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.
Saturday I was up at 5:00 or so to load the jeep. I ended up leaving the house a little before 8:00 and was at the lake stevens Safeway fueled and ready to go at around 8:45. Chris was next to show up in the short bus. As we were waiting there was another group of Yodas forming up. I walked over and said hi. They seemed like a nice group. The good news is that they were headed to another location. Good for us. I noticed they did not have that many winches in their group. I am sure they were going to be getting very stuck. More and more Tamers rolled in. Gary in his super Sammy entered the parking lot and drove right to the group of Yodas. I am not sure, but he may have been trying to join them. After some convincing, we got Gary back over to our group. It was a pretty good group. Lots of JLs plus old iron like the JKs an LJ and don’t forget the Super Sammy. 9 in all would leave with us and Ed would meet up somewhere along the way making 10 total.
It is a short drive to Green Mountain and Ed did in fact find us as we rolled past Granite falls. As we pulled off the main road and onto the snow filled dirt road to green mountain there was another group already airing down. While airing down another group of rigs rolled by. Some of their rigs just screamed gaper. No Judgement here we all started somewhere but you can just tell some rigs have no idea what they are doing just by looking at them. For example, Stock jeep with gas can, traction boards high lift and all the other accessories. Again, there is no judgement I just did not want to be behind them. The good news is that they had to air down too so we passed them heading up the hill. This would mean that we were almost the lead group. There were 3 other rigs ahead of us, but they were way ahead. The snow was wet which means that traction would be good until we got to the deep stuff and then there would be no bottom to it. The drive up was good. I did hear of a few issues in the back of the line but nothing that was too much of a problem.
At about the 2500 foot mark the snow changed pretty quickly. The trees changed from mostly green to mostly white. This is where I got a bit of a surprise. I tagged a low hanging branch enough for the snow to sluff on to the roof of the jeep. It made quite the noise. The first recovery that I helped with was when Dave in the brand new 2 door, I nick named it “yellow jacket”, slid sideways into the ditch and was completely high centered. Chris in the short bus was right behind him. What was a little entertaining was that since Dave was still in gear the tires where spinning. After some working we were able to get the yellow jeep back up on the road. This is where we discovered that Dave’s tires seemed very inflated. They were all set at 23 and above. With some help from the rest of the tamers we dropped the tires to 10ish. With the tires at a better snow wheeling pressure we were off again. I was making good progress when I ran into a soft spot and sunk. Gary got the Sammy around the front and we un-spooled my winch. This is where I learned that I had forgot to reconnect the positive lead on the winch. I can only blame myself as I have had the battery in and out many times. At least it was a quick fix. As I winched out I could somehow hear Casey talking about collecting a winch fee. It was well worth it. Gary drove a head and found a good turn around. It was getting deep and it was time to head back. Gary packed the snow as best he could which would make turning around easier. When turning around Dave did manage to go just a little too far and drove into the soft snow. A little winching, we were able to pull him around.
Down the hill we went. This time it would be the 7 in the ditch. This one is a long story. We had two rigs from behind. One winching and one as an extra anchor. On top of that we had another rig in front. Once we got everyone unstuck we were off again down the hill. All in all, I think it was a pretty good day.
Thanks all see you next time same bat time same bat channel.
Curt Brady
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