GTFO Last Minute Therapy Run 10/27/2012
Posted: 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:
ON to the summit where the snow was unforgiving and truly difficult. No hunters up here:
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:
I hope Toby was texting his wife and not answering a work email. . .this was a GTFO run, afterall. ..
A sample of the scenery we ran into:
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. . .
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:
ON to the summit where the snow was unforgiving and truly difficult. No hunters up here:
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:
I hope Toby was texting his wife and not answering a work email. . .this was a GTFO run, afterall. ..
A sample of the scenery we ran into:
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. . .