PEAK PUTTERS

Okay, I'll get this started before the natives revolt.

For starters, this was a challenging to bad weekend for some. I got a text from José telling me that DJ and family missed the turn-off for Liberty and were now broke down at Blueit pass [4:05 PM]. This is while I was fueling up in Ellensburg.

I, with my family in tow arrived at camp to find Danny getting situated. After a bit DJ rolled into camp with his Jeep, but not with his motor home. He had loaded up everything of value, including his family, and was heading home. [8:00 PM]. The motor home had a fuel problem. He had gone into town to get a fuel pump, but unfortunately, that was not the cure. (The next day he arranged with insurance to have it towed to Union Gap for repairs.) And that was the last most of us saw of DJ and family for the weekend.

New text from José, "At north summit and losing voltage / battery power." [8:43 PM]

Next text, "We are in Ellensburg. Dead. Lost the alternator." [9:38 PM]

And, "Pulling alt now." [5:30 AM]

And about 9:30 AM Saturday José and family rolled into camp. By then the following Ed group had headed out. Someone can correct me, but I believe that was Danny, Ed, Roy, JKLance, and Crispy. Those with empty seats offered them to José's sister's family (they had arrived the night before to camp with us) and a few of those intrepid souls excepted the offer.

Our group headed out after José and family were situated, about 11:00 AM. Lee & clan, Joser & clan, and Jeff (day tripper in a Grand expecting to be wheeling with DJ) & wife. We headed to the one trail I knew I could find, Hole in the Rock, and headed up. The trail was fun if not overly challenging. When we popped back out on the forest road we headed toward Lion Rock where the Ed group was eating lunch. There was little snow in the road, but when we found some drifts we availed ourselves of them to the point where we had to winch one rig back on the road, I won't tell who it was Jeff.

Lunch with the other group and we found a few people laying under a certain 4 door JK that refused to make brum-brum noises. With a rock as a tool, Chrispy soon had Lance underway and I guess he just didn't turn it off the rest of the day.

Our group headed back down the hill after finding a rock pile just literally covered with Lady Bugs. (I got Jeeper Chicks.) José and I were determined to make a fire wood run, Sveta was in camp don't cha know. Back at camp José and I were cooling in the shade on his trailer when Karen Livesy came by to get our drink order. REALLY! A few spins of her blender later and we were drinking the best coffee / Bailey's / whatever drink ever out of a real glass with whip cream and chocolate drizzles... in camp.

Feet in the creek for a little bit and an ice run later we headed out on our first of two firewood runs. We brought back far too much firewood, even for Sveta, but it was a good diversion. That night found grills, fires and stoves going in typical Peak Putter fashion turning out all sorts of Americana food. Burgers, dogs, pork tenderloin, corn on the cob and some tasty leftovers to go into Man Quiche. Danny Manned the Man Quiche in the morning and it was driving him crazy trying to get it cooking faster, faster. He was desperate to get his wheeling fix. He is about to have long wheeling drought, which is too bad for him and worse for us. Man Quiche was excellent and served up before 10:00 AM... new record, I believe. The Dutch oven contained every part of the pig short of the snout and was completely emptied by the attending crew.

Ed, Danny, Roy, and Lance headed out to run, I think the other side of the highway, while those of us that had brought children began to break our camps. Sorry no pics from here, but I saw cameras this weekend, so post up. Somebody take the lead from the other group and gives us a run report from the following Ed side of things.

Oh, and DJ, post up when you are ready to go again, because we owe you a make-up run.

Karen brings the win AGAIN. . .

Nice report. . .on with the pics. . .

No camera, camp was hot, Isabel had fun "camping" in Ellensburg.

Worst.

Run.

Report.

EVAR.

Sounds like an adventure, wish I could have made it. My dad said JK Lance had a camera.. I hope someone got some pics.

Seems that the "panic mechanic" could have just let the motorhome rest for a few hours to relieve it of vapor lock. But instead, ran to e burg to buy fuel pump and filter only to ruin new fuel pump upon installation. I had it towed to union gap where they installed another new fuel pump then immediately got it running again.
Expensive lesson learned.

Well, I gots pichers.....and of a-4-mentioned "SNOW". Will post up this evening.

For starters let me first say that it was an EPIC outing.[/b]

SPR: WALK.

Okay, let me make an attempt to put some believability into this EPIC run.

I'm glad I had my i-Phone or there wouldn't be this many pictures. We had such a perfect run there wasn't hardly any down time to take pictures. Lance shot what seemed to be several hundred feet of video so stay tuned to those....hope he makes them smaller this time.

Lee filled you all in on who came and when and who left and when, so let me try to fill in the blanks. It should be enough to say that we followed Ed, but here goes. Following Ed was Roy, Danny, Lance and Kris. At one point Ed made it clear to Lance that he WAS going to have some damage. Lance said he could handle it so we moved on On Saturday we spent 9 hours wondering around of which 6 hours were on the move. On Sunday we spent another 4 hours on the trails 2 of which were on the move.

Saturday was truly an EPIC day. We headed out of camp and headed up Deer Gulch 9726. Somewhere we caught the Crystal Mountain Trail 319 and from there the trails seemed to blend into one. We ran all over the Table Mountain area going from one dirt road to another trail after another. We spotted the moon gazers on our way to Lion Rock for lunch. We met up with Lee and his entourage which included Jose with a jeep load of relatives, a guy he knows form work and maybe one other rig.....I can't remember.

After lunch we headed back over the Table Mountain area and more trails. Somewhere along 319 again we started running into snow. (Yes Santa Jimmy, there is still snow in them thar hills) Here Lance has lots of trouble with the snow. Kris had to pull him or he winched himself out several times.

I'd say he buried the little sucker....but it's not a little sucker...is BIG and HEAVY!!


Working our way back to camp I believe we hit the Pit Overlook Trail 321. At some point Lance had to take some passengers he had, relatives of Jose again, back to camp. They had to decamp before 6. While he was gone we had some great climbs in the 321 trail area.

While on one of these climbs I started hearing some squealing. It got louder the further up I climbed. Then, just about the top it stopped. We were thinking it might be a bearing. Since it had stopped I figured, what the heck, lets make another one. Well, on this climb, about half way up it started making an awful grinding noise, but once again the noise stopped shortly before the climb ended, but not to worry, we were done and headed back to camp. Well, 100 yards down the trail I heard a noise and a huge blue cloud of smoke popped up in my rear view mirror. We all stopped and popped the hood and this is what we found.

And it still worked. Got me aired up to go home.




My trusty compressor that I had mounted under the hood had snapped off its platform and fallen down just in front of the alternator. The squealing and grinding came from the compressor laying on the alternator pulley and the smoke came from the compressor wearing through the hot wire going to my interior winch switch and then shorting against the interior fender well. (aka, blue smoke) I found out the next morning that it had melted about 18 inches of insulation off that wire. Camp repairs were made before Sundays run.

Sunday was "Man Quiche" morning. I was up at 7 to get coals started because I wanted to get a run in early. The goal was to leave camp by 10. We almost made it. I think we left about 10:15.







Day two was spent on the west side of Hi 97. We started out on 324 and ended up coming out somewhere on326, I think. We hit some really neat trials. We stopped on Ed's favorite high spot, the one with the 360deg view fur lunch and then hit several more very tight technical trails. Here again Lance suffered some damage to the once Black Beauty. Check out his passenger side the next time you see his rig.

Once again...this was an EPIC run. It was a bit dusty on Saturday but perfectly damp and packed Sunday. Enjoy the rest of the pics.

Scenery was as good as ever.




Roy topping out on a climb.


Trying to figure out where we were headed next. We took full advantage of Ed's advice on where to go all weekend.


Lunch at Lion Rock


Proof our leader was there


Proof I was there


A small bump in the trail. Sure glad Ed had his trusty saw.


SNOW!!!


Roy


Ed


Roy again....mainly because he was the one in front of me.


And that's all folks......HEY, wait for me!!!

So. . .nice run. . .looked

EPIC

Yes, clearly SOME of the snow was my foe... After Kris tore it all up all I could do was try, it clearly didnt work well between the tress. Then after we got on the trail we missed the 'ol JK did rather well. Carnage yep, we put some new "character" into the JK, but I followed Ed through most everything, even having both he and Kris at different points standing on my "outriggers" to get me through the trees, my only winching was in the snow that Kris tore up.

I got more stills than even I remembered, I'll try and get them all posted, I also have about 2 hours of video, that I have yet to complile and just get the good stuff.

So here goes with the pix...

Hey lance were is the footage of my going thru the 2 trees?

Saw you guys up there last weekend i believe when you were heading out Saturday morning. A few of ya stopped in our camp but half of the rigs in our little "convoy" were trying to fix overheating issues that they fought the day before and late into the night. I dont remember what the trail number was that we ran late friday night but it was pretty gnarly, pretty tight, and had some decent off camber climbs. I got there at 10:30 and left camp at like 11 to go pickup my buddies hood off of his jeep that he took off earlier that night to try and help with his overheating issues. Beside him getting us a little lost and the multiple times we had to stop on the trail to let his jeep cool down we didnt get back to camp until like 2 am. kinda funny though how well a scrambler hood fits in the back of my s10 blazer though

We ended up having to go into elensburg at like 8:30 Saturday morning for a flex fan, spacer, coolant, and a alternator for my buddies white scrambler that had the major overheating issues the night before. Finally got out of camp at like noon only for another problem with his jeep to surface, It started to vapor lock as soon as we got like a mile into the trail and got progressively worse as the day went on and the temperatures climbed.

Where did you guys find snow up there? Wasnt anywhere near where we were because my thermometer was showing 90* in the afternoon...Gotta love still having A/C in the wheeling rig!

Rennat, I thought that had to be you, the blazer is a little unique!

Musta just missed you at the parts store, we ended up "camping" at the first E-Burg exit friday night. Had to grab an alternator in the morning, before heading up to Liberty.

I never got a good look at that Scrambler, you got any pics?

Yes I've got a few pictures of it, ill post them up when I get home.

Well i dont have any really good shots of his Jeep but i passed this thread to him so hopefully he will post up some pictures and details.

Heres what ive got from our runs...

Heres the pic Scrambled is trying to post

Sweet, good to see you in the mnts!

Great pics!

I thought I saw some sort of giant tour bus in camp.

Was there a rock star in the group?

No tour bus in our group when I was there, biggest we had in our group was just a late model ford motorhome