#14
Cliffhangers Nd
2 events
The Cliffhangers 4X4 Club was founded in 1975 By Doug Daniels and some local residents with an interest in family four wheel drive activities. The first few years were interesting with members volunteering for “Trailboss of the Month” where it was up to a member to come up with a trail for everyone’s enjoyment. Many routes were found along Lake Sakakawea and in surrounding coulees in the Williams county area.
Doug Daniels moved out of the area and the club lost momentum and was not active again until 1983. Doug Daniels moved back to Williston after a few years in the Sacramento Delta area where he lived and worked. After numerous trips up the Rubicon and other activities in California, Doug’s love for four wheeling, nature, and family involvement continued on., When Doug returned to Williston to start a business he searched out friends and family to become involved in the sport of four wheeling. The club was revived in 1983 with approximately 8 members. I’ll never forget the day Doug called me and said “I’m starting up the four wheel drive club and you are joining. We are ordering jackets. How many and what size do you need?”
After a couple of years doing the “Trail Boss Of The Month” thing I decided to talk to a friend of mine who had access to 750+ private acres of North Dakota Badlands. Needless to say, after the first couple of trips everyone wanted to go to the badlands whenever we went out. We started out with some 1950’s Forest Service Maps that showed quite a few “primitive trails”. With some perseverance and excellent help from the land owner familiar with the area we spent about the next 5 years developing trails from the remnants we could find after looking at the maps. These first trails were all on private land which we were given access to through the generosity of the landowner, Dale Hagen. Once these trails were established we expanded our scope to identify and use trails on U S Forest Service Land with much success.
Through some local connections, the Cliffhangers were made aware of the Dakota Territory Challenge put on by the Black Hills Four Wheelers in South Dakota, and the Cliffhangers were among the strongest supporters of this event for the first few years.
In the 1980’s, mud racing was big, and the Cliffhangers spent about 3 years running sanctioned mud pit races for the organization most responsible for the craze in this area.
Due to changes in purse guarantees and the expense of insurance the Cliffhangers decided to go to side by side mud drag races for a fundraiser. Thanks to the cooperation of a business owner at the State Line Club on the North Dakota/ Montana border we were able to run very successful mud drags on Father’s day of every year. As much as we enjoyed the competition, in 1991 we decided to run an invitational trailride event. After about three years, the burden of running both activities and the response we had with attendees to our trailride event made us decide to forgo the mud drags
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