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Outside Magazine October 2004

Outside's Guilty Pleasures
I Love My Hummer
Big wheels keep on rolling—over everything in sight

By Jack Hitt


	Nice chassis. But when you're rippin' it off-road, the engine and knobby tires are what really matter. (Jeff Riedel)

IT'S HARD TO ADMIT but harder to deny: Some part of us enjoys nature only when we're grinding her face beneath the heel of our jackboots—or, say, the skid plate of a $120,000 Hummer.

It was the lure of sweet abuse that carried me to southwestern Pennsylvania's remote Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa, a swank getaway named for an Indian scout, allegedly, not an intestinal worm. Nemacolin is one of those retreats where wild nature is tucked discreetly behind the faux château and around an ever-expanding set of

The Hummer comes out of the muck like a fat man from a lawn chair. It's a sweet sensation, in a power-mad sort of way.

golf courses. Bill Clinton and George Bush the Younger have both chilled here, and stressed-out CEOs routinely arrive on the private airstrip to sample skeet shooting, paintball, and—new this spring—an Off-Road Driving Academy offering access to a fleet of aircraft-grade-aluminum-plated Hummers.

For $275 per two-hour session, would-be corporate chieftains like me can get out our ya-yas popping ollies on pristine ridges, conquering the resort's Rock and Crater obstacle courses. Yes, I'll be nipple-clamping Mother Nature using the "brute strength of the Hummer," as Nemacolin puts it, but according to the Off-Road Driving Academy's Tread Lightly™ principles. Which means I'll somehow get the "ultimate off-road-driving rush" and learn how to "minimize erosion" at the same time.

Apparently there's a right way to rape and a wrong way. In either event, we'll be raping in style.

On the morning of my ride, the hot mugginess from the previous night's downpour is no match for the Hummer H1's arctic air conditioner. I've got a CD changer for my OutKast collection, and enough cupholders to keep the martinis of my theoretical vice-presidents happy through the big muddy. Riding shotgun is my coach, Jordan. A handsome guy in his twenties, Jordan coaxes me toward the vehicle's more subtle pleasures. "Off-roading in a Humvee," he intones gently, "is more about power than speed."

So it is. Out on the mile-long Crater course, the road is a sluice of squishy mud. Spinning deeply in black slop, only one wheel has any real grip on the ground. I can literally feel the onboard computers reallocating the massive torque as the Hummer works itself onto one then two tires, coming out of the muck like a fat man from a lawn chair.

That was sweet, in a power-mad sort of way, but soon I'm battling to keep my tires out of two-foot-deep ruts as soft and thin as yogurt. Jordan guides me toward my first moment of off-road Zen. "Don't fight the machine," he murmurs, as if to say, Be the Hummer.

This is how powerful the low-lock setting on a Humvee is: At one point I come to the lip of a ledge and drive the vehicle out and over a 45-degree, 20-foot drop, before slamming down. Not since I first rappelled have I felt this mix of fear and uncertainty. I let go of the brakes and, just as my guru predicted, the machine quickly seizes the ground and moseys down as amiably as a giant armadillo.

There's a kind of When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth pleasure in zipping through nature unfazed by anything wet, thick, tilted, or rocky. I hop out of the Humvee with a bowlegged cowboy swagger and a Ronald Reagan aw-shucks grin. But after our final boulder descent—I have to be "spotted" on that one, my teacher calling the shots from the sidelines—Jordan can't help but take pride in the giant construction effort that went into making the final rock pile doable.

"They take a plywood cutout of the undercarriage of the Humvee and slide it down the rocks," he says. "If it's too deep, they add another rock. If it's too high, they use the backhoe to smash it down." Those swampy gullies I forded earlier? They were all undergirded with concrete to provide solid underwater traction.

That's right: Far from harming Mother Nature on this ride, I was hardly even touching her. It was like showering in a raincoat. Or some other prophylactic experience like that.

Next Page: This lollapalooza says guns and explosives are a blast

Connecticut-based Outside correspondent JACK HITT drives a conversion van.

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