I just wanted to share this experience. It's not diesel-specific, but hey... we know each other better in this forum

on a recent camping trip with the DW and two of our friends, we parked the RV and at the behest of the camp owner, we took to the trails in my 2011 SD FX4 CC 6.7. He wanted us to see some of the "back 50" that we may be working on a project in the future... point being, we needed to see the land and the truck needed to get us there.

I'll be honest in that I'd rather have had a jeep for this, or at least an old bronco. That's what I'm used to off roading in, plus the trails were pretty tight in several places. I was quite pleasantly surprised when my gigantic 3/4 ton truck handled it just fine. we maneuvered through the woods on some pretty muddy, narrow, and steep dirt roads. I started in 2H, but quickly went to 4H and eventually to 4L for some of the trickier parts. we saw the land (nearly all primitive woods) and loved it!

On the way back, I decided to test out the hill descent control. going down one muddy hill (it was mostly clear of trees, no real danger if something went awry), I left it in 4L and hit the hill button on the dash. The truck made a couple funny noises then proceeded to take us down the hill at a reasonable pace, with no pedal input from me. fantastic! On the next hill it wasn't as muddy but a lot more steep of a grade. I was back in 4H by this point and I repeated the test. flawless!

all 4 passengers (including me) muttered something to the effect of "holy S*&% that was cool". I love this truck more and more every time I use it

 

I will probably will never take mine off road except for usual camping or parking stuff...I used to do it for fun and then realized it just isn't worth it...but I tried out the hill decent last night on a steep grade here in CO and loved the operation of it!!! I actually liked how when the grade got gradual that it disengaged itself automatically instead of me having to do something to turn it off.