Attendees included;
Livin4Today(Lance) JKU
Misinformation (Ms. Mandi) XJ
BryansFab (Bryan, Christie, Tyler, & Chloe) JKUR
Roger Hoover (Roger) 4Runner
79chevy39.5's (Graham) Zuki
WrongWay (Bill & Tammy) JKR
Lurch (Tim & Chad) Bronco
Red Dawn (Brett, Shiela) JKU
Irish (Mike & Jason) JKUR
funner in the runner (Mike, Cindy, Jared & Luke) 4Runner
Iaccocca (Lee & Steve) TJSR
RoyBoy (Roy) CJ
oddball (Curtis) TJ
Radicl (Scott) TJR
A guest of Rogers (Luke and family) CJ-7
The initial climb was icy, and before completing the first climb we came upon some communications workers who were having trouble getting their work rigs up. They had even taken some time to break loose some small rock from their frozen grip to spread out on the road for more traction on the ice. Once they got their three rigs up and clear we proceeded to the first summit at the power lines and stopped to take a few pics, and noted the water table was basically at surface level, and instead of snow we found thousands of acres of soup mud. it was so soupy we were doing our best to walk on rocks and shrubbery to keep from sinking or worse falling in the mud.
After a few pics we carefully backed out of our line up to the trail to not further damage the water stressed terrain, and pointed toward the Lookout. Along the way we found snow blanketing the shady spots and more ice but not much to play in.
We made decent time keeping mostly to the trails as the soup was crazy soft, once we reached the logs we cut last year we had a remnant of snow from storms the past few weeks, and more ice. And found the hill the separated us from the lookout last year and boldly jumped off the steep downhill with little trouble. At one point the ice took glacier like form and flows into the trees closer to the Lookout.
We made it to the Lookout at about 12:30 pm, and initiated the chili cooking and soon everybody had their fill of chili, hot dogs, corn bread muffins, and bread rolls. at about 1:30 is we decided to point back towards our starting point and rolled out. Our first obstacle was the steep hill we'd come down, as the upper end of the regular trail had some off camber drifts blocking the trail. The first couple of rigs climbed up and out with little problem by staying out of the tracks in the slushy ice and snow. Unfortunately Mandi didn't get a good look at where they had gone up and hit our down trail, and dug in about a third of the way up. She recovered and decided to give the regular trail a try, and nearly made it but the lightweight XJ got sort of pushed downhill and had her slightly off track into some small trees. Tim and a few other rigs were hailed as I approached from the top. I couldn't get close enough to her, or at an angle to help with a winch so Tim hooked her from the rear as she eased forward straightening out the rig and then she crept up the sidehill drift and made the top, and 4 more rigs followed gently creeping over the drift.
Once we were all clear we pressed on downward, about halfway down, at he cattle guard near the satellite receivers we stopped and found we were missing a few rigs. Apparently as we came over the top in two directions we missed 3 rigs that had ventured off to the far right playing in a drift. So after verifying we were 3 short, Tim & I retraced our path back to the hill and rounded up the 3 rigs, while the others waited patiently.
After regrouping the lost we headed down the hill to catch up with the main body, and pressed on to the bottom with little incident, other than meeting a Cadillac Escalade attempting to go up with another group of 3 rigs. I hope it was paid for... Yikes, I thought I caught him staring intensely at our mud bathed rigs through his tinted windows, probably cursing their leader.
All 15 rigs made it out, no damages or breaks that I'm aware of and the group broke for home...
I didn't get many pics, and hope all who did will share. Thanks for a great trip!
#interesting conversations with SPR. It was fun to have Steve as my co-dawg for the day, even if I did not get to make him get out and dig or pull cable.
