Hi all: Offroad trip to Gallagher Lake outside of Cle Elum, WA (Trails 4WD301 and 4WD304). Myself, Ray (the brave returning co-conspirator), Gerry, fresh meat to offroading with a pristine 1997 TJ, a friend of Ray's foreign exchange student, and Ray's five year old daughter (who, being the true pro of the bunch, immediately went to sleep in her car seat when we hit the bumpy stuff). Pretty soft under all of those rocks so we did a lot of bouncing and needed to take some less extreme approaches to the trail in places. Gerry's GPS helped us not repeat the getting lost thing from the last trip. Great scenery up there with ice on the peaks but no snow yet. It was definitely getting towards snow weather in the mountains though as our temperature was running about 40-45F. On the way down, I once again provided the humor of the day by blowing the same tire... again. After watching Ray's track through a rather nasty water-filled erosion cut and the way he bounced rather soldily off of a very large rock when the hole sucked him in, I decided to modify the angle of attack so I would hopefully miss said rock. Trail was pretty narrow, (I picked tree leaves out of the foglight covers this morning as I was washing off the mud) so I really didn't have much room to attack it though. First thing the cut did was suck me into the same spot and firmly bounce me off of the rock in the exact same place as Ray. When I got back to the top of the rise and found a flat spot, I stopped to check things out and sure enough, the front right tire was merrily whistling like a tea kettle from a slash to the tire sidewall. This time though, Ray and I both have hi-lift jacks so with Ray's daughter supervising, the three of us (Ray, Gerry, myself) got my Jeep up and the tire off and changed in no time. Ironically, I had picked up the high lift extension for angled bumpers just yesterday, so the Jeep Gods were smiling. Eastside Custom also has a sale on ProComp tires right now and I'm wondering, after blowing the second tire, if those same gods are suggesting replacement tires... I'll post a couple of the full-size photos later this week if I have time. T4V&C!