[Consumerwide_ Yohan, Bok Reporter] The largest off-road festival in Korea, 'Jeep Camp2022', is a festival where you can experience 'craftmanship and value', which value the Jeep stands for, along with peerless 4X4 capacity, and authentic emotions. A media day for Jeep camp 2022 was held at Songjeon beach in Yangyang, Kangwondo between 20-21st of Oct. For this reason, I participated in a Jeep camp for 2 days and experienced the true taste of Jeep on the off-road. I drove on Rangler 4xe for a test drive.

On 20th of Oct, president of FCA Korea, Jake Aumann said, "Jeep Camp is an off-road festival having 68 years' of history and is run in many countries. Korea(ROK) hosted a Jeep camp for the first time in Northeast countries in 2004. It's already the 16th Jeep camp this year. We were suprised to see the application page closed in 10 minutes, which demonstrated how much Jeep camp was loved here in Korea. A jeep camp is beyond a simple off-road event. It has been built as a community where one can feel a cozy home under the roof of a Jeep and a family gathering. I believe that this has naturally happened through those people who see the true value of Jeep and love Jeep."

Jeep camp 2022 off-road training. The first gateway was... a beach drive.

On that day, the event started with a beach drive where you can double check on tough area cover capacity of the Jeep. As I passed through a narrow pine forest road, a white sand beach came into view in the camp. I changed 4 wheel gears to 4L as adviced by Jeep camp staffs before I got to the sand beach. For regular cars, it is impossible to drive without 4-wheel drive on the sandy beach. But, the Wrengler 4xe was distinct from it. It started to speed on the sand beach. I almost felt it wasn't a sandy beach, but an unpaved road. I was impressed by stability at high speed.

Jeep camp 2022 off-road training...Jeep wave park

The 2nd course, Jeep wave park, is made of an extreme off-road course to draw a limit for Jeep vehicles by using logs, rocks, pebbles, and mud on site at approx.19,834 ㎡ (6,000 pyeong). It was a total of 14 courses.

After passing the white sand beach, I entered the woodland path across the road.

When the uneven path was over, the swamp area, where it was deep as waist, was waiting. However, even the swamp area was simply a road for Wrengler 4xe. As soon as I got to the swamp area, Wrengler 4xe drove through the stable as if it didn't care about overflowing water up to the bonnet.

Jeep overcame strong water pressure with its specification exceeding 76cm, which is the max. river cross capacity. This reminded me of the road flooding under the heavy rain in the Gangnam area last summer. If it was Wrengler 4 xe, it would probably be possible to be a stable drive.

After the swamp area, as I went up the hill, the full-scale course began. Right after the downhill drive at 25 degrees, there was another hill over 25 degrees in front of me. Following the guidance of the staff, I stepped on the accelerator. It drove through at ease. 'Wow, Jeep made it!' Now it's a turn for downhill drive. I could feel more of a degree slope than an uphill drive. Just felt like coming down from the top of a rollercoaster. I activated HDC(hill decent control), which is a safety installation to decrease a vehicle's speed, so that the vehicle could drive at a low speed automatically without having to use a break pedal for a low speed on the downhill road. I went downhill steadily at a set-up speed.

Seesaw was the most memorable course for me on the day. It was a course where you go up the top of a seesaw made of logs, and down. This setup reminded me of the amusement park rides. The climbing stairs course was amazing. Besides, I fully experienced the off-road driving capacity of the Wrengler 4xe through the bumpy log, the Rock site, the water site, and the mud site. For the Wrengler 4xe, the off-road was just the same as the regular road. It seemed to me that Wrengler 4xe makes way as it drives.

Through this Jeep training, I began Jeep. It was my first time with various off-road experiments at the Jeep camp, though I had many times of Jeep tests in the past. I can understand why people become Jeep mania. This is all for the first day. Next day, we had time on the mountain trail at the Jeongjoksan in Yangyang based on the offroad driving skills we got trained at the training camp. (to be continued with 'Jeep camp 2022' ②)