GTFO Last Minute Therapy Run 10/27/2012

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OldGreen
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GTFO Last Minute Therapy Run 10/27/2012

Postby OldGreen » Sun Oct 28, 2012 5:15 pm

So far this year, I've flown by plane over 50,000 miles. 50 individual hops, 20 some odd rental cars, NO IDEA how many nights in a hotel. Needless to say. . .I'm pretty burnt out and I really needed to spend some quality time in the hills.

Toby, who's been away from home working 6x12 shifts for the better part of a year, sent me an I'm the other day:

"I'm flying in on Friday, you wanna wheel on Saturday?"

Yes.

So, I loaded up Jessy and CJ in O. . .and headed over to Toby's to meet up with him, his pal Wayne and Wayne's teenaged man child circa 7AM. We traveled to Sunnyside just in time to pick up Toby's Discovery Pass and then on to Tampico. We started seeing snow along the road pretty quickly. . .along with a few herds of Elk. Turns out that it is Spike season in that part of the World and the hunters were 10" on center. We saw no fewer than 4 legal spike elk, one big bull, and an absolute trophy mule deer buck. . .but I digress. . .

At the Nasty Creek Corals, I radioed to inquire about maybe running Nasty Creek and Jackass prior to our assault on the summit. I got the verbal equivalent of a shrug, so we went ahead and pointed the white XJs up the hill. The snow was slippery and fun, but not difficult, but the scenery was spectacular in spite of the fog, snow, rain, and freezing rain we encounterd. Tamarack and aspen were in full colors contrasting with the white snow. . .just beautiful.

After exploring around and practicing some rally car turns on Nasty Creek, we headed up the middle fork to see if there was any deep snow to be found this early in the year. What we encountered was a pure whiteout with drifting snow that is FEET deep. Here's the first place I got stuck:
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ON to the summit where the snow was unforgiving and truly difficult. No hunters up here:

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When I asked Toby if he wanted to continue down the North Fork. . .again with the shrug so we soldiered on down the North Fork until we go into the trees and away from the wind. Manifold Carne Asada Burritos for everybody. We certainly never go hungry on the trail. . .

Then we came to the Blue Lake turnoff. . .still with quite a bit of snow on the ground and again with the shrugging (I'm positive he didn't even answer when I asked on the radio). So, a hard left and over a few throttle jockey snow climbs and we found ourselves here:

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I hope Toby was texting his wife and not answering a work email. . .this was a GTFO run, afterall. ..

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A sample of the scenery we ran into:

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Then we headed back down, aired up for a the first time at Snow Cabin and then cruised to Union Gap, Prosser and on home. Overall, we spent 60 miles in 4wd, most of that in Low Range. The only carnage was my alternator and I don't even know when that went out. . .I didn't find out until after we were back in the Tri Cities. Got stuck twice and accomplished my only goal for the day: GTFO and forget about the real world for a while. . .

Toby's got more pics. . .

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Postby SquirrelCrusher » Sun Oct 28, 2012 6:26 pm

Looks like a blast. I moved out of my apt this weekend, but took a break and ran to the snow line at bluewood to throw a couple snowballs. Tons of hunters along the way. As soon as the pavement stopped the snow was packed into solid ice. My dads 1 ton just spun all the tires so we turned around. I love the snow!
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SPR
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Postby SPR » Sun Oct 28, 2012 8:04 pm

Burrr.
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iaccocca
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Postby iaccocca » Sun Oct 28, 2012 10:24 pm

Nice...
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tobyw
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Postby tobyw » Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:06 am

Jim’s intro pretty much nailed it… The pair of us have been working ourselves silly for the past, well, I don’t even really know anymore its all sort of melted together, but its been a looooong time. Anyhow, I needed to fly home to take care of a few things, and ended up with a dead day in my schedule. As luck would have it, Jimmy also had the day off so we put our collective genius together and hatched a plan to GTFO. He, Jess, and CJ the Wunder Dawg rolled over to the Casa de la Wilcox promptly at 0700 on Saturday morning, and my good friend Wayne and his boy Conner were loading the last minute essentials into the Grocery Getter v2.0. I popped some breakfast on the cooker and we headed for the hills…

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As we eased up the two-lane blacktop past the Church in Tampico, Jim suggested we might take a quick peek at Nasty Creek. Since I wasn’t at work on this particular Saturday, there was simply no wrong answer to this query, and so up we went.

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After a bit, it was decided that we should take a quick break and air down, and grab breakfast off the manifold.

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From there we continued up to the top and hooked onto Jackass, blowing through several inches of snow, perhaps even a foot along the spine up top, all the while seeing a lot of game and even more hunters.

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Once we got back down to the snow park, we headed up the Middle Fork and made an assault on the summit of Darland. We were both very surprised at the amount of snow, and could not have been happier to find it.

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As we clawed our way up, we came across a pretty impressive snow drift. Visibility was laughable, and by the time I caught up to him, Jimmy was heavily involved with the aforementioned drift. After a brief struggle, Jimmy prevailed (as usual), and we were on our way.

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Approaching the summit, there is one last slightly off camber right hand turn as you climb the last few vertical feet, and there we found a nice snow drift. Jimmy made the initial attack, and put up a good fight, but eventually found himself buried and needed to work O just right (which of course he did) to get back onto suitable ground and prepare for another approach angle. Sadly, the second approach angle didn’t pan out nearly as well, and he was buried for good this time.

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After a quick yank back, as Jim was coiling up the recovery strap, I took a few stabs at his initial line and made a few more feet of progress, but eventually realized the drift was not to be conquered by a white XJ on this day. So, I cranked it hard right and sort of crab-walked the sidehill, and made my way around the drift. From there we made the true summit of Darland, albeit struggling through one more nice drift area that required both of us to air down even further. At the summit, I was running 3.5psi.

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From there we headed down the North Fork. Along the way, we stopped for lunch, featuring none other than manifold carne asada burritos (another HUGE thanks to Mrs. Moss for those)!!

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After lunch, we continued down the hill until Jim decided to take a detour to czek out Blue Lake. Having never been there, and again overwhelmed with joy about not being at work, I happily followed.

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Sadly no one wanted to take a dip in the lake, so we backtracked down to the North Fork road and made a rapid decent back down to the blacktop, after stopped for several photo ops and a quick shot of air in the tires.

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To say it was a great day would simply be a gross understatement. I appreciate Jimmy taking the time away from his family to spend a day in the mountains with me, an honor I hope to reciprocate one of these days if the chips fall juuuuuuust right. 8)
Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...
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iaccocca
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Postby iaccocca » Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:45 am

tobyw wrote:Image


I have not seen this sign. Must be under snow when we are up there in the spring. I was having a good time in Seattle while you guys were playing, but I am still jealous.Image
Okay, we're a little crazy to have a Duramax for a daily driver. But if we go off our meds, we might wind up in a Prius.
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Danny
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Postby Danny » Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:14 pm

U guys are making me homesick... :deg I m green with envy...

If I had the YJ I too could be playing in the snow. I am in the Shenandoah Valley and the Allaghany Mts R getting dumped on right now.


Very nice report.
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tobyw
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Postby tobyw » Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:35 pm

We spent about 6 months in the Shenandoah Valley back in 2006 building a brewery for Coors in Elkton, VA... Very cool place when the leaves change, I highly recommend the Skyline Drive if you have the time. Granted it's no comparison to summiting Darland in knee deep snow, but it's worth a few hours of your time if you have no other options :lol:
Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...

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Danny
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Postby Danny » Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:42 pm

Thank'n u Toby....Skyline drive is on the list while here.
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commando14
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Postby commando14 » Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:06 pm

Looks like a fun trip.. nice to see the snow... it was so dry and dusty when we were up there hunting at the beginning of the month.

OldGreen
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Postby OldGreen » Wed Oct 31, 2012 9:58 am

The snow is probably gone now. . .funny how that works.


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