[ORAT] Adventures in Great Falls National Park

The Isuzu VehiCROSS. No stranger to rugged outdoor adventures, despite it’s cute appearance, this sporty 2-door crossover vehicle was known for its impressive cross-terrain performance. Hence the name, and probably the tie-in with the Ironman triathlon.

The VehiCROSS combined an on-road AWD system with an off-road locked differential-low gear 4WD system, all driven by a 215 HP 3.2L V6 engine. Less than 6000 were produced, with just over 1800 being sold in Japan, and the rest in the US.

Fun fact: If you own a pearl white metallic VehiCROSS, you are the proud owner of a 1-of-1, produced for the US market in 2001. The most plentiful exterior color? You guessed it, Astral Silver Metallic, at 1021 units in the US, all in 1999, and another 974 for the Japanese market.

Punching above his weight, but holding his own, this little Astral Silver Metallic Hot Wheels version decided to take on the craggy peaks of Great Falls National Park on the border of Virginia and Maryland.

The day started out beautiful and hot, with clear blue skies above the rapids, and our friend had chosen a great vantage point to watch some kayakkers do their thang.

Cheeky bugger...

Later, he made his way down the lookout point down to the trails for some more fun deeper in the woods.

Well hello there!

He tried to get a better vantage point to look at the skies, that quickly darkened, with all signs pointing to bad weather.

Made it!

After a quick descent, he made it back to the support vehicle just in time for a nasty trip back home.