Green Dot Roads May 2020

….aka – “Is that a Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area in your map pocket – or are you just happy to see me wheeling?”
There is an area of what’s known as “Green Dot Roads” in eastern WA – this run’s particular area between the west side of the Columbia north of I-90 and the Wild Horse Wind Farm located between Vantage and Kittitas. The wind farm is a Puget Sound Energy installation – which has a wonderful visitor’s center – in other than COVID times – open to visitors between April to October. (Currently closed to the general public due to health concerns.) You can stand right up against the base of a wind turbine hearing the big WHOOSH – WHOOSH – WHOOSH of the 60 foot long turbine blades spinning at their optimum 16 RPM. You can even take a tour inside the base of one of the turbine pylons. How do I know this?

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Reiter Mar 2020

Gary and I pulled into the parking lot at Reiter at about 9:30am, to find several early rising Tamers already there, aired down, and chatting! The Quadrapaws (Paws) rolled in about 10:15 or so. We had 10 Tamers, guest Judd Bergeson, and 6 “Paws” members, so we broke into two groups….One led by Steve Yeager, to the more challenging trails, and the rest with Gary in the lead and Casey in the rear, to hit the easier trails. Our Drivers meeting was done with folks spread out, and using a Megaphone, that worked pretty well. We also noted that Chris Green had stopped at the Monroe Fred Meyer, and pickup lots of TP! Thanks Chris!

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Whitechuck Feb 2020

We all started off the day with 10 rigs meeting at the IGA in Darrington at 10am. I am not going to name everyone there as I can’t seem to keep all the names straight anymore. By 10:18am I figured we better get moving as we had to hit the staging area (White Chuck Boat ramp/parking area) and get the one rig off the trailer and everyone else aired down. Once everyone was ready to roll, we had a quick drivers meeting with Casey reading off our queue card. Safety reminders, trail etiquette etc. Everyone was pretty well equipped and ready to go with exception of a pretty stock Ford Ranger. We made sure he at least had a GMRS radio and someone in front and rear of him with lockers and winches.

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Green Mountain Jan 2020

It was Thursday night Gary and I both were hoping to get in another epic day in the snow. I could pretty much guarantee that one of us was going to lead this run so I asked Gary am I leading this, or are you? I said I would, but I just did not want to get lost. I asked where and when should we meet. Gary said Lake stevens Safeway? Sure I said 9:00. Gary said 10:00. How is 9:30. It turns out that 9:30 would be a very good time but more on that later.

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Pre-Run Report Dec 2019

I was wanting to get out and see how my new tires would work in deeper snow as well as how the snow conditions were. I recruited a few members to go with me as it is not a great idea to go out by yourself especially In the snow. With John Vandergrift’s rig down for the count I invited him to ride shotgun with me. John arrived at my place a few minutes early with Cheryl and Ryan pulling in shortly behind. We got under way in short order with our dog barking at us from the window surely waking Casey up inside the house.

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Walker Valley Work Party Nov 2019

Well, it was the second Saturday of the month, so it must be time for a Walker Valley Work Party. (And it was!!!) This was a special one, because we made plans with Jim Cahill (from DNR) to repair and re-set the kiosk at the gate for our namesake Timber Tamer trails. As it turned out, we’d had about the driest early November on record with no rain at all since before Halloween. Of course, since we had trail work to do today, today was the day for that to change, so we had our more typical November all-day drizzle.

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Rig Check and 40th Birthday, May, 4 19

Our fine hosts the Tenney’s did their legendary thing with the weather – it being a beautiful spring afternoon in the woods north of Monroe. Ed claimed to have been doing a sun dance in the back yard days before – while also claiming no one wanted to see him doing that. (Ed – I may now have to go poke out my mind’s eye – thanks for that visual….)

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Reiter Work Party Apr 2019

The morning didn’t start out well for me…..I accidently changed the time on my alarm clock, one hour forward while setting the alarm to get up an O’Dark am on Saturday. Of course this caused my alarm clock to go off an hour early, which most of you know, is not a good thing for me! Just as I was about to go back to sleep, a HUGE Hail storm hit and rattled the house…..fine, I will just get up, since the universe didn’t want me to get my beauty rest!

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Hefty Haul Out Apr 2019

We started out getting there a bit late, about 9:15 am. Which if you know me is a bit early for me. Lol. Kevin with the Rainier Ridge Rams was quick to ask me who was bringing the fixings for the Lunch bar-b-que, as we had volunteered to do that with our club. I must have given him a deer in the head lights look and answered I don’t know? He just looked back and said.. Your not awake yet are you? Nope I was not awake yet. It took me about 15 minutes to get awake and moving and I assured Kevin that Mike our trusty cook was going to be there to cook up some hot dogs and hamburgers. It was cold and rainy and windy as we tried to get out flags and banners set up. Catch up with everyone and touch base and get signed up with DNR for our days duties.

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Walker Valley Jan 2019

It had been a while since Casey and I had been up to Walker Valley so we googled the time to get there and it showed about 90 minutes. It actually only took about an hour. So we got there early and found Shawn in his Teal jeep already there with 3 little ones running around have a great time. We got ourselves aired down hubs locked in and as we got ourselves ready others trickled in. We even got to chat a bit with our favorite DNR guy, Gary Bellows, as we waited. We ended up with 10 people in the parking lot with Dave on his way and meeting us a little later. Ed and Katie, Karl VP riding shotgun with Kurtis Messmer and his 3 little ones, Chris G in his new to him XJ, John in his (RocDoc), Travis B in his red 4 door JK, and candidates Marc C and Chris L. and of course Casey in her MissCreant, and me in my MissUnderstood.

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Walker Valley Poker Run Nov 2018

Another day of wheeling, just like any other.  Well, maybe not…
For one thing, this day started out at 7:00 AM at Walker—a pretty early day.  (And I’d prefer not to describe it with the exact words Casey and Gary would use at this hour of the morning…)  For another thing, this was a day for us to have a Poker Run (officially a non-sanctioned non-event) where four of our clubs in the 4-wheeling community (Around The Sound, Dirty 13, Rainier Ridge Rams and Timber Tamers) came together to have a fundraiser to help three families in our midst who are fighting with that evil beast—cancer.  It’s a time we could all get together not only for a good cause, but to have some fun together in the process!

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Walker Valley Work Party Nov 2018

Another second-Saturday of the month, another Walker Valley Work Party!!
Today four of us Tamers (Steve Sutton, Chris Leger, Lynn Leger and myself) joined forces with a large contingent from the Around the Sound Jeep Club and a number of the Rainier Ridge Rams to work on the Walker Valley trails.  My understanding was that the work needed today was predominantly to fix some trails where 4x4s had been running a motorcycle/ATV trail and improperly widening it.  Continue reading “Walker Valley Work Party Nov 2018”

Stampede Pass Oct 2018

Our day started out on time, we met TT Travis at the gas station in Bothell to run up to North Bend together for the second stop on our journey to meet some other folks that were going up with us. We arrived at Safeway early and that was a good thing because Travis just installed his new winch and needed a hand in rolling up his rope on it. Not sure if that has a technical term or not, but I will just go with that.

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Operation Shore Patrol Sep 2018

We headed out a day earlier than in the past on Thursday. The drive down was ok, traffic light and we sailed thru all the normal backups except in Shoreline area, but even that wasn’t too bad. We got into Aberdeen/Hoquiam area and hit a couple downpours but we could see blue skies a head of us. We kept our fingers crossed. Then blue skies n sunny!

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TC 100 – Lake Gallagher Sep 2018

The TC 100 http://www.fleetfeetseattle.com/events/teanaway-country-100 is a 100 mile long foot race over difficult terrain. This year was their first year of this event.  Last summer, I was contacted by a friend who is in the long-distance running community. She wanted to know if any off-road groups could support their run.  I felt strong about supporting them.  These are the same people that hike the same areas we like to wheel in. I think it is important that they get to know us.  We want them to understand that we care just as much as they do about the outdoors and that we want to see the trails used responsibly.  I get the feeling that some of these folks get the wrong idea about the wheeling community when they see damage caused by someone not following the guidelines of tread lightly.

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Reiter Aug 2018

Seven Timber Tamers in five vehicles visited the Reiter Foothills OHV area for a club trail run on August 18, 2018—the famous date of 8-18-18!  Joe was in his white TJ, Shawn and Justin in Shawn’s teal TJ, brand-spankin’ new member Travis in his red 4-door JKR, candidates Steve and Jodi in their while YJ, and me in my white stretched JKR.  It turned into an eventful day!

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WE Rock Aug 2018

Many of you know, that Gary and I have been judging at WE Rock, for 6 years now, and absolutely love it!  Since the onset of RRC (Reiter Rock Crawl) we have managed to get a few more hooked on this!  Ryan Sorenson, and Travis Butterfield!

Gary and I headed out at 9am Friday morning.  As you know, traffic sucks at that time of the morning, and NO ONE wants to be behind a dually with a camper, pulling a trailer with a truck on it and a scooter on front!  So, every time we would get several car lengths between us and the vehicle ahead, 2 or 3 more cars would jump in front of us!

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WA Back Country Discovery Route Day 2 Jul 2018

With most of us well rested we again met at 7:00am. Since there were no issues on the trail from the day before I offered to let the group change there place in line if they wanted to.  I guess they liked where they were at and no one changed.  On this type of run it is a good idea to spread out so you don’t choke on dust.  But we also don’t want to lose anyone.  So at intersections where it is not clear which direction to go we use the relay method.   The lead stops and waits for the next rig.  As soon as it shows up the lead takes off again.  This ensures that no one gets lost while keeping the dust down.  Of course if you do all the work to plan the trip that means you are in the front and don’t have to worry about the dust.  The down side is having to do things like put together a run report.

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Back Country Discovery Route Jul 2018

Wa 6 Canada to Conconully –
Well over 100 miles of off road driving plus at least 70 on-highway driving makes for a long but fun day.  But before we dig into the run I need to fill you in on some information that will become important later.  At 6:00am we informed the Hotel (Omak inn) that our toilet was running all night long and it was clogged.  By the time we left just before 7:00am they still had not done anything about it.  More on that later.

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Reiter Rock Crawl Jul 2018

Yep – here’s one bleary-eyed back story of the volunteer life on the soon to be even more infamous Reiter Rock Crawl – the Timber Tamer crown jewel of organized motorized mayhem at Reiter Tails.

For me and Auto-M – even for early risers – the 4 AM alarm was alarmingly unwelcome.  It was still dark for heaven’s sake!  The bed had just reached maximum comfiness (my brain was reminding me.)  It tried to lull into the posture of just 1 snooze alarm.  It wouldn’t make any difference, would it?  Except – I knew that siren song would lead to tragedy.  At the least – not getting the coffee turned on in time.  Or – just showing up late altogether.  And we couldn’t let Casey down – as given her usual sleep schedule – our pain was miniscule compared to hers.

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Ron’s Run Clean Up Apr 2018

Since this was a single trail area, we planned to clean up, we met at Walker Valley staging area at 11am…love that extra hour or two of sleep!  There were no birds chirping and no warm sun shine, but at least it wasn’t too cold.  Gary and I met Gary Bellows, our WV DNR Rep there, along with Rock and Jeanie, Chris B, John V, Shawn N and my puddle buddy Justin.  Also, candidates Joe, Terry, Matt, Travis and Aaron showed up to help with this effort.  OK, Aaron only showed up because he wanted to wheel and none of the other 20 people he asked would go with him….we assured him we would remember this, come voting time!  Haha.

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