Crash
11-17-2003, 03:46 PM
It was our anual red eye run this last weekend, and to say the least, this was by far the best one soo far... We started out with 11 rigs at enumclaw. We hit the nachies trail head about 8pm, and up we went. We started to hit snow just before the first big medow with the long uphil out of the medow, which was nice and icey. At this point, one rig had to turn around. We ventured onward, with snow getting to well over a foot, and coming across about 4 downed trees we had removed since they could not be driven over(the east side looked like it was badly hit by some nasty wind).
The trail was alot of fun due to the added ice/snow, and made it to our camping spot along the little nachies river around midnight and made camp in the ice(temp stayed around 18 degrees).
We got up saturday morning, packed up, and headed for the kaner trail. The first hill 2/3 of us made it up without cable (open faced,snotty), and worked our way up the trail to the second long hill. Since I led the way the whole weekend, I got to be the ginnea pig,lol. The second set of hills has a straight up mainline, with another off to the right with a switchback, well, I went for the mainline, and made it over half way, smacked a root ball, and had to pull cable(due to ice). This time over half the rigs had to pul cable here.
We then worked our way up to lilly pond, where we sat and ate and waited ofr another group we ran across to head up before us.
Off we went, and I just buzzed up the shoestring, up and up, till we got to the group ahead of us, where we had a choice to wait for them, or head torwards quarts mountain, we decided to head to quarts so we would not have to wait for the drunken guys ahead of us(which it sounded like they all turned around anyways). So, I decided to break trial (upward of 3 ft of snow) and up and up we went, and got to a point we missed a turn and had to wait for almost 4 hours for the group to catch up(one of the rigs had blown the cap off the steering box). SO, the correct trial was found(we had to back track to the group) and once again we were heading on the right path, and finally made it to the main logging road and headed into buck medows around 2-3am.
Woke up with a fresh coating of snow, and was snowing good. Most the rigs headed home, but 4 rigs decided to head to the shoestring, so off we went. We got to the entrance, and the first hill was a total ice ball, I tried to get up, made it about 1/3 of the way up, and slid back almost smacking a tree. So, we deiced to take another route. We headed down manashtash river road to take the service road(forget the #) and headed up the mountain side to the trail that takes you to the funny rocks (entrance of second creek hits this trail about 1/2 way through). We ran across a bunch of zuks, who had to turn around due to some really deep snow drifts. So, we worked our way down the big hill, and across the sidehill to the top of the funny rocks, boy, it was pretty, could not see any of the rocks. We worked our way across the fields, and started up to the ridge between the funny/moon rocks, where scrambler mike broke a rod end for the drag link at the pitman arm, of course, no replacement, but, with a little mickey mousing, we got it fixed and up the hill we went..
Now, this is where things got really interesting, it was snowing like crazy, and the wind must have been blowing about 20mph, and we had about 1/2 mile of ridge to make it across(tree line on one side, and nothing but open downhill on the other) and it was dark. By this time, all our winchs got a workout(man, I love the winch rope). I worked my way across the ridge, side of my face frozen, snow blowing thru the cab, and I could not believe how tall the snow drifts were by this point (some where 10ft tall). We finally made i across the ridge, and back into the tree line, and me and another rig were on fumes by this point. Our plan was to get down to the service road to milk lake, and going down the open hill side was not an option, so we took the trial that parrallels the hill(forgot the trail #). This was not easy, as there were a # of trees, big trees down, we had to work our way down(couple of places the trail pokes out of the trees, and whats normaly a small sidehill, was tricky). Well, we all finally made it to the bottom, and down the mountain side we went and down to 410, where we aired up and headed for gas in cliffdale.
We got gas(9pm) and had to make a choice, head over chinook pass(which we found out later was closed), go over nachies or take our chances and hope pyramid pass(service road 70) was open. We went up 19 (little nachies river road) and headed for 70, which was open, and, It was close to white out conditions, and luckly there was tracks in the snow, so we were able to make it over quite easily.
We made it back to the tow rigs about 11pm, and headed for home.. Wanna thank stu for workin his butt of helping everybody, and everyone else who also worked there butts off...
The trail was alot of fun due to the added ice/snow, and made it to our camping spot along the little nachies river around midnight and made camp in the ice(temp stayed around 18 degrees).
We got up saturday morning, packed up, and headed for the kaner trail. The first hill 2/3 of us made it up without cable (open faced,snotty), and worked our way up the trail to the second long hill. Since I led the way the whole weekend, I got to be the ginnea pig,lol. The second set of hills has a straight up mainline, with another off to the right with a switchback, well, I went for the mainline, and made it over half way, smacked a root ball, and had to pull cable(due to ice). This time over half the rigs had to pul cable here.
We then worked our way up to lilly pond, where we sat and ate and waited ofr another group we ran across to head up before us.
Off we went, and I just buzzed up the shoestring, up and up, till we got to the group ahead of us, where we had a choice to wait for them, or head torwards quarts mountain, we decided to head to quarts so we would not have to wait for the drunken guys ahead of us(which it sounded like they all turned around anyways). So, I decided to break trial (upward of 3 ft of snow) and up and up we went, and got to a point we missed a turn and had to wait for almost 4 hours for the group to catch up(one of the rigs had blown the cap off the steering box). SO, the correct trial was found(we had to back track to the group) and once again we were heading on the right path, and finally made it to the main logging road and headed into buck medows around 2-3am.
Woke up with a fresh coating of snow, and was snowing good. Most the rigs headed home, but 4 rigs decided to head to the shoestring, so off we went. We got to the entrance, and the first hill was a total ice ball, I tried to get up, made it about 1/3 of the way up, and slid back almost smacking a tree. So, we deiced to take another route. We headed down manashtash river road to take the service road(forget the #) and headed up the mountain side to the trail that takes you to the funny rocks (entrance of second creek hits this trail about 1/2 way through). We ran across a bunch of zuks, who had to turn around due to some really deep snow drifts. So, we worked our way down the big hill, and across the sidehill to the top of the funny rocks, boy, it was pretty, could not see any of the rocks. We worked our way across the fields, and started up to the ridge between the funny/moon rocks, where scrambler mike broke a rod end for the drag link at the pitman arm, of course, no replacement, but, with a little mickey mousing, we got it fixed and up the hill we went..
Now, this is where things got really interesting, it was snowing like crazy, and the wind must have been blowing about 20mph, and we had about 1/2 mile of ridge to make it across(tree line on one side, and nothing but open downhill on the other) and it was dark. By this time, all our winchs got a workout(man, I love the winch rope). I worked my way across the ridge, side of my face frozen, snow blowing thru the cab, and I could not believe how tall the snow drifts were by this point (some where 10ft tall). We finally made i across the ridge, and back into the tree line, and me and another rig were on fumes by this point. Our plan was to get down to the service road to milk lake, and going down the open hill side was not an option, so we took the trial that parrallels the hill(forgot the trail #). This was not easy, as there were a # of trees, big trees down, we had to work our way down(couple of places the trail pokes out of the trees, and whats normaly a small sidehill, was tricky). Well, we all finally made it to the bottom, and down the mountain side we went and down to 410, where we aired up and headed for gas in cliffdale.
We got gas(9pm) and had to make a choice, head over chinook pass(which we found out later was closed), go over nachies or take our chances and hope pyramid pass(service road 70) was open. We went up 19 (little nachies river road) and headed for 70, which was open, and, It was close to white out conditions, and luckly there was tracks in the snow, so we were able to make it over quite easily.
We made it back to the tow rigs about 11pm, and headed for home.. Wanna thank stu for workin his butt of helping everybody, and everyone else who also worked there butts off...