When it comes to ‘wheeling, Texas is one of the most diverse states. We’ve spent time all across the Lone Star state on various off-road adventures and can attest that the western half of the state is extremely different from the east. For the 2017 NittoJeep Xperience Texas, we found ourselves in two of West Texas’ premier off-road parks: Katemcy Rocks and Wolf Caves. Both parks are situated just outside of Mason, Texas, with each having hundreds of acres of dedicated ‘wheeling territory.
This year, 75 participants, along with a host of sponsors, made the journey out to Mason. While Friday was spent taking care of paper work, Saturday things got going bright and early. Since rockcrawling is the core focus of both parks, ‘wheelers dropped air pressure in hopes of getting the most bite from the Texas boulders.
With such a diverse group of vehicles and experience levels on hand, three trail categories were made. Extreme Overlanding, Intermediate and Extreme. With body damage practically guaranteed on Extreme, the Intermediate groups became the most populated.
We spent most of Saturday tagging along with a few groups at Wolf Caves. This beautiful piece of property has been in the same family’s hands for seven generations. Its 430 acres of accessible off-road land is filled with rock outcroppings everywhere you turn.
After 17 years in the business, Katemcy Rocks owners Shain Chapman and Randy Kruse understand what it takes to keep an incredible off-road park in business. K2 would play host as not only a top-notch ‘wheeling venue, but base camp to the Jeep Xperience event. Here, participants would get in some world-class rock crawling, win thousands of dollars’ worth of raffle prices (including a new set of Nitto Ridge Grapplers) and enjoy a BBQ dinner and live band on Saturday night.
