Hangover Run 2017

As Josh Tourney was the Trail Leader for this run, he has graciously designated me to do the run report.
It started off dark and very cold. As we left our neighborhood the MissUnderstood went sideways in the slick frozen surface of our roads. I knew it was going to be another adventure to remember.
We got out onto the freeway and they seemed a little better with deicer on them and we got up to speed, cautiously!
Casey my trusty copilot got on the Phone and texted people letting them know we might be a bit late.
We got out to Snohomish area and hit the fog. As I was driving and paying attention to the road Casey says she sees a car upside down right close to the highway 9 interchange. I look over and missed it but saw another car in the ditch. Ok well this is the way it is going to be? We later got a report that someone behind us had passed the upside down car and the cops were there. Geesh I hope no one was in the car as we went passed?

We made it up the Round-a-bout Chevron in Sultan/Startup area to hook up with another Tamer. They too were running late due to road conditions. We texted up a head to Ron to let him know we were waiting and he was already at the air down point by the trestle.
We finally all met up, just the 3 of us, out of 7 invites, for the early breaking trail run up the mountain.
There were other groups in the parking lot but we got aired down and heading up the mountain before anyone else and it must have been about 8:45am.

I had scouted the road the previous Thursday night and you could just barely see our tracks from it as it had been snowing a couple days since then. As it turned out, that scouting run would end up helping out a lot to get us up to the fire pit Y area that we were aiming for.
So Ron, Keith and I all headed up the mountain without too much problems.

We got up about 9 miles with Ron breaking trail then we hit some soft spots. Ron got stuck. I was able to get down into low gears and chug up alongside and get passed Ron barely to give him a small tug and he popped out. It took us about 20 minutes to get thru the next 1000 feet area which later was described as “Sugar snow”. It was soft, not packing well, and generally a pain in the rear.

We got passed that area going slow and made it up to the Y area where the Dirty 13 usually build a fire. Not a soul around and the only prints were the ones I had made the Thursday before.

We heard Josh and others on the radio about this time and we must have gotten up high enough to get signal from the highway. They were just getting off the highway at this time of about 9:45am.

Ok so now we enter into fresh fresh deep snow. I was aired down to about 1psi and figured this was as low as I could go without wearing out my tires from the inside out.  I figured if I stayed to the left at the Y I could break trail and head for the gravel pit. NOT!!
I got about 100 more feet and although I wasn’t stuck it took turning front wheels left and right and left and right to make any progress at all which was soo slow I had to look out my window perpendicular to actually see what progress I was making. I radioed back for Ron to stay within winch reach as I might need him only to hear he was stuck. Keith was behind him and still able to maneuver around a bit. So as I worked my way to turn around Keith yanked Ron back up and out with a winch pull.

By now the other group we had seen by the trestle were making their way up into the Y area and trying their hand at breaking trail. They weren’t having any more luck than we were and a few of them got stuck, one guy blew his radiator fan into pieces and needed repair.
I chugged my way back to the turnaround I had made in my scouting expedition and proceeded to break and stomp down snow for others to be able to turn around. This was a slow chugging process but it worked and us three Tamers got turned around and facing down.

It must have been about 10:30 or 11am by now and we heard Josh on the radio and he could see us. They too had some problems getting thru the “Sugar snow” but were now within site of the Y. They rolled in and said most the group was doing ok except thru that Sugar area. We ate some lunch and watched others play in the snow a bit and then figured maybe I should go check on everyone down the hill.

I made my way back down the hill about ¾ mile and there they were about  6 or 7 rigs. Most looked like they were ok but Eli was in front and had gotten stuck right in the “Sugar Snow”. I got down to him and with a quick lil tug he popped out and I chugged my way off to side in 3 feet of snow to let him pass.
Next was candidate Tim and Renea, they needed a lil help to get passed that nasty spot and off they went to the top.
I noticed about now that there were a few rigs behind our group turning around. Good cause they didn’t look like they could get much farther on their 31 or 32 inch tires anyway.

Next up were some guests of Josh named Mike and Tiana I believe. They were struggling quite a bit but we got them thru the nasty spot with a little towing and once I got off to side they proceeded on.
I got a radio call from the top that there were about 4 rigs from the other group that wanted to come down. I told them to relay message NOT to come down yet but they were not going to have any of that. So they met up with Mike and Tiana and tried to get off trail into deep snow then they got stuck. Great what a mess.

I tried to talk with them but they didn’t want to hear it. So I tried to stomp down more trail off to side of tracks but it was super soft and not good. Two guys behind the lead guy from their group that was stuck offered to stomp down a path for us and proceeded to get stuck themselves.

So we have two rigs facing down from another group stuck. Our Tamer group struggling to get uphill, it was quite a cluster**ck. As the other group worked on getting themselves unstuck, we decided to get people turned around and headed downhill

We got mostly everyone spun around and Evan was a BIG help farther down in getting people turned around and unstuck.. By this time the Tamers up at the Y were ready to come down and the other group of rigs were unstuck and weaving around us Tamers making their way past us.

It was almost 3pm by now as we all got in a line and headed down. We really didn’t have much problem until guest Colin in his well built XJ got sucked into the side and got stuck. I was a few rigs behind him but proceeded to chug out along side and almost getting stuck was able to get up in front of him to tug him out.

We all motored our way down the mountain to get to the road where we could air up and get back headed home.

All in all it was a good day. Lots of winching and tugging for some but out of our 14 rigs in our group we were successful to bring everyone home safe and sound without any injuries.. Woohooo.

I want to give a big thanks to ALL who participated and helped to make this a great Hangover run…

Gary Miller
TT256