Welcome to WATTORA!

WATTORA was founded by Chris Cole, as the Washington chapter of the “Tacoma Territory Off-Roader’s Association” (TTORA), later known as the Toyota Territory Off-Roader’s Association. In 2001, Rob Perin took on the role of WATTORA President.

During its tenure as a chapter of TTORA, WATTORA was one of the most active in the association, settling into a pattern of at least one event per month (often, many more). Despite a changing landscape for trail use in Washington and a revolving door of Vice-Presidents (more than Spinal Tap had drummers), WATTORA continued this pace for several years and was seen as both an active off-road club, and a good steward of our shared outdoor spaces. WATTORA even partnered with “Tread Lightly”, a national group responsible for spreading the responsible shared use message, sponsoring a Tread Lightly visit to certify many WATTORA members as “Tread Trainers”.

Sadly, the management of the TTORA parent club eventually sold the TTORA domain and forum to an internet brands company that was purchasing vehicle related sites and shifting them from club sites to sponsor-driven opportunities to create revenue. Rather than go down with that ship, WATTORA withdrew from TTORA and changed its name to “Northwest Toys”, moving from WATTORA.com to NWToys.com. To date, WATTORA/NWToys remains ad free, and is supported solely by user contributions.

After a few more very successful years, in the face of more and more trails in the Pacific Northwest being closed to shared use due to pressure from groups like the Sierra Club, as well as a changing online landscape that saw a shift from individual forums to things like Facebook groups, NWToys began to see a decline in participation.

The WATTORA.com domain has been continuously registered/active since it was created, and now it redirects here, a page on the NWToys.com site. For a glimpse at the “old days”, check out the gallery, with over 8,000 photos from WATTORA/NWToys events.

NWToys continues to be active, albeit, with a much smaller footprint than in the past. Interested in helping to increase the activity level on NWToys.com? Please reach out using the “Contact” page. We’ve got webspace, forum software, and know how and we would love to hear from users, new and old!

—NWToys (2023)