Denny Creek Feb 2014

Denny Creek February 22, 2014

(Or – Tamer Tales of a True Bromance…..)

My inner voice was saying, “Wow – a 10 AM meeting time?  That’s kinda late.  We’ll be on the trail all day.  Coming home in the darkâ€

It was also saying, “That sure makes it easier to wake up, pack up, and get going.  I don’t know if I could have gotten my you-know-what together for much earlier.â€

Well – you can’t have it both ways – and that extra hour pushed me and Auto-M into the Jeep (hers) and off we went.

When I checked the weather on the NWS website on Weds – Saturday was supposed to be a sunny day.  Well – chunky, liquid sunshine I guess, as the closer we got to I-90, the harder the rain (and slush) beat upon the windshield.  Not that I was regretting it – since rain in Seattle can mean snow on the trail.  And Denny Creek is an awfully pretty place with quiet flakes settling down all around the rigs.

Gary and Casey passed us coming through Bellevue with the dually Dodge towing Miss Understood behind – and intrinsically – thus starteth the run.  At the Safeway parking lot in North Bend, there was already an eclectic gathering of rigs and Tamer friends new and established milling about the parking lot.  The skies were still overcast with wisps of scudding clouds overhead, but the precipitation had stopped for the time being.  As Auto-M and I proved we were wheelers by driving over a curb, to my great delight, there is Chad, my bromantic wheeling brother, lighting up at seeing our approach.  Out of the Jeep and big hugs all around, only to realize someone was fiddlin’ with my tushy.  And there is Terry, an equally as enjoyable TB (Tamer Bro) who gives the best hugs around.  Yes – not ashamed to say I love those men – and now I was confirmed in my choice to get out of bed and go wheeling.  Never a bad choice – but always good to be reminded that this club is more than just rigs and trails.  You get all the parts and pieces together in one spot, and the sum total exceeds the count of the parts.

A number of new faces and rigs were also in attendance – of note – some old school Binders were making their presence known.  For those of you who don’t know the International Harvester heritage – IH made farm equipment and combines for a long time before putting trucks on the road.  Combines, used to harvest crops, were called “Binders†(I assume from the farming tradition that harvesting in more ancient times involved cutting and binding harvested crops together in bunches) which is the colloquial term for IH vehicles.  Looked to me like about early ‘70’s vintage IH’s – a very clean looking long bed pickup, and a Scout II.

Oh – the inner voice again, to no one in particular, “Oh those rigs are going to be a lot of work in the snow.  Lotta stucks we’ll see.†  I was good enough to keep my inner voice in (this time) – as I did not want to be dampening the ardor of new Tamer friends by sowing the seeds of trouble ahead of any proof.  The rest of the rigs were the majority of TJ’s and JK’s, Rick and Jennifer in their Chrokee, Gary and Casey in their ‘Zuk and Chad ( and Terry doing shotgun) in his Toy.

It did feel like forever before we got out of the parking lot.  The trailered rigs went on ahead to have a little extra time to unload – and the rest of us hit the road at 10:15 AM (talk about your Tamer Time!) although we actually were in accord with the announced schedule.

Airing down and lining up – and deciding how to juggle the herd took a little extra head scratching.  We had enough newer folks and rigs with varying capabilities and accessories – that with 9 or 10 rigs (I think was the count) we wanted to make sure we had the resources to get help along the line if needed.  To have Chad in front to break trail was a no brainer.  Uncharacteristically, Auto-M and I went second, (not tail gunning like we usually do) – so I could be hanging with my bros. this time around.  Cindy was a little new-ish in her long JK behind us.  “She’ll probably start to belly hang in the snow pretty quickly†the inner voice declared – again – only in my head.  As with the last time – I didn’t want to direct anyone to a lesser choice of fates – especially not if they had higher expectations for their own accomplishments.

It had started gently to snow, and the woods were lovely and white-cladden with the fresh frosting that has come to the woods in the last week.  Tracks were nicely packed, and as long as you kept your wheels from spinning, traction was good.  Progress was steady until the big cleared out hairpin at the rock garden against the interstate.  Cindy has slid slightly out of the tracks and buried in.  And then backing up with a little wheelspin did pack and ice up the snow under her tires.  But no problem.  Jake gave her a tug back to get her out of that rut.  I thought she would need to winch to come ahead and stay in the packed track (of course on the high side of the down leaning sideslope) and we even had her hooked on to our Jeep.  And then the rig just drove up and stayed glued to the high side of the track – not really much winching needed.

In the meantime – Chad had travelled a ways up out of sight, then turned and came back – showing off, crawling through the deep, fresh untracked snow to help someone down the line behind us.  The IH truck had its hood up with some kind of problem that killed the engine – but that seemed to have gotten sorted out soon enough.  Hearing that the back of the line was ready to move – I moved forwards, now at the front of the line.

We went up past the hairpin, through the little wooded section, and then in the one tough spot right along and below the interstate, where you usually find the toughest snow – because it is all the hard, wet, frozen crystalline stuff the plows and blowers throw off the highway.  I got to the point where Chad had first turned around.  While there were some tracks ahead of me – they were covered with snow, unpacked by anyone today.  For a few moments I considered just sitting there until Chad came back to smooth things out.  And then that inner voice started talking to me again.  “You call yourself a wheeler?  You can’t break trail just because your big Moose rig is sitting broke in the driveway at home?  What about wheeling what you brung?  Heck – if you get stuck, you get stuck.  You don’t get stuck – you’re a major stud – at least in your own mind!  Get going, dude….â€

And with that – with 33’s at 12 lbs – Auto M and I eased forward, my mind thinking, and my butt in my seat feeling – through every trick in the book to keep pushing forward, staying on top of the snow, not spinning the tires or icing things up.  And we made pretty good progress for a few hundred feet.  And then I hit it.  Or actually – eased into it.  A soft patch of that crystalline stuff shoved off from the highway above that just kinda parts way under your tires.  So – forward motion arrested – but traction to be had in reverse.  And so now the exercise was stomping down the snow – 6†to 18†at a time – forwards and back, forwards and back, forwards and back.  Oooops.  Except for the vector gravity was laying on us – which was also to the drivers side – deeper and deeper into the snow, farther and farther to the left of the tracks ahead.  Still – we were at least moving around in our own little burrow we were carving out – snow on my side of Mary’s Jeep almost level with the bottom of my windowsill.

And then – it happened.  That one reverse where I was backing up, and thought I’d go just a little farther – ann-nn-nnd – the snow packed under the back drivers tire dropping us down another 8â€.  That was it – the next message out on the radio was, “Okay – now we really are stuck.â€Â  Forward or back – there was no motion to be had.  Even with the lockers on – all 4 wheels just spun.  So – time for a cigar and to enjoy the flakes gently coming down around us.  It was beautiful!  I was about at the point to start digging at the packed snow with a lug wrench, when Chad caught up with us.  Then it was just a quick tug backwards for the Jeep to find some traction again.  Still – that soft spot was ahead of me.  Chad and Terry were behind me.  And either I was going to have to get through that spot, or move over enough with now 3 feet high walls of snow so Chad could get around without sliding into Mary’s Jeep.  (VERY important – because you know Chad’s life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel if he committed any damage to Mary’s Jeep!)

A few attempts at getting through the soft spot ourselves met with no success.  And Chad’s first attempt to get around us on the high side also did not end in the desired result.  Thankfully – he did not slide into Mary’s Jeep either.  But we were moving enough that I thought we should be able to tromp an area of the snow down enough that Chad probably could get past.  And that’s what we did for the next 20 minutes – a ballet of 2 vehicles alternately going back and forth, finding traction, slowly widening the track – until Mary and I could tuck against the snow wall on the left, and Chad and Terry swung around us on the right.  By this time – we’d flattened enough snow to look like a landing pad for a small alien space craft.

In the meantime – Gary and Casey had been shepherding the back half of the line – dealing with a few stucks here and there, and wondering if we should keep going to the overpass or not.  After all that snow stomping – I would have been happy to just have turned around there – but Chad – urging us on to greater wheeling exploits seductively said, “You know – the overpass is just ahead.â€Â  I counseled caution, but he said – “I’ll go take a look.†And I responded with my sage advice, “Don’t get stuck – I’m not sure who can come get you…..â€Â  And off he went into the snow – only to return in less than 5 minutes – saying it’s clear and easy.

What the heck – if you can’t or refuse to rely on your buds – you are really missing out.  So – we kicked the Jeep into gear and followed along.  And Cindy – still running right behind us, behind the Big Dog and the Scrappy Moose – having no more problems since the hairpin – followed directly behind us – still chugging along exactly what she was – the little long JK that could (and did.)

Maybe another football field and a half from the last stop – Chad dropped down about 4 feet to the bare pavement under the interstate overpass, followed by us, followed by…… I said followed by…….  Ummmm – okay – not quite so followed by Cindy.  Her 30’s finally got the best of her, combined with the granular corn snow thrown off the road above, she was firmly resting on her belly pan at the top of the transition from trail to road.  But – no problem – she had really good tow points.  So – a shackle, and a few tugs from us – and she too was on the pavement.  I opined to her as we were getting turned around – that about this time in the run – you NEVER get so excited about seeing bare pavement as you do then.  It’s like throwing a life ring to a drowning person in an ocean of snow.

So we hung there for a bit, thinking the rest of the crowd would follow along to do an easy turnaround under the bridge.  But we were in enough of a hole, that we weren’t getting any radio messages.  Finally, Kayla’s phone rang, and it was Casey taking stock of what we were all doing.  At their end – they had most everyone turned around, Jake was still stuck and iced up and working on getting out.  So we figured we’d started heading back down.

But not before responding to the necessity of the human need brought on by cups and cups and cups of coffee I drank on the way up.  As the inner voice kicked in:  “Hmmmm – nice used-to-be-white snowbank…..Gee – it looks just like a lemon snowcone…….Changing the course of mighty rivers with my bare hands…… Maybe I should write Mary’s name in the snow – of course if anyone saw it – they might recognize her handwriting……..â€Â  Hoooo-boy – there is a definitive reason our folks told us why we should just keep our inner voices in.

So – back up the snowbank – Chad, Cindy (Mary now riding shotgun with her) – and me (Kayla doing shotgun duty with me) – now in my usual place as tail gunner – we started the long, but pleasant drive back down the mountain.  It was closing in on 4 PM when we started down, and with the exception of a few minor slips off the trail by various vehicles (and Rick indulging his inner child by having Jennifer drive while dragging him behind their Cherokee on a sled) we got back to the parking lot, loaded and aired up, and heading home on the interstate by 6 PM.

As to be expected – energy well spent on a trail worth wheeling with people worth knowing.  You didn’t make it this time – make sure you get out the next.

Thanks for readin’ – and KEEP ON WHEELIN’! 

Moose