1.29.2011 Ice, I mean Snow Run.

Pics and reports of past Ahtanum runs
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iaccocca
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1.29.2011 Ice, I mean Snow Run.

Postby iaccocca » Sun Jan 30, 2011 9:50 pm

I’ll let Dale post up the ‘official’ run report, but I’ll start with off with the view from my place in the pack.
My brother and I were running early and made it to Tampico by about 9:00 in my Rubi. We BS’d, aired down and disconnected watching snowmobilers and one truck trailering an Argo tracked vehicle go by. Dale and his crew arrived a bit after 10:00 with Dale trailering his Rubi, his brother flat towing his K-5 Blazer and his dad, John, driving the former Tobicon Rubicon. We headed out for, I thought, Nasty Creek, but Dale was headed for a trail he’d run with Roy and David previously. I was surprised when we passed the corrals and obviously, so was a DNR employee. We headed up to what turned out to be the trail head of Jack a$$ trail, which was blocked by a berm. When we stopped near the berm to decide our direction, a red DNR truck arrived with a driver curious about the destination of four wheeled wheeling rigs so near the groomed trails. A nice conversation, a map, and a u-turn later we were headed to Nasty Creek Corrals. What we found there was nasty, nasty, slick ice. That first hill out of the parking lot you had to be at least a little locked ;-) and put the right side tires up on the hillside out of the ice to get up. The next icy hill climb a few turns later was worse. Dale’s progress was cut short when he had to pull over to air down. I was trying to make the best of the ice heading up the middle when I hit a spot where my forward progress turned into rearward progress while my tires were still turning forward. 1st gear, 4lo, idle and I’m beginning to accelerate backwards and that round turney thing in my hands doing nothing. Behind me I saw the side of John’s Rubicon; I’m pretty sure that is not the direction he intended his Jeep to go. And, perfect timing, I develop computer induced locker problems. Long story short, I get up past Dale and tell him I’m going to head up and find a comfortable place to lay under my Jeep and figure out my locker problems. Bill (my brother) and I find a campsite and determine my lockers are working, it is just my computer doesn’t believe it. We have lunch, I try out my snowshoes and eventually determine we need to head back down and find the rest of our crew. Well Dale is running for best brother / son ever… he has dug out his shovel and covered 20 or 30 yards of the nasty Nast Creek ice with dirt to aid the downhill rigs in getting up.
Well, from here on up there are no challenges, or snow for that matter, until we get to the top. We came across that Argo on tracks and talked with the driver. That thing is just sick cool.
Lunch, and then guess what we found… SNOW. Dale’s Rubicon is probably no fun to drive on those Krawlers. 3lbs air on 35s and it is like he is on pavement… of course the snow was sort of like pavement. But really, it was working well. My attempts to get stuck nearly worked, but not so much. The K5 Blazer on 40s proved to us the snow was 20â€
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Dale
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ice run

Postby Dale » Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:10 pm

Sorry for not posting up quicker.. Lee thank you for jumping on and doing so. After reading Lee's post theirs not much to add. It was almost scary how little of snow was up their. I have to add that yes the tracked rig we came across was pretty cool, with some nice guys to talk to. They mentioned that they ran with the Insanity Fab group the weekend before and said it was better snow and even helped Roy and David out with their rig. All in all it was a great day with some very mild wheelin. The most exciting thing was trying to drive those bfg Krawlers all the way home from nasty creek. :lol:

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Postby RUBIKRAWLER » Wed Feb 02, 2011 7:42 pm

Just had to notch in and say it was a kick to wheel with these guys. Learnin' what a difference that airin' down makes, even on ice (even takes some of the bumps out of the ride for grandpa here).

Any tips for freeing up a froze up York compressor would be appreciated. I just plainly didn't realize a guy is supposed to squirt some oil in the compressor once in a awhile. Does it require compressor oil, or will good old 5W-30 work?

Thanks again guys for a good run even with so little snow! 8)


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