"Last night after work I decided to take the car around the local mountains a bit to see how it might do on some dirt roads near here. I managed to find roads of varying difficulty, including one reasonably long trail which was marked for four wheel drive/ATV only. The easiest roads were maintained gravel, which any car could take, of course, and which the Outback could take at speeds slightly exceeding that of most other vehicles on those roads. I noticed that a Suzuki Sidekick I followed for a while was taking the gravel much more slowly that I could in my Outback. In the Outback I was able to travel the gravel roads at almost the same speed I would take in a residential neighborhood on pavement. Most of the regular dirt roads were uneventful. At times I would see a more unused looking trail and take it looking for more of a challenge, but it was often a dead end (unused for good reason---they didn't go anywhere). Sometimes instead of being dead ends these more difficult-looking roads yielded a few minor challenges, like driving over fields of sharp-looking rocks about the size of tennis balls (I did this a few times and was worried that my wimpy tires would blow out, but they managed these sections with no evident damage. I was holding my breath a little there but it didn't feel particularly bad.) At one point I got stuck trying to turn around when I stupidly backed the rear wheels over the edge of an otherwise perfectly passable dirt road into a deep ditch along the side of the road, and high-centered the car. I had my come-along and Hi-Lift with me, however my tow strap was not long enough for me to reach the tree. Happily, a truck came by and the guy was kind enough to lend me his tow strap and I pulled my car out of the ditch using a combination of the Hi-Lift and the come-along and two tow straps. I might have been able to also get it out by using the Hi-Lift and piling up rocks and stuff under the wheels, but it would have been iffy and a lot more time-consuming. (The first thing I did when I got back was buy another tow strap for situations like that.) One good side effect of this was that the guy who lent me the tow strap mentioned that he had come up there to see the comet, and reminded me that I had a great view of it right then---I trundled down the road a bit and saw a breathtaking view of the comet on that clear night. Amazing. I highly recommend that, it's a once-in-a-lifetime sight. I was thinking of just going home then but I decided to press on a bit and finally found a little part of the National Forest surrounding Larch Mountain which had some roads and trails that were set aside by the Forest Service as 4WD/ATV trails, and I figured, aha, here's my chance to play a little bit. So, I cautiously went into this area, hoping that I would either be able to get my car unstuck with the tools I had with me (I kept a close eye to make sure I would be able to reach the trees which were, happily, in this area, closer to the road than the place I had gotten stuck before). At first the roads stayed fairly level, but there were some spots that had some fairly deep mud. Rather than risk getting stuck I just sort of gonzoed through it. I passed through some stuff that I don't think a 2WD car could have made. Up some small hills and down the other side. The rocks started to get bigger and bigger. Finally, I started going up a trail that led up Larch Mountain itself. This was definitely getting me scared; I started thinking about how mad my wife would be if I wrecked the car out here. I started to wonder how far I would have to walk. I had brought a warm sweater and a Gore Tex jacket in case I had to sleep overnight in the event I got irretrievably stuck. It was dark and a bit scary for that reason as well. I'll tell you the end of the story first: it made it all the way up to a fallen tree near the top of the mountain, but it was NOT easy. I don't know what kind of terrain those stock Explorers can handle, but I can tell you I was pretty scared. Note that there was no rock crawling involved here, just some really really bad two track (if you could call it that, a lot of the time there was nothing that looked like another vehicle had passed there before). OK, so I first stopped when I saw this 80-90 percent grade (about a thirty-five to forty degree angle) slope with what I can only describe as "waves of ruts". It was heavily water-eroded in a funny pattern. I looked it over carefully and it looked like the bumps were about a foot or more high, interspersed with weird water-eroded ruts in a wavy stippled pattern, and the lumps were about three or four feet wide. I figured, this is it, and just started up the hill, with my jaw somewhat clenched. Well, it went up. It was a VERY bumpy ride, and I was worried that I would be ripping something off of the undercarriage. It went up it, however, without too much difficulty. I kept going up similar stretches of heavily-eroded road without worrying too much about it since I made it up the first stretch. At this altitude I started to see patches of snow. The road started to get a bit soft and muddy due to melting snow (it wasn't very cold anymore). The left side of the road was a very deep rut, and it felt a bit scary going up. Finally, I came across some mud. After reading horror stories about mud in this group, I was apprehensive. It looked like trucks with much bigger wheels had gone through there. I was not thinking that the Outback would do too well here. But, I went in, but worried, and prepared for the worst. Wheels spun, mud went flying (the worst thing was the mud was in a turn, so I couldn't just power through with momentum, I had to be able to change direction). The all-season radials were not mudders by any stretch of the imagination, so I had to rely on spinning the wheels to clear the rather narrow tread. This seemed to work, however, and I was able to maintain just enough traction to get myself around the curve and out onto drier terrain. Luckily there wasn't much mud like this, it was only around a curve about two car lengths long. I went through about three of these, praying each time. This was not particularly wet mud either---it had been a while since it had rained, I don't know if I would have made it had it just rained the night before. Finally, I came across a patch that forced me to get out of the car and walk; a long stretch of completely black water at least five car lengths long. There was broken ice as well, mixed in, and mud below the puddle. I went through with a tree branch that was lying by the road and probed it. It seemed pretty scary. The water was several inches deep at the deepest and it was mud under that. It was broken chunks of ice. I thought about putting the chains on. But then, I decided I would just try it without the chains. There were good strong trees on both sides of the road, I figured I could come-along it out if need be. So, I drove into it, very slowly, and it went right through, much to my surprise. I was only able to go a little further on snow-covered roads before coming across a tree that was blocking the road. So, I stopped and went back. The trip back I went a bit faster than the way in, which was a mistake because rocks I had easily cleared on the way in bounced into the undercarriage. Another lesson: drive slowly over rocks, even if they look small enough to clear, because otherwise you could bounce into them anyway. I checked the undercarriage carefully after the trip and did not find any obvious damage despite the two rocks which seemed to have clonked into the undercarriage and the several times I dragged the skid plates over some mud. I don't know if I might have sustained real damage had the ground not been as soft as it was. The ground clearance was sufficient to get up that trail, and the traction was sufficient to get it through the mud that I encountered, but of course it could have been much worse I'm sure. I was pretty scared all the way up that road, and I don't know if I'd call it a relaxing drive at the end. I was pretty appreciative of the amazing technology of this thing called asphalt when I came home. But, I was proud to see that the car made it up, and made it back, without any obvious damage. As far as I can tell. So far."