If Women Wrote 4x4 Trail Ratings

(and maybe saved public lands in the process)

Men write trail reports like this:

“Moderately technical trail. Rocky in sections and ledges. Seasonal water crossings.”

As a woman, I would write:

“This is Medium to High-impact sports bra trail. Lipstick application applied after mile two will resemble Joker's . Light colored clothing not advisable if you hope to enjoy your coffee in route. Dust will be lodged in every pore, all Jeep crevices, and at least one sealed beverage.”

Honestly, mine feels more accurate.

Scenic Dirt Road

Bra Rating: Yoga or light impact

Dust Level: Lightish but enough to see “wash me” on the rear window above the spare.

Coffee Survival: Better than average probability you won’t be wearing it, still consider dark colors.

This is the trail where everybody still looks cute. Hair down. Windows open.

Yacht rock playing, and you’re out there singing:

“Brandyyyyy, you’re a fine girllll…”

like you personally worked the docks in a seaport town in 1976.

Washboard Chaos

Bra Rating: Medium support ideal

Dust Penetration: Spiritual

Kidney and or Bladder Stability: Declines rapidly

This trail is not difficult. It’s just violent.

The earth itself is trying to shake every bolt out of your Jeep like it owes the dirt mafia money.

At around mile seven, expect the following:

• Your water bottle will develop a personal vendetta against your ankles,

• Trail mix will most likely escape containment.

• And dirt appears INSIDE things that were zipped, latched, and possibly blessed by clergy.

Nobody understands desert dust.

It enters closed coolers. It enters your ears. It enters your soul.

NASA should honestly study it.

Off-Camber Pucker Factor

Bra Rating: High impact (shifting weight on this trail not helpful)

Rating Scale: OMG 😳 Meh → side-eye → nervous laughter → death grip on the oh-shit handle → involuntary Keagle‘s so aggressive your underwear disappears into another dimension.

Outside the Jeep, the spotter says: “You’ve got plenty of room.”

Inside the Jeep: everyone is calculating rollover angles using absolutely no engineering knowledge whatsoever.

This, in my experience, is where the explatives stop and I begin controlled breathing exercises like I am delivering a baby in a hurricane, stare straight ahead, and I become one with the seatbelt.

At some point, my man says: “See? Told you it was fine.”

Me: "The fact that we survived does not make you correct, sir."

Water Crossing Trail

Bra Rating: Riders choice

Mud Distribution: Aggressively democratic

Passenger Verbals: Feral

Every grown-up, even the grumpy ones, immediately becomes twelve years old at water crossings.

“WOO HOOOO!”

Somebody always insists on standing in that place, the Blue Man Group warns, "Is the Splash Zone” for pictures, then acts absolutely betrayed when they get hit with muddy water.

Ummm hello, you positioned yourself three feet from a moving water cannon and missile.

That’s on you.

Technical Terrain with "Twiggily Bits" as described to me by my British Friends

Bra Rating: Medium support, some turbulence is to be expected

Chapstick Application: No longer advised

Cabin Organization: Fictional

At this point:

• Gravity is less law and more a novelty,

• Snacks become airborne,

• And everyone braces themselves using muscles not activated since junior high dodgeball.

Dating couples: “You’re doing great, babe!”

Long-married couples:

“Passenger.”

"Passenger."

”YOUR OTHER PASSENGER.”

Forty-three years married, and this brings us surprisingly closer. Who knew that close encounters and shared survival experiences we live to tell about would have such a bonding effect?

Full Send Territory

Bra Rating: High Impact x 2

Dust Location: Where isn’t it

Emotional State: Electrifying and slightly religious

Outside the vehicle, the spotter says, “Nice and easy.”

Inside the vehicle:

• One person is laser-focused,

• One person is holding onto the OSH that provides little more than emotional support,

• and someone accidentally presses the GMRS mic button.

Which is how the ENTIRE GROUP hears:

“#*+$ %-&@”

followed immediately by:

“Um… darlin’, the mic is on.”

Silence.

Then the entire line of Jeeps erupts in laughter. Honestly? Open mic moments are a bonding experience in off-road culture.

Nothing unites humanity faster than accidentally broadcasting marital bliss over public radio.

Trail Ride Evolution

There is a very specific evolution to trail rides.

It starts innocently enough:

• Cute baseball hat and a ponytail,

• coffee,

• yacht rock,

• windows down,

• singing songs you forgot you knew all the words to.

Then obsticle three happens.

The baseball cap goes on backward.

The playlist changes from:

“Blew out my flip, stepped on a pop top…” to music with enough bass to regulate your breathing while climbing a shelf carved into Satan’s pantry wall.

No one discusses this transformation.

We just understand it instinctively.

I would normally conclude right here but I have been seeing areas just off to the side of popular trails that I can't unsee.

PSA: Ladies… We need to Talk About Peeing in the Woods

Now that we’re bonded spiritually, let’s discuss the thing nobody wants to discuss, peeing along the trail and ...

Toilet paper.

Ladies. Sweetheart. Princess. Trail Queen. Your toilet paper is not vanishing in the desert.

I know somewhere deep in your heart you believe: “Nature will take care of it.”

Nature is not taking care of ANYTHING out here in the southwest.

They are digging up dinosaur bones basically intact.

There are thousand-year-old corn cobs, pottery shards, and basket fragments from ancestral Puebloan sites still sitting around like somebody just left camp yesterday.

So no, your floral-print Charmin blossom tucked behind a sagebrush is not “basically biodegradable.”

It’s an archaeological exhibit now.

And let me share that when trail groups do cleanup days, they don’t mind picking up:

• broken flags,

• old straps,

• occasional granola bar wrapper

But…NOBODY…wants to collect used toilet paper flowers blowing around the desert like the world’s most disgusting gender reveal party.

A crushed soda can that escaped a truck bed? Okay, accidents happen; it’s trash.

A wad of used pee tissue marinating under a juniper bush at 102 degrees? That’s emotional damage.

And tampon applicators? Come on, girls. If you’d be horrified watching one roll across your kitchen floor, maybe don’t leave it for other 4x4ers, hikers, and future civilizations to discover.

There is no magical woodland concierge following us around with a tiny rake and lavender-scented trash bag. This isn’t Buc-ee's. Nobody is cleaning the bushes beside the trails behind us every 30 minutes.

Pack. It. Out. Get a ziplock. Get dog bags. Get a little discreet pouch.

Get a Shewee and stride confidently into the bushes like a farm boy after sweet tea.

Nature — and every volunteer doing trail cleanup in July heat — will deeply appreciate your cooperation.

As someone who cleans up trails, I can promise you that nobody has EVER ended a cleanup day saying:

“Boy, I sure enjoyed picking up damp tissue tumbleweeds from behind rocks today.”

Nobody!

And honestly, that’s the thing about all of us trail people. We love these places.

We love the dust. The ridiculous obstacles. The water crossings. The open-mic incidents. The dirt in places dirt should never legally reach. The stories. We love laughing until we cry in the middle of nowhere with people equally dumb enough to think this counts as a relaxing weekend.

So maybe we take better care of the land. Not because somebody lectured us. Not because we hear repeated threats that someone will take them away. Not because there is wildlife eeking out their survival in our waste. But because these places deserve better than becoming an outdoor truck-stop bathroom with scenic views.

And because someday another woman in a backward baseball hat and maximum-support sports bra deserves to round that same corner, hit that same water crossing, scream “WOO HOO!” like a maniac…

…and not see toilet paper flapping from a bush like a surrender flag.