Just watching Dr. James Bridges inch his Jeep gingerly down a jagged embankment of rocks, the rugged vehicle perched nearly completely vertical at times, is nerve-wracking enough.
Imagine actually being in the driver’s seat!
For the UTMB wound-care doc, it’s an exhilaration not unlike taking on an emergency case at the hospital, with one important difference—no patient life is hanging in the balance. The risk is his and his alone.
“It’s very much like being in a code with no life in the balance, and if I think there might be I take the obstacle alone,” said Bridges, who practices at UTMB Health Wound Care in Bay Colony.
Riding the trails nourishes Bridges’ inner adrenaline fanatic.
“Consider what I do for a living,” he said. “It's kind of hard to get that thrill and adrenaline rush with what we're doing because you don't really want to put patients through that.”
Jeep crawling became Bridges’ off-the-clock hobby about 10 years ago.
“I built the Jeep up to what it is, chose the modifications, practiced, learned—and do every time I go on another ride, even to places I’ve been before,” he said. “It’s always changing."
When he’s Jeep crawling, a nearby spotter watches as his tires slowly catch traction and creep forward in descent. Precarious as it seems, the Jeep usually comes through unscathed. But when it does need repairs, the doc’s got a pretty good outlook.
“We call those upgrade opportunities,” he said.
The unexpected events that happen when Bridges takes his Jeep on trails in the Texas Hill Country become a chance to improve his vehicle.
“You just want to stay positive about it,” he said. “Yes, there have been lots of upgrade opportunities over the years.”
Earlier this year, Bridges took his Jeep into the shop for the first time in two years.
“When I took it into the shop, I found there were more opportunities than I thought there were,” he said.
The 2007 Jeep he had bought as a Christmas present to himself eventually racked up enough miles on it that he could retire it as his daily vehicle and delegate it exclusively to rock crawling. Before that, he never took it off road because it was his primary vehicle.
Bridges got interested when his father, who also had a Jeep, joined a New Braunfels Jeep club and started going on monthly trail rides. Club members went off road to test the resilience of the vehicles and the nerves of the drivers.
He went with his father on one of the trail rides and caught the bug. The adrenaline rush of inching the vehicle up and down steep grades in seemingly inaccessible routes hooked him.
The first time Bridges ventured out onto the rocks was at Hidden Falls (Adventure Park) in Marble Falls.
“There’s a big ranch with the best trails anywhere,” he said. “It's open to the public most days of the week.”
But what’s the draw that keeps him challenging his Jeep—and his courage?
“My dad said it best when I went down that drop on the video [featured here]: ‘There are 50 to 75 Jeeps out here, and three or four will even attempt this let alone do it well,’” Bridges said.
“That keeps me hooked,” he said, “pushing myself to think through obstacles before and during and staying calm and in control at all times behind the wheel.”