The world offers opportunities for a new experience every day. Like – I’m going wheeling at Denny Creek. (Well – that isn’t so new.)
Okay – I’m towing Moosenstein to Denny Creek. (Been there, done that. Many times.)
Okay – how ‘bout – I’m towing Moosenstein to Denny Creek behind Ol’ Blew – the 37 year old Montana style Ford pickup truck with the non-power drum all-around brakes, bicycle skinny tires and the Armstrong steering. (Oh – okay. THIS oughta be interesting.)
Why, you ask – WHY do you feel the need? Well – not that Gigantor couldn’t do the job – but the forecast was for snow. And I really thought that I wanted to tow my 4 wheel drive behind something with – well – 4 wheel drive. Call me crazy, but there it is. I belong to a wheeling club. Not a “I slid off the Interstate into a ditch because I have two-wheel-drive” club.
Ol’ Blew has been through a lot. Not at my hand. He used to belong to the late husband of my sister-in-law. For over 30 years, Blew sat in the Montana sun, and wind, and cold – sometimes sitting for months between starts. Yet – with the faithfulness exhibited by an old dog or a long time friend – Blew generally came through regardless of the task set before him. Not fast, not flashy. Not even necessarily economically. But – he got to the task, and got it done. So was the case for Denny Creek, faithfully towing Moosenstein to the mountains and back in one piece.
So – the day started with my concern for even getting to the appointed meeting place at the North Bend outlet malls, being that I’d never before towed my Jeep behind Ol’ Blew. Sometimes you have to prepare the best you can, and then you hand things over to faith and fate. Blew’s oil was changed, the spare brake controller installed, the wiring harness checked out for the proper connections (ground added, and brake connection relocated,) the tires pumped up and trailer ball installed. The CB seemed to be working okay – and slow but sure, Blew, Moosenstein and I started out the driveway.
But what of the Divine Ms. Auto-M? This day, she was looking to put her rig to the snow test – the previous year’s DC run ending in a slip or three into tow-fee territory by the shoulder of the road. Chalking it up to tires used well on the trail, she just figured that her new shoes would keep her rolling through the snow. She was my wing – ma…… er – wing woman. Anything looking not right and she would let me know.
It was in the Mt. Baker tunnel on I-90, came the first intimation of possible trouble. Blew felt okay, if anemic, plodding his way through the inky darkness. Mary got on the radio saying she was seeing sparks. No smoke, no flames – just occasional and indifferent sparks – under the front of the trailer or the tail of Ol’ Blew. I was relieved, knowing that there were a few different combinations of safety chains available for my use – and I probably hadn’t done a very good job tying the loose ones up out of the way. Gauges/idiot lights looked good, and Blew wasn’t protesting in any unusual way – so we decided to keep on going. Speed was good going downhill (maybe even a breathtaking 55MPH – exciting with the “no-room-for-error” steering), and usually didn’t drop below 40 MPH going back up. Well – 40 in 3rd gear. It wasn’t even going to think about going faster uphill in 4th.
I was glad to see North Bend come into view, and heading down the outlet mall exit, having the trailer on with brakes REALLY improved Blew’s braking performance. This is a sad commentary on any vehicle saying that it stops better hooked up to a loaded trailer – but oddly par for the course in a rig whose net worth is doubled just by filling the tank. As we were pulling under the bridge, I noticed another truck flat-towing a rig around the roundabout, like an off-road merry-go-round. I went through and saw the truck follow, like an iron bar chasing a magnet. It was Doug McClane, who was worried that we’d already up and left him behind. I’m sure he was just confused, because for once I was leading a run, AND got to the appointed meeting place almost 10 minutes early. His wife Cassey was also along for the ride, wisely heeding Doug’s admonition to go wheeling, and leave her cares at home for a day. He was glad I had Moosenstein on the trailer, since Blew isn’t yet a recognizable presence like the ‘Burb or Gigantor. As long as it’s snowing, that’s how M-Stein will be going!
Well – I wasn’t the earliest arrival, because Claire and Mike were waiting with the new trailer and El Tubo the stripped Cherokee sitting on top, looking nothing like the Community Transit supervisor’s vehicle it once was. North Bend was relatively hospitable this year. Not much wind really. A little rain coming down, but not snow – not yet. As we waited – others gathered up. New member Lane in his Unlimited and son Logan pulled in. And Keith and Adrienne – sans children this time. It was anniversary number 15, and they were celebrating in style – no kids – in a newly lifted Cherokee, with slightly taller tires. Keith had asked me what you get a woman for her anniversary when she could no longer easily get into her Jeep. I suggested a rhinestone encrusted stepstool. This response may explain my current marital status, and Keith’s absence of bruising probably speaks volumes about how he wisely did not follow my advice.
Anyway – by 9:25 – only one more had joined our hearty band. Tom Baker showed up towing a strange site we haven’t seen much of in the recent past – the newly renovated Bakermobile. I was starting to think that Penny was practicing some weird ventriloquism – like somehow Tom was stuck in the driver’s seat of her Jeep, but possibly her hand was stuck up his backside causing him to work the pedals like some kind of deranged off-road ventriloquist’s mannequin? Oh – that’s just too wrong to even consider! (The horror. The horror.) But all kidding aside, it was good to see Tom’s CJ back on the trailer and ready to romp. So – up the mountain we went.
It wasn’t long before we started to see snow on the windshield, then the road. It was a great day for a drive up the Denny Creek Road. After all – it was a driving snow! After missing the Denny Creek exit the last 2 times I’ve made the pilgrimage out I-90 to make this run, this time I got it dead on. Not hard when Blew isn’t doing more than about 35 anyway. Before getting to the top of the exit, I decided it was time to twist the hubs on Blew. By the time we pulled off, it was snowing quite convincingly, and there was already a few inches down on the untravelled exit ramp. A left and a right, and a straight – and we were ready to offload and air down. The parking area was just wide enough for me to turn the trailer and Ol’ Blew around. I’d learned my lesson from my last snow travail – er – I mean – snow day on the trail with Gigantor. Turning around is a task much better done in the light of day, when we’re all still fresh and can see what we’re doing. At least – I wanted to end my day just putting Blew in a forward gear and driving off, rather than struggling along in the dark.
So – with soggy tires, crisp temperatures, snow coming down, and spirits going up – we trundled on up the road. I never anymore get on the Denny Creek Road without my mind reflecting on Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” (ahem….)
Whose woods these are, I think I know.
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow…….
To the end of the plowed road we go. I’m always concerned that some wisenheimer will have parked his or her car across the end of the road instead of alongside – keeping us from hitting the trail. Closest I got to that was the one year the road ended in a 4 foot high hardened bank of plowed up snow when Rick Krog and I ran into an apoplectic Northwestern Braying Gray Ass. As we chipped away enough of the bank to get our rigs on the trail, he kept haranguing us about how we couldn’t go up the road. To my relief – no such wildlife was in view this time around, and the trail eased up onto the first bridge. There were not even the the Sputtering Long Planked Snoot Sniffers. Last year I ran into one of those forms of wildlife, sputtering and complaining of exhaust fumes and engine noise, also wondering why we had to be driving our rigs down what was somewhere underneath the snow – a paved road. Hmmm – last time I checked – usually vehicles were meant to be on roads, while cross country skiers were actually supposed to be going – well – cross country. (What a concept!) There was evidence of a few Hooded Plod Footed Snowshoe Trudgers – but they appeared to generally be well mannered and docile. Some even smiled and waved as we passed. In fact – once the going got deep – they had a chance to pass us.
So – Tom broke trail, with Mike and Claire digging holes in his wake. Keith and Adrienne were doing pretty well behind them, and I was just Moosing along. Auto-M was doing well behind me, with Lane and Doug following behind.
There really wasn’t much drama. Just the slow steadiness of Tom breaking trail, Mike digging holes, and Keith and Adrienne getting……getting……hmmmm – make that – getting stuck. Even though their Jeep had grown some, it finally started getting deeper than Keith’s back and forth rocking could conquer. Although I dare say that he did keep things going until we had just about broken out of the woods onto the first open switchback.
Meanwhile – back in the pack, Lane was doing pretty well keeping his Unlimited going, with its 31 inch tires and open diffs. I kept expecting to see him down in a hole somewhere. And he just kept on coming. As for Auto-M – well – let’s just say, modesty prevents me from revealing the status of her progress in the snow. I think a time or two, maybe more; she was seen to be pushing Moosenstein up the trail on a strap. I was very fortunate to have her back there pushing, pushing, pushing. You know how they say – behind every capable wheeling man, is a capable wheeling woman – pushing him along on a strap…. Yes indeed – they do say that. I think its old dead wheelers say that, whose bodies have been inexplicably buried somewhere beside the trail…….. It was also just before this point, that Moosenstein suffered trail damage he never had before seen. With the snow, I had the windshield wipers lazily making their swooshy arcs across the glass. All of a sudden, the arm on the driver’s side wiper just parted company with the blade, not even breaking in half as much as just letting go, the wiper arm parting at the rivets holding together blade and arm. Fortunately – in the olden days, unlike in new cars today, the left and right wiper arms were of the same length. So – it took only a few minutes to get out and transpose right wiper to the left so I could see to continue on my way. If I gotta have things break on the trail; I pray they are all so simple to fix as this.
Well – Keith parked just shy of the first switchback, but everyone else had broken out into the open up to the second one, where the road nears the interstate. Tom and Mike and Claire kept on slowly pushing up the trail. Moosenstein had finally succumbed to its overbearing weight and low armor cladding on the rear diff. I didn’t get stuck, but I couldn’t seem to stay on top of the snow enough to keep making progress – even at 3 lbs of air. Auto-M dropped some more air to make progress, but that scrumbly snow that gets knocked off from above off the interstate is like wheeling on ball bearings the size of medicine balls. If you got any mass, you just don’t ‘stay up on top of the stuff. Tom and Mike, with their light rigs, were doing alright in the ever-deepening snow. And then – to my surprise and amazement – is a guy that’s joined us on other Denny Creek trips. He drives an old Dodge import – actually a short wheelbase Mitsubishi Dodge had brought in the country for a few years – that is locked in the back, has low gears he had to import from Australia, and was plenty light enough to bypass all of the Tamers, on his way to joining Mike, Claire, and Tom. I figured he’d be stuck in no time – but the guy knows the tricks for driving in snow – and making due progress – he had disappeared back into the woods up past me.
Mary, Lane and Logan, Keith and Adrienne, Doug and Cassey and I finally decided maybe it was time to turn around and take a slow wander back down to the trailhead. It was obvious that we were in the waning part of the afternoon, and the falling snow was becoming far more insistent in its task of covering the countryside. Checking with Tom, they said they had made it to where the road goes under the interstate almost at the summit, and they were going to head down. I slowly headed down the hill, waiting at Keith and Adrienne’s rig while they got turned around, seeing Tom and Mike approaching, back up at the 2nd switchback. Adrienne took over the driving duties in order to execute the 180 – and amazingly – she did it so much more smoothly and easily than Keith did. I just don’t know exactly what that means – but I was not the only one to notice it. I figured the rest of the trip would be a satisfyingly easy measured step down, when I heard an uncharacteristic radio call from Tom. “Tom James – DO YOU READ ME?” Rousing from my state of semi-hypnosis, I called back that I copied. He said, in no uncertain terms, “I need you back here! I am BROKE BAD!!!”
Well – that piques my interest like you just wouldn’t believe – because Tom is the last guy who would make a bad break sound like it was actually really a bad break. At the very least – I needed to see this – because my visions of Tom’s being badly broke were maybe that he had somehow pulled his own beating heart out of his chest, and couldn’t quite remember how to hook all the blood vessels back up correctly when reinstalling it. (This very act being a new feature in strip mall health care, at a newly franchised do-it-yourself health care clinic called “Suture-Self.”)
I sent the others ahead of me to get back out to the road. Doug and Cassey had some child care duties to attend to, and I couldn’t see keeping anyone else while I got turned around to see what was up. Auto-M parked her rig in a snow drift and piled in with me, and back up the hill we plodded to see what could possibly have gone awry.
Well – once we got to almost the very spot I had last seen Tom – what to my wondering eyes should appear – but Tom’s Jeep in a hole, front end tweaked out to here……. It was kinda hard to comprehend. There was really only one hard part in the whole trail – and it was on a corner where you could see the pavement peeking out of a hole, about 6 feet deeper than the surface on which we were driving. I see Tom’s Jeep on its side, hard against the bank – in the hole, with the entire front axle assembly pointed almost 90 degrees to the right. More intriguing was the frayed cable at the end of Tom’s winch, its hook having parted ways from it; his dangling front driveline, with the little Mitsu-Dodge having Tom’s rig on a cable from the rear, and Mike having another cable connected to Tom’s cage via a snatch block to a tree. It kinda looked like Tom’s Jeep and the front axle assembly had had a dreadful spat, and the axle appeared to have gone its own way off in a huff.
I’d have to agree with Tom – he was broke bad. And of course – it was mostly from forgetting Tamer Rule #1 – there is really never such a thing as an easy run. There is also a corollary to Tamer Rule #1 – and that is – the easier you think the run is, the more likely you are to break something bad the closer it gets to being too dark to see. However – even though Tom’s Jeep was pointing west, with the front axle heading due north, sporting a spring pack in the shape of the letter “U” – on the up side, Tom’s Jeep is a shackle reverse – and he had the good sense to stop the festivities before he had entirely ripped his entire suspension off the frame. The front ends of the both springs were still attached to the frame. And Auto-M had had the incredibly good sense to grab her come-along out of her rig. So – Mike kept a tug on Tom’s rig to pick the weight off the driver’s side. The little Mitsu-Dodge put its winch around Tom’s left front knuckle, and started tugging that back to where it started to point the same general direction as the rest of his Jeep. Finally – everything kinda lined up – and then Tom tied off the left side of the axle with Mary’s come-along to the cross member – which already made things look MUCH better. Then – it was a much simpler task to pull Tom back out of the hole he drove into – on purpose I might add, so we could discharge the next job at hand. This was to set his bead back on the front left wheel.
So Mike, who was pointed down the hill, got out of my way, since I was pointed up the hill. I had to get into position to do two more things. I needed to snatch onto Tom’s rig to pull his front drivers side wheel off the ground, while staying close enough to run an air line from my tank so he could inflate his tire. So – we got tugged and set, front tire off the ground. I had the air tank full and the York pumping at about 2000 RPM – an-nn-nnnd – Tom couldn’t get the bead to set. We couldn’t keep air in the tire. Of course, the darkness of day’s end was pressing even closer in upon us. No – no one had a ratchet strap handy…. BUT WAIT! I did have one of those one piece ratchet straps holding my gas can on – and it couldn’t have been more perfect. Still – it took a few times setting the bead, applying the strap, pumping the air. Washing the bead, setting the strap, pumping the air….. A few times – but we had all the tools we needed, and Tom had the skills and the patience to keep at it – and finally – he slipped the strap off the tire, while it fully plumped onto the wheel with a satisfying SNAP!!!
To make sure the front didn’t get stressed too much, Tom got to push me down the hill on my strap – but pretty soon, it became apparent that he’d be okay. I had that satisfied feeling inside – as if everything I had picked up over my last almost 12 years with the club totally clicked. Between all of us, we’d McGyvered Tom’s rig back onto its wheels so he could get it out of the woods. We all had a part of the necessary tools, we all had the skills, we made our plan, and everyone was coming out of the woods – more or less in one piece – or one piece enough to make it home again.
Mary’s rig had settled hard into the snow by the time we reached her rig, and it took just a little tug to get it out. At the trailers – Doug and Cassey had had to leave, but the rest of the Tamers were still waiting faithfully to make sure we were okay. About 8 to 12 inches of snow had covered everything while we were out exploring. Some of us decided to complete the night with new gustatory explorations through the victuals at Stan’s Barbeque in Issaquah.
I got Blew running to warm up, and tied down Moosenstein. As I kicked the snow off my boots, ready to get settled in for the trip back, Robert Frost spoke his parting words in my brain…….
…..The woods are lovely, dark and deep –
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep; and miles to go before I sleep……..
– Moose
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