What was supposed to be a nice little overnight camping trip with a few of the gang from work ended up being a full-blown torture test for our trailer. As it turns out, both Nasty Creek and the Darland loop are quite rocky when not blanketed with snow, and while this isn't readily apparent with balloony 37" tires and many inches of cushy suspension travel, it most assuredly is with 30x9.5's on a Tor-Flex trailer axle
The group rolled out in a significant head wind at around 1730hrs on Thursday evening, and with the rest of them towing camp trailers with HD diesel trucks I was quickly left behind and found myself enjoying the scenery and just soaking it all in as the sun faded and the winds calmed down. Approaching Tampico, the skies were just stunning:
Since the rest of them were already well ahead of me and we had pre-determined a couple of possible camp sites, I decided to continue my solo journey for the evening and took the right turn at the Nasty Creek corrals:
The sun had already completely set and I was catching glimpses of the last patches of daylight as I bounced through the trees up toward the first big hogs back above Mt. Fuji. As I crested the summit and turned my headlights West along the ridgetop, I caught a coyote by surprise:
A little further down the ridge, just before dropping back down into the next treed section, I took what I thought turned out to be a pretty neat photo for the album:
At this point I was far enough into the Nasty Creek trail to make the decision to just run the entire thing rather than turn around and go back down, so I trundled along toward the intersection with Jackass:
The detour to run Nasty Creek took about 90 minutes, and I was back on pavement headed for our pre-determined camping spot up the Middle Fork just before 2100hrs. I finally caught up with the group, made camp, and whipped up some vittles to enjoy with my frosty beverage by the propane fire:
Friday morning I packed up my outfit and eased up the Middle Fork, taking the right-hander up to Eagles Nest. Boy has that place changed!
Continuing on up toward the summit of Darland, it was just a nice dusty cruise:
Creeping through the old burn section, I spied a side-road that I've never explored and decided to czek it out for a bit. It runs essentially parallel to the main road for a while, but closer to the canyon edge. This will be a fun trail to explore sometime when I'm not dragging the trailer, as it provided some good views but a few tight spots:
At the summit, I spent an hour or so in complete silence just soaking it all in. Probably one of the best lunch breaks I have ever had. Ever.
Sadly, time was getting short as the boy had a Friday Night Football game that I was instructed not to miss, so I continued the trailer beat-down and puttered my way down the North Fork road and out to pavement again, airing up at the parking lot adjacent to Ahtanum Meadows GC:
The guy that patted the little E-Pro on the hatch at the end of the assembly line clearly did not tell it what was in store for it's life, but I'm extremely happy to report that it's working out fantastically and fitting my use case perfectly. She's due for a good once over after this trip, but we are already planning the next one
Tiny Trailer Torture Test 22Sept2022
Moderator: SPR
Tiny Trailer Torture Test 22Sept2022
Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...
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