The day started bright and early, I loaded up the Jeep and headed out to Elbe Hills ORV park. The drive there was rather uneventful for me, but I heard others had some problems. I guess Dirtball successfully parked his Jeep in the back of the Dodge when he slid due to some black ice. Ask him for further details on his precision driving. There were a few cars slid off the road on 161, but I didn’t have any trouble. I stopped in Elbe to get some coffee and then headed out to the trails. I met up with Moose and Mary at the DNR complex. The road from the complex to the camp was rather icy and Moose didn’t want to risk towing Moosenstein all the way up there so he unloaded at the complex. We headed up the road, and a fine gentleman in a white TJ had lost control and slid off the side due to the ice. We yanked him out of his predicament and headed to the camping area.
XJ Mike was already there as well as a hearty group of wheelers. Bobby Long and his crew were headed into the Busy Wild to clear the rest of the deadfall from the winter storms. With about a foot of fresh snow on the ground, everyone was raring to go. Moose got some things adjusted on his rig and we saddled up to run the Sunrise trail and check out its status. As we were leaving, Nancy from the DNR pulled up so we stopped to talk to her for a while and then we got going. There was a full size crew waiting to run our trail, but they had a buddy who had rolled on the road heading up. They said that everyone was okay, so we trailed on.
We ran the Sunrise real quick, checked all the bridges and made some notes about what needs to be done on future work parties. That part took about 15 minutes. Then we went wheeling. And what a blast it was. Better than having a cold beer in a hot shower. The trail conditions were outstanding. The foot of snow on the ground made for some great wheeling. Any side hill at all and you would slowly creep forward and slide sideways at the same time. Kind of spooky, but with some clever manipulation of the available controls at your hands and feet, you could successfully navigate through the fun stuff.
After running our trail, we continued onto the Mainline where we came upon a guy driving a mildly built Sammy. He had sunk himself in one of the “famous” Elbe mud holes, which all had about a four-inch thick sheet of ice on top of them. I got out and asked if he needed help, which he graciously accepted. A quick winch back, and he was ready for round two at the hole. It took some doing, but eventually he blasted through the deep stuff. It was a different kind of challenge, because the ice made traction minimal at best. We continued on as the full size group was coming up behind us. We headed into the Alder loop and Mainline extension trails and listened on the CB to reports of the full size crew having fun in the icy mud holes. “Quick! Someone grab a camera” and we could hear full throttle assaults at the goo from where we were on the trail. Sounded like they were having fun.
We started into the Alder loop and each took turns making fresh tracks in the snow. About halfway through, we came upon a tree that had fallen across the trail. Well, we didn’t have a chainsaw, but I did bring my axe. Moose, Mike and I all took turns chopping away as we listened to Mike tell us all about his Grandfather who was a lumberjack “way back when.” After chopping the tree about 95% of the way through, we ran my winch through a snatch block, and tugged the tree off the trail. After that we continued onto the Mainline extension and found a bigger tree across the trail a little to big to tackle with an axe, so we stopped for lunch and then turned around and headed up the 9 road to run the Rainer Vista. The clouds broke and a light snow started falling, making it a beautiful drive through the trail. The pace was just about the “speed of Moose” as we enjoyed the wonderful scenery. After the Rainer Vista, we ran the Gotcha trail on down to the 9 Road. We were going to attack the little connector with the really technical hill climb that we had done on Father’s day, but we decided that nobody had broken anything, and it was just about dusk so we turned around and headed back down to Moose’s truck. On the way there, we stopped to check on an XJ group that had a two rigs slide off the road. Once wasn’t so bad but the other was in a huge pit. They were winching him out of the way so we waited until the road was clear.
We stopped at Moose’s trailer, aired up and said our goodbyes. Mike and I headed to Eatonville to get something to Eat, while Moose and Mary headed to dinner in Renton. An awesome day wheeling. Those of you who didn’t come or couldn’t make it REALLY missed out on a fantastic day. The weather was perfect and the trails even better than perfect. Maybe some incentive to come on a future “work” party.
Till next time,
Karl VP