Rim Rock July 2016

Timber Tamers began showing up at the Lower Bake Oven campground near Rim Rock Lake on Wednesday night. It was a beautiful spot tucked away in the woods next to a creek. Steve Yeager with his family and Jeff LaFleur (TT candidate) with his family were the first to show.

Day 1- Thursday 7/28/16:
Steve in his Samurai and Jeff in his Tracker along with their families take off to do some wheeling. The plan is to hit the Leaning Tree trail, take the Divide Ridge trail and come down Short and Dirty. It was a perfect start to the day- great weather, beautiful scenery, awesome trails. About half way up Leaning Tree, Jeff’s Tracker loses the front locker. Not a big deal, we keep moving forward. Then about 3/4 of the way up the trail the Sami dies (and not in a very good spot). We need to try and get it out of the trail back down to the intersection so others can pass. Steve is pretty sure it is a fuel pump and is going to have Jeff head back to camp to get a new pump off the trailer and bring it back up. They can fix it on the trail. The Sami has cooled down some and decides its going to start back up. We come up with a new plan to find the quickest way out and head back to camp to fix vehicles. We make it back to camp late afternoon and decide to fix vehicles in the morning and try it again.

Day 2- Friday 7/29/16:
Steve gets up early and changes the fuel pump and notices the front shackle is broken. He uses his under hood welder to get it fixed up and we’re off again. Same plan day 2- we’ll hit Leaning Tree, take the Divide Ridge across and come down Short and Dirty. We should be back late afternoon to meet up with Gary and Casey Miller who planned on coming in today. The Sami and the Tracker are moving right along and again the Sami dies. Same spot on the same hill it died yesterday. After cooling down a bit it decides it’s going to start again. Steve really wants to cover some trail today so he decides to keep moving forward. We keep heading up the trail, the hills are getting steeper and Jeff still doesn’t have his front locker working in the Tracker. We are near the top of the trail that leads to a meadow with magnificent views of Mount Rainier. Jeff hits it hard to make it up the steep incline and breaks a rear axle on a tree stump. We make it to the meadow to turn around and take pictures, but it’s back to camp for us again to make vehicle repairs. Luckily we found the quickest way out yesterday so it’s not long before we are back at camp. Gary and Casey are pulling in as we reach camp. Jeff works on finding a new axel in Yakima and taking his rig apart while Steve, Gary and Casey decide to do an evening run in the two Sami’s. It’s about 4:00 in the evening and Steve decides to take them on a short run across Pucker Ridge. He says they should be back by dinner. 10:30 rolls around and we finally see head lights pulling into camp. Steve continued to have fuel issues on the way up to Pucker Ridge. He decided to fix the rig on the trail by pulling the fuel filter and using a pen cap to secure the fuel line back together. Luckily that seemed to fix the problem and there were no more issues. Steve and Gary came back with tales of an awesome run- fun trail, beautiful country, the Sami’s are built for this! Casey on the other hand told a different tale- driver’s wheels on one side of the ridgeline, passenger’s wheels on the other side of the ridgeline, impending death on both sides. Although she came back with gorgeous pictures, she said never again!!

Day 3- Saturday 7/30/16:
Jeff is up at sunrise to head to Yakima to pick up a fuel filter and find a new axel at the wrecking yard. He gets back around 11:00 and gets his vehicle put back together, but decides he’s done wheeling for the weekend. He has to be able to drive the Tracker home tonight. Steve’s Sami is up and running again with a new fuel filter. Steve with his co-pilot Jamie and Gary with his co-pilot Casey take the two Sami’s out to hit some trail. The plan today is to go up Narrow Neck, cut across the Divide Ridge, and come down Blue Slide. Narrow Neck has steep, off camber terrain and we crawled along very slowly through some soft ledges, but the Sami’s and their driver’s handled the trail without too many problems. Jamie and Casey got their exercise and decided to walk the trail several times rather than risk rolling down the mountain. We took lots of great pictures and even encountered a couple of bears on the trail. The top of the trail was close to 6,500 feet and had spectacular views of Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, Mount Hood and many elk off in the distance. At the top you have to cross through the Narrow Neck Gap to reach the Divide Ridge trail on the other side. Steve and Gary hiked down to check it out. Jamie and Casey said, “NO WAY, we’ll walk back to camp!!!” just from looking at it from the top. After checking it out Gary agreed that it looked unpassable. Steve decided it wasn’t worth the risk as you would either make it across or meet your maker at the bottom. We decide to take the Narrow Neck bypass even though it will add an hour and a half to our day. This seemed like a good idea at the time, little did we know the condition of the terrain ahead of us! Our first challenge is a hill with a vertical drop into a creek bed and straight back up a rocky mountain side. Unfortunately, there had been a fire so there was nowhere to hook up a winch if we needed too. Fortunately, we had well built rigs and skilled drivers so we made it through without too many problems. Our second challenge was another hill that went straight up, but it had a rocky shelf we had to get over. Steve knew from previous experience that more than likely his diff was going to get hung up on the rocks and he could roll backwards. He did get hung up, but made it up safe with Gary’s help. Gary sits higher off the ground and slowly crawled his way to the top safely. Our next challenge came at the end of the bypass. The trail kept going up the mountain, but Steve said we weren’t going to follow it.  Since Steve had been on this trail before, he recognized the barely visible trail off to the left, to the rest of us…it appeared to be some mountain goat trails that ran along the ridgeline.  Steve told us that was our way out. We all looked at him like he was crazy! Although we saw some tire tracks, most traffic was that of a bunch of animal prints. We follow the “goat trail†up and down the ridge for a while, narrowly squeezing through the trail when we come to a crevice between two rocks. We inch our way through the crevice and end up at the bottom of Narrow Neck Gap about 100 yards down the mountain from where we started this journey a couple hours earlier. Finally!!! The Divide Ridge trail!! It will be dark soon and we aren’t even half way back to camp. Jamie and Casey are ready to be airlifted off the mountain at this point, but we keep moving forward. The Divide Ridge goes back into the trees and is tight and twisty. A much more enjoyable ride until we reach the entrance to Blue Slide. The sign at the top says, “Hey Stupid! You are about to enter the point of no return! STRAIGHT down with 3 steep chutes!!! So turn back while you can. Signed- Tired of pulling you dummies out! Ridge Runners of Yakima.” This looks fun! The sign did not lie, it was STRAIGHT down and we inched our way back to camp about 1 mile per hour. Again, well built rigs and skilled driver’s got us off of Blue Slide without any problems. We finally pulled into camp about 10:30 that night. Steve and Gary high on adrenaline from returning from the most awesome, adventurous wheeling experience they had ever been on and Jamie and Casey saying never again!

Day 4- Sunday 7/31/16:
Steve with co-pilot Jamie and Gary with co-pilot Casey decide to go on a short run before packing up and heading home. Steve promises that today will be easier. Our plan for the day is to start near the meadow on Humphrey’s Butte trail, take the Divide Ridge to Short and Dirty and drop down Chicken Shit. Humphrey’s Butte and Divide Ridge have steep inclines and lots of tight and twisty areas. No big deal for the Sami’s. We get out on the Short and Dirty and once again we are crossing a ridgeline with no sides, just never ending drop off’s in both directions. Breathtaking views of the mountains and the guys reassure us the trail is solid, but once again Jamie and Casey decide this is a good place to get out and hike for awhile. We make it to the last trail of the Rim Rock run. It’s overgrown with trees and brush (you can tell it’s not as well know as some of the other trails as it’s not even marked) and like the other trails we’ve been on so far it has long, steep terrain. The Sami’s take it slow and easy and make it down without any issues. We pull back into camp around 4:00 to pack up. We survived Rim Rock!

They say there are three types of people when it comes to Rim Rock- Those who have never been, those who love it and those who will never go back…..ever! Steve and Gary loved the thrill and the challenge Rim Rock has to offer- as for me, I’ll be back at camp with Casey enjoying the fire!!

Steve & Jamie Yeager