One more Tamer tree run for the books. John, Terry and I started off the morning at the Everett Mall with a donation to NW Harvest. As luck would have it I drove up to make the presentation of the $772 raised and King 5 was doing a live feed. I then got to make the donation on camera live and show that I have no on camera talent what so ever.
Following the donation we left for the Monroe Buzz Inn to meet up with the rest of the people going on the run. We got there in time to eat some breakfast and talk with friends while doing so. We left a little later than we had planned (9:30am) but that is pretty much on par with a Tamer run and no one really seemed to care. We all headed up US2 with plans to regroup at the Ranger station.
When purchasing the tree permit Karl asked about snow and learned that Tonga would be a better choice than Beckler so “To Tonga we will go looking for snow”. The tow rigs were left at the usual Y in the road and we all headed up the row looking hoping that the dust would not last long and the snow would start soon. We got our wish at about 3000 feet in elevation and it only got better the further we went up.
We came across the Dirty 13 tending there fire on station we of course could not drive by and had to stop for a few minutes to talk. We really did not hang around long though because everyone was itching to go play in the snow. Once again we got under way with Terry in the lead and Josh taking up the rear to make sure no one was left behind. Everything went fine for a while then Keith took a bad bounce and went sideways in the trail and could not get back on track. While Keith was getting straightened out a Toyota Tacoma that was along tried to go around and got stuck also. I came back up the side of the trail in the untracked snow and that inspired others to give it a tray and resulted in a couple more stuck rigs. About this time more rigs from other groups started to show up and looking for a way around the traffic jam. After a while we were able to sort everything out and get everyone going in the right direction again including our group. Did I mention that while all of this was happening Karl and Adrian were able to find the trees they were looking for.
So with everyone in tow again I took the lead now and we kept heading up the road through the tracked snow looking for some white stuff that did not have tracks. We eventually found it but not after we lost a couple rigs to attrition as it was after 1PM at this point. Shortly before 2pm we actually found the untracked snow that we were seeking. The snow was so hard that we could drive on top of it with out sinking for a couple of inches. But we also found that the more people who drove on it the harder it was due to the nature of the snow. It acted just like sand and would not pack down at all. Once you broke through the crust on the snow you had to have a big foot print or you would sink. Since things were getting worse and it was 2pm we decided it was time to turn around and good thing as it took an hour to get everyone headed back down the trail in the right direction.
Nothing else of note really happened on the way down. It did try to snow a couple of time but could not seem to muster more than a flurry and fizzled to nothing. The following is a list of everyone that I can remember who came on the run. Forgive me if I miss someone, and I will fix it if you let me know. Get those pictures to me please.
Rudi
Who was there you ask?
Rudi + Kids, Terry + Jones, Ann + Ruth, Karl + Friend, Keith + Adrian + Kids, Josh, Gina + John,
James + Family, James Friends, Don + GF (Bull Shifters), Darin + GF (Bull Shifters)
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