marius Lupu Style

: Just Before

: Luigi in action

: Luigi in action

: Luigi in action

: Luigi – Damage

: Kaiser Fun

: Rescue Op

: Uite-atat

: VolkerV

: I am not stuck

: I am not stuck

: NOW I am stuck

: NOW I am stuck

: Roll out the cable!

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Luana – Paths into the Unknown – May 2009

Posted in Travel with tags bozioru, g-klasse, luana, mercedes, mercedes g-klasse, nissan, nissan patrol, off road, off the road, offroad, offroading, patrol, y61 on 19 May 2009 by Watcher Romano

Last weekend (May 15th – May 17th), beautiful Bozioru hosted a traditional offroad event: Luana – Paths into the Unknown.

Participants arrived late on Friday evening and socialized untill all the palinca was gone.
Saturday was the day for offroading. We split in 2 ‘classes’ – I went for the ‘open’ which was advertised as longer. They also told me that I would have problems crossing one point in the ‘extreme’ track, because the car was too wide.

As any responsible person would have done, we turned the ‘open’ into ‘extreme’ too
Here are the pictures recorded with my camera at this event:

: Semaca

: Rotty 1st ascend

: Navara

: Navara

: Iulia – ‘ravena’

: Teamwork

: Iulia Stuck

: Teamwork

: General Clatita to the Rescue

: Teamwork

: I wanna wreck my car too

: Goganu 1st ascend

: Nasu Mare – Ditch

: Semaca

: Funny?

: Crossaxle

: WCR – Ditch

: Mud

: ‘Ravena’

: ‘Ravena’

: Through a river

: Narrow Road Ahead!

: Niku Iorga Repair Shop

: Uite-l ma ce a facut!

: Maaamaaaaa!!

: Rotty Jr

: Election Year

: Leader

: Babyface Assasin

: Cat and Bear

: Croitor

On Sunday I went back home on alternative routes, and there will be another post with those pictures

If you want to see more pictures from the event, this is the official pictures thread.

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Outdoor weekend

Posted in Beautiful Romania, Travel with tags adventure, bucegi, carpati, diham, expedition, nissan, nissan patrol, offroad, paraul rece, patrol, piatra arsa, poiana izvoarelor, sinaia, y61 on 13 May 2009 by Watcher Romano

I just could not brnig myself to name this post anything with ‘offroad’. Last weekend I took a trip to Paraul Rece, for a meeting. With a little help from some forum colleagues (thank you!) I took two pleasurable trips in the area:

from Paraul Rece to Diham and then to Poiana Izvoarelor (first 5 pictures) – funny, interesting, easy with just one difficult part: a steep and closed turn covered in deep snow. I had to find an alternative path (quite steep and verry narrow, with nothing to the right)
from Sinaia to Piatra Arsa (next 4 pictures) – the scenery has imprinted itwself in our minds – there were literally acres of crocuses and no noises, just the wind and the greatness of The Mountain…

Pictures

: 4 x 4

: WCR on the track to Poiana Izvoarelor

: Purple Meadow

: Bucegi Panorama

: Bucegi Panorama

: Piatra Arsa – Directions

: Purple Meadow

: Purple Meadow

: Yes, I did go there

: Real offroading

: Took some work

: (W)inching out

As you may have noticed, there are more than just 9 pictures posted Yes !! I did do some real offroading: Saturday evening I just entered into the forest, trying to see how far I would reach. It was soliciting but rewarding because:

there was just one car (broken rule #1)
there was just me in the car (broken adagio to rule#1)
I had no idea about the track, conditions, etc.
I made it up – not far away, but after some struggle (moving dead trees, winching, and trying to find a place where the trees were wide enough so that I could exit the forest! )

I also tried to go to Poiana Izvoarelor on Saturday evening but I got a wrong track so I got stuck and had to return, but that gave me some adrenalin too:

lateral inclination
very narrow path – that’s why I had to stop – at a point it became to narrow for the Y61
getting dark

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Cheia Offroad Day with 4x4Mania team

Posted in Travel with tags 4x4mania, cheia, jeep, kaiser, nissan, nissan patrol, off road, offroad, patrol, y61 on 12 April 2009 by Watcher Romano

Alfonso has convinced me to be a pilot on Saturday April 11th (instead of a copilot), so I joined the 4x4Mania team in Cheia for a day in the forest. Driving through the forrest, on muddy steep hills, following 42″ ruts, passing between trees wide enough for the car WITHOUT mirrors was very fun but also challenging , so I only managed to snap a few pics. I hope my photographer copilot will help me post some pics with ME in action too

: Radu Preparing

: What I have put togehter

: Steep Descent

: Rescue Op

: Pottery

: Landscapeing

: Kaiser Fun

: Front locker on, car on it’s fron axle alone, reverse, gas, BREAK

: This happens like everytime!

: Camouflaged Kaiser – memories of its original purpose

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Phoenix – Song of the Swan in Sibiu

Posted in Travel with tags 1st prize, nissan patrol, off road, off road competition, offroad, offroad cometition, patrol, river on 4 April 2009 by Watcher Romano

Between the 27th and 29th of March, Cabana Nora in Raul Sadului, Sibiu was the host of the “Phoenix – Song of the Swan” memorial for Bogdan Patru.

The meeting was organized as a competition with two classes – Open and Extreme -, roadbook, specials and qualifications. The first day was the prologue, having us (the Open class) descend through a mountain creek with HUGE boulders, in order to establish the starting grid for Saturday. On Saturday, we had 80km of track, with some 150 positions on the roadbook. The track was very easy, with literally no problems beside the roadbook.

Both my copilot and I were at the first encounter with a roadbook, and we had a GPS program simulating the TerraTrip . The program was allrgiht, but we did have some trouble following the roadbook, especially at positions 24, 57 and 107. Position 107 was also where the day was cut off, due to some problems with an area the track was supposed to go through.

That is why the final standing was drawn using the times in the special. Luckily, both my team mate and I ruled the special (under 1 minute as opposed to ~ 10-15 minutes for some contestants) so we were designated winners of the Open class :-O .

It was a lot of fun, we had a 10 minutes break to confer with a friend that lived in Sibiu (yes, we did take a detour and went to his house in Sibiu!), we managed to find a checkpoint hidded in some bushes, and we used a roadook for the first time. Driving all day long however, was not a proper setting for pictures, so there are only a few:

: After the second checkpoint

: Potrait Work

: GOG & WCR

: Goganu

: And now, Where to

I am also using this picture somebody took with a mobile phone to show you what followed immediately after the second checkpoint (actually, it was the third, but NOBODY got the first one )