Naches Trail Aug 2014

An Easy Day on The Naches! (A Run Report….August 2014)

There are times when I should just keep my mouth closed.  To say that the Naches in summer is an easy run for any rig can, on occasion, be right up there with saying “It’s kinda just like Tahuya – only a little more “Tahuya-i-er……”

But – I am letting the story get ahead of itself.  Pulling into Safeway at Enumclaw a little before 9 AM, Mary and I saw that Mike and Jill in their silver 4Runner obviously haven’t yet gotten the hang of being on TST (Tamer Standard Time) because they were there even before we were.  And soon enough, over the next 15 to 25 minutes we soon  had 11 Tamer rigs ready to hit the trail.  New friends and old well met, my big happy surprise of the day was to see a few folks I haven’t in some time.  One was long time Tamer Keith with Air Amigo – the little Isuzu that could and did.  I remember Keith, quite a few years ago now, taking his dad in his pretty stock ‘Suzi on a Father’s Day run at Elbe, pretty much getting snatched up by just about every cut stump on the “Gotcha” trail.  Well – over the years, AA has grown a considerable amount of hair, and was probably the top trail dog on the run.  Also back from travels to the SW was the now bearded,  Hemingway-esque Nick and his wife Teri – Like the Old Man Wheeling Free – finding his bliss by catching just one more trail.  Okay – maybe that’s a little overly dramatic (as is Ernest Hemingway), but I know Nick will appreciate the comparison, and it was sure good to see them both.  It’s been a long time since we wheeled together.

Ah – but as with all Tamer trails – sometimes the miles spent on the street are the cruelest miles of all.  2 rigs were already displaying their capitulation to time and tide, loosing their vital fluids upon the ground.  I had been smelling raw gas somewhere in the crowd, and then saw an unmistakable drip-drip dripping of the stuff from under the tank of Curt’s CJ.  Having just recently installed fuel injection, he thought it was a problem with a hose or outlet having been crimped or cut by the body.  (Subsequently he thinks it was a vent hose problem, but not wanting to fool around with loose gas with extreme fire danger in the woods, he took the honorable and safe path and took his rig on home before even thinking about heading for the trail.)   Better luck was had by Nick – who had just gotten a new radiator the day before the run – and fortunately – the fluid leaking from the transmission cooler was the result of a hose with a cracked end not quite  pushed on all the way.  W were able to trim the end of the hose to get a fresh purchase on the fitting, pushed it all the way on, and tightened it up.  And in typical Tamer fashion, when the call went out for a little spare ATF4 to help him replenish his tranny, I think enough was produced from Tamer toolboxes to make a small ATF tsunami in the parking lot.  After a quick drivers meeting (“Get gas now – and we’re going that-a-way”) and we were off.

With 2 rigs on trailers (Casey’s Toy “Miss Creant” and Keith’s “Air Amigo”) we unloaded all the way up on the 70 road where the gravel started.  We had Tamers of all stripes – candidates working on their run count in stock rigs,  to Bruce and Debbie getting familiar with their lime green “TJ on steroids” new toy with the heart shaped taillights (really!) to Michael’s nice recent model FJ with almost no bends in it (and probably hoping to keep it that way) to Cindy’s Moab model JK, to Mary and me in her silver TJ, and Rick and Jennifer in their “Drive It Like It’s Got A Winch” Cherokee.

I mean – you watch them drive – and you forget Rick has no winch.  He’ll try anything, go anywhere, and pretty much succeeds about 98.72% of the time.  It is fun to watch – not in the least because a lot of it is driving skill.  The Cherokee has a few tricks up its sleeve with a rear locker and low air pressure – but in the main – it gives the sleepy appearance of many old Cherokees you might see on the road.  Only the astute observer would realize that the folds and creases dimpling the sheet metal here and there were NOT from getting hit by shopping carts at the grocery store.  Rick and Jennifer in their “SC”  (Stealth Cherokee) took the lead up the first hillclimb.

Now – in the summer – the Naches usually dries out pretty good, and there is traction in abundance.  However – you may recall earlier in the week – some thunderstorms and squalls with rain blew through.  I think some blew through the Naches Trail earlier in the week – because the first hiillclimb was manageable – but GREASY.  It took the right application of wheelspeed, foot just enough on the gas, and picking your path up the hill – to get through the first climb.  Mike and Jill couldn’t quite get the traction in their open/open 4Runner with mild tread, but they were the only ones that needed a tug up the first hill.  But that was only the beginning.  That first section of literal uphill kinda went figuratively downhill after that.

It’s all a bit of a blur – but there are some quite slickery parts of the trail in that first section – with big holes and roots to get over, and mud.  In fact – there is one section where a couple of big trees have blown down in the last year or so – and what appears to be left behind is slippery stuff that appears to be one part slime, one part Teflon, 3 parts wet boogers mixed with snot, a few banana slugs for good measure, all filling in every bit of tread your tires may have, regardless of how aggressive they are.  Oh – and you don’t have to worry about steering – because once you find your rut – you are just along for the ride – you really don’t need to worry about actually trying to have any control over your rig.  It’s all just really gravity and the coefficient of non-friction working on you.

At the prospect of throwing some mud, Casey and Gary were in equal parts respectively enthralled and disgusted.  Casey is all about slinging the mud, and Gary is Mr. Clean, wanting instead to eschew it altogether, as mud is not his thing.  It is even rumored that she said to him while traversing a puddle, “Honey – would you hang your head out the window to see if the tires are going around?”  I don’t believe Gary rose to that bait, no matter how sweetly Casey asked.

But Rick and Jennifer in their “SC” made it look like a cake walk, slithering through the mud, up around the tree, down into the next rut and almost squirted out like toothpaste out of a tube.  What I didn’t quite capture was why they turned around and came back.  I think the FJ was considering needing a tug – but then Rick couldn’t get turned around.  At least not with the FJ where it was – because they both needed the same bit of real estate to get enough motion going to make something happen.  The FJ just needed to go forward up around the tree, and Rick needed to make his front end go up the hill so he could do another 180.  So Rick finally got his Cherokee nosed a little past the FJ over in the shrubs, and the FJ sneaked up around the tree to get out of Rick’s way.  Fortunately – the roots on this particular tree were very accommodating – in that they were positioned just so to keep a rig’s sheet metal off the trunk – with about ¼” to spare.  The FJ got through with no damage.  Air Amigo made it look pretty easy.  Mike and Jill did surprisingly well in the spooge with their 4 Runner, for a few moments on a winch cable, then under their own power – although there was a little heart stoppage as they came past the tree.  Kinda like Tom Cruise in the movie “Risky  Business” when he stops the runaway Porsche on the dock by pushing back against the front of it with barely any room to spare – they got the front of their rig past the tree; got the middle of their rig past the tree, even got their rear tire right on the tree roots and just past.  As they came to a total stop just before a sharp turn to the right to pivot around in the goo – their entire rig slid sideways an inch towards the tree – missing damage to the sheet metal, I swear by the distance of a layer of a coat of wax.  Of course – (spoiler alert if you have never seen “Risky Business”) the dock collapses under Tom and his Porsche – but Mike and Jill made the downhill right hand slither away from the tree unscathed.

I kept assuring folks that “This was the hardest part – it gets easier after this!” and I am sure they all thought “That man is a delusional nutcase!”  We started up that trail up the first hillclimb at 11 AM, and were at the foot of the 2nd hillclimb around 3 PM!!!  Now – having said that – we were having a blast figuring out angles, suggesting the most passable line, and keeping rigs off trees and away from damage, and tugging each other, some of us using winches for the first time.  (We suggested to Cindy that she keep the winch controller a little closer than that black bag wa-a-a-y-yyyy in the back of her 4 door JK.  Ummm – errr – oops – no – not that black bag – the other black bag.)  And in that – it was a regular Tamer wheeling  skills classroom.  But I was getting more than just a little hungry, and REALLY wanted to get to Government Meadows for a late lunch.

The 2nd hillclimb I remember from the very first time I drove up it maybe 18 to 19 years ago.  My CJ had too tall gears, was open/open with a Holley street carb that wouldn’t run uphill, and stiff springs that wouldn’t really articulate worth a hoot – and I had to goose the gas and slip the clutch all the way up the hill to keeps the RPM’s up enough to keep the engine running to make it.  Oh – except for the stump in the middle of the hill – which at the time you drove over the dug out roots, so it threatened to push you off camber off the edge of the trail into the abyss.  Or you picked a tire with your open/open rig and you stopped right there.  I was horrified.  I still don’t like that stump because of that.  Well – now it’s good news, and bad news.  The good news – is that the hill has such a slot in it – there is no way you could go off the edge.  Your off camber would just throw you on your side against the berm.  The bad news – that stump in the middle is still there – only now with roots and scraggles hanging out of the side on the right about 4 to 5 feet off the ground, a deep hole next to it, and a rock outcrop to the left of it.  You have a skinnier rig – you can scoot right past it, as Mr. and Mrs. Stealth (Rick and Jennifer) proved, driving past it without the slightest pause.  And then you have a bit of a wider rig, like the FJ, which gamely tried to sneak past the stump, only to be repeatedly almost pinned against the roots and trunk to sure and certain unscheduled “trail modifications” to the passenger mirror and sheet metal.  They tried – Lord KNOWS they tried – with spotting, different lines, different times, some crawling, some lunging.  Try close, and you have a tree trunk in your roof and a root scraping your mirror off.  Try farther off, you keel over on the rock to the left, and then you slide into the stump – with a trunk in your roof, a root in your mirror, and an even bigger dent from the impact of sliding down into it even harder.  We decided to stop short of that nonsense.

Being so close to an access road at the start of this climb – we decided to back down to the road – both to eat lunch, and then find the bypass around the hillclimb.  It might be the first record of a TTB (Timber Tamer Backdown) in lieu of a TTT (Timber Tamer Turnaround.)  While Gary was walking down the hill from spotting the FJ – a most amazing natural phenomenon happened.  While it sounded a whole lot like a Toy truck R22 – 4 banger taching up, then plunging through the mud puddles on the access road at high speed – 3 times – what really happened was a localized weather anomaly known as a – “MUDNADO”! (As rare, yet as widely rumored as a Sasquatch sighting in the Cascades!!!)  It was a small, localized  whirlwind that tore through the woods, swirling through the mud puddles on the road, and picking up all of the mud, water and debris, and depositing it on the handiest vehicle in the vicinity – which oddly enough – was Casey’s truck!  “I just don’t know Honey – I was waiting here for you to get down the hill, when this MUDNADO all of a sudden showed up and just hosed me down.  THANK GOD you weren’t here in the path of destruction – I was glad to take the hit in your place.”  (What a woman!)

I also heard that the MUDNADO ripped a hunk of painted bondo right off Air Amigo’s door and landed in Casey’s hands.  While she was all set to hand it back, Keith , being the gentleman he is, allowed her to keep it for a memento of the run.  What a guy!

Well – Keith pulled out the maps he had purchased from the Naches Ranger station on the way over, proposing a couple of alternate routes to get to the high end of the hillclimb, and after lunch, a few false starts, a few legitimate TTT’s, we found the trail again, and made it to Government Meadows by about 4:30.  The sun had gone, and gray clouds were threatening to drop some moisture.  Government Meadows, however, was as beautiful and peaceful as ever, and we walked down to the A-frame cabin in the meadow with some other wheelers, and talking to a few folks who appeared to be hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.  They didn’t seem too put out by all the mechanized users, and I say – more power to them – because they appeared to have a few years on me.  Walking back to the rigs, I noticed there appeared to be no end to the piles of bear crap in the meadow (apparently – the black bear go ca-ca both in the woods AND the meadows) and I’d wished we could have seen one.  We headed out, continuing east to see the rest of the meadows, until we got to the next cross road.  Of course – I guessed incorrectly that the way out was to the right – which resulted in yet another TTT.  Then Rick remembered clearly that he too had gotten lost up here the previous week, and that a left, a right, another right and following out until you got to the 70 road again would get us back to the start.  We were able to provide a little more assistance to a quad rider, sitting by the side of the road with a big smile on his face.  He’d run out of gas, and was waiting for friends to bring some back.  To give him a head start, Gary and Casey shared some of their spare fuel with him, and we continued to head for the barn.

The rest of the run back over the gravel was actually pretty restful.  The views were superb, the grey clouds did not empty their contents on us, and by the time we got back to the trailers, the sun again was poking out, now poised to show off one BITCHIN’ sunset – orange, blue, pink against the silhouettes of the surrounding mountains.  It was a good day, Tater, spending time on the trail with friends.  No breaks, minimal damage, enough tow fees to keep the treasury in the black and the will to go do it some more another time.  I appreciate all who came along.

Thanks for readin’
 And keep on wheelin’!
Moose

People on the run were:
Rick and Jennifer
Bruce and Debbie
Michael L
Keith J
Gary and Casey
Jerry and Rebel
Cynthia and Jason
Nick and Terri
Michael and Jillean
Moose and Mary