The wife, the dog and I loaded up for the weekend and went up to Salmon La Sac to camp for the long weekend.
Saturday and Sunday we ran the local trails, I've never ran any of the trails but had found maps and GPS coordinates on the web. http://www.nwjeepn.com/WAtrails.htm#cleelum has some good maps and very accurate coordinates.
Our first attempt was the Fourtune Creek trail, 4W301. At the start of the trail I was letting a little air out of the tires and the local Forest Service officer pulled up behind me. She turned out to be pretty cool. The two of us ran the trail together and came across an old growth that had fallen over the winter. It was easy 4' diameter. We turned back since we didn't have a saw big enough, only to run into a jeep group coming up the trail. They decided they'd use the two 18" saws and basically beaver away at it. Melissa and I decided to go head out and go find the Van Epps Trail, we made it roughly 3/4 of the way up based on the gps coordinates and eventaully ran into another set of downed trees. I left my saw at home (not sure why I didn't bring it) so we ate lunch and I hiked around looking to see if one of the near by roads re-connected to by pass the trees. They didn't...
We eventaully made our way back up Fortune Creek to see how they had done, this was about 3 hours later. They hadn't made it through yet so I hung out for a while and talked with the F.S. officers while a handful of the jeep guys widdled away at the tree.
We took off after a little while and went to check out the Mine to Market trail. Damn...there are some sketchy spots on this trail. Very very narrow, at one point the trail has started to washout and its narrow enough that even with one side riding the up-hill embankment your hanging part of your tire over the edge. Now I know why its so over-grown, there's not much to the trail just lots of very steep switch backs and no real challenge. Again on this trail once we hit 4,500 feet elevation we got into snow.
Coming back into camp we saw the Jeep club leaving, so I talked to one of the guys. Eventually they did make it through so we went up on Sunday and about another mile up the trial we ran into snow. I walked the trail for another 1/4 mile to see if it was worth it to winch through the snow (the trails there are cut into the side of a hill, so the only safe option would be to winch it since any wheel spin would have you going for a 500 ft roll). It was snow drift after snow drift and eventually more downed trees. Had I been with a 2nd rig we probably would have chanced it but being a single rig we decided to head back down the road.
I saw lots of bike tracks so I'm sure some of the moto-guys have made it to the top already but I'd really like to get back up there in August and make it up to the lakes.
It was nice to have a "street legal" wheeler again. In the past I'd drive my tow rig back to town for the ice runs, this time having the Runner we used it a ton since the roads up there are total crap. Aired down the tires and once I got away from the crowds we could just skate over the pot holes. Then we'd hit the pavement for the 10 mile run back into Roslynn. At about 15 psi in the tires I was doing 45-49mph (according to the GPS) just fine. Taking the corners required a slow steady hand on the wheel to control the body roll but it did great.
Saturday and Sunday we ran the local trails, I've never ran any of the trails but had found maps and GPS coordinates on the web. http://www.nwjeepn.com/WAtrails.htm#cleelum has some good maps and very accurate coordinates.
Our first attempt was the Fourtune Creek trail, 4W301. At the start of the trail I was letting a little air out of the tires and the local Forest Service officer pulled up behind me. She turned out to be pretty cool. The two of us ran the trail together and came across an old growth that had fallen over the winter. It was easy 4' diameter. We turned back since we didn't have a saw big enough, only to run into a jeep group coming up the trail. They decided they'd use the two 18" saws and basically beaver away at it. Melissa and I decided to go head out and go find the Van Epps Trail, we made it roughly 3/4 of the way up based on the gps coordinates and eventaully ran into another set of downed trees. I left my saw at home (not sure why I didn't bring it) so we ate lunch and I hiked around looking to see if one of the near by roads re-connected to by pass the trees. They didn't...
We eventaully made our way back up Fortune Creek to see how they had done, this was about 3 hours later. They hadn't made it through yet so I hung out for a while and talked with the F.S. officers while a handful of the jeep guys widdled away at the tree.
We took off after a little while and went to check out the Mine to Market trail. Damn...there are some sketchy spots on this trail. Very very narrow, at one point the trail has started to washout and its narrow enough that even with one side riding the up-hill embankment your hanging part of your tire over the edge. Now I know why its so over-grown, there's not much to the trail just lots of very steep switch backs and no real challenge. Again on this trail once we hit 4,500 feet elevation we got into snow.
Coming back into camp we saw the Jeep club leaving, so I talked to one of the guys. Eventually they did make it through so we went up on Sunday and about another mile up the trial we ran into snow. I walked the trail for another 1/4 mile to see if it was worth it to winch through the snow (the trails there are cut into the side of a hill, so the only safe option would be to winch it since any wheel spin would have you going for a 500 ft roll). It was snow drift after snow drift and eventually more downed trees. Had I been with a 2nd rig we probably would have chanced it but being a single rig we decided to head back down the road.
I saw lots of bike tracks so I'm sure some of the moto-guys have made it to the top already but I'd really like to get back up there in August and make it up to the lakes.
It was nice to have a "street legal" wheeler again. In the past I'd drive my tow rig back to town for the ice runs, this time having the Runner we used it a ton since the roads up there are total crap. Aired down the tires and once I got away from the crowds we could just skate over the pot holes. Then we'd hit the pavement for the 10 mile run back into Roslynn. At about 15 psi in the tires I was doing 45-49mph (according to the GPS) just fine. Taking the corners required a slow steady hand on the wheel to control the body roll but it did great.
