PEAK PUTTERS

With what is already starting to feel like a long, dreary winter, a few of us headed up in elevation to get a dose of vitamin D. The group met up at the West Richland Maverik for an 0700 departure, and we were Westbound and down shortly thereafter. In the mix were Paul in his blue 2-door JL-R, Dryside in his white JKU-R with a throaty 6.0L underfoot, OG and granddaughter-OG in his red JLU-R, and yours truly with the Donkey. The highway drive was uneventful, but things perked up slightly around Nile, as a herd of sheep had us stopped in our tracks as they crossed the road and made their way up the adjacent hillside:







We unloaded and aired down just outside Crow Creek campground:



Snow depth increased proportionally with elevation as we made our way up NF-1902 toward Raven's Roost. We hopped onto the Pipeline Trail for a bit, and found that we needed to adjust air pressure as the snow depth continued to increase:







Myself, OG, and Dryside decided to exit the Pipeline about halfway up because we wanted to eat lunch at the summit, and going on the trail was admittedly slow as we broke fresh tracks. Paul, however, was less concerned with the foodbag and continued to fight the good fight. We met back up sometime later, much further up NF-1902:











Paul ended up catching us because, well, as it turned out NF-1902 was also void of other tracks, so the battle for inches of forward progress continued:







At this point, we were close to the summit, but not really given the conditions:







The snow was deep, and relatively unforgiving. Technique did not seem to make a whole lot of difference; just about anything you did would result in a vehicle length of forward progress at a go. We decided to eat our lunch at a somewhat sunny stretch of the road, and while Dryside and myself did so outside our respective rigs, OG stayed in the driver seat and the next thing we knew:







Having been through this routine a few times, we told Paul to continue on and break trail while we opened the tire shop for business. Soon enough we had OG's tire back where it belonged, and we continued on toward the summit using Paul's fresh tracks:





Sadly, the day was getting long and we still had several hundred yards to fight through, not to mention the last switchback and massive elevation gain that would surely have taken more than we had to give on this particular day. Not all was lost however, as granddaughter-OG was treated to some epic sledding on a nearby sidehill:







With the sun already starting to get low in the sky, we turnt tail and made a beeline for the bottom of the hill:





After airing and loading back up, we headed straight to Whistlin Jack's for the requisite ice cream. It's really the only reason to head West of Yakivegas anyway



The 2024-25 snow run season opener is in the books, and it looks as though it could be a good one