The morning didn’t start out well for me…..I accidently changed the time on my alarm clock, one hour forward while setting the alarm to get up an O’Dark am on Saturday. Of course this caused my alarm clock to go off an hour early, which most of you know, is not a good thing for me! Just as I was about to go back to sleep, a HUGE Hail storm hit and rattled the house…..fine, I will just get up, since the universe didn’t want me to get my beauty rest!
We headed out, knowing we would meet up with Cheryl, Ryan and Travis on the way, as we were all leaving at about the same time. We stopped in Sultan to grab some morning goodies, and still no word from Cheryl, Ryan and Travis. We get to Reiter and still no Cheryl, Ryan and Travis….obviously they are running a bit behind, though when I talked to Cheryl, it sounded like she was already on the road. Maybe I misunderstood. Yes Gary and I arrived at Reiter at 8:55am, with Kevin Vanderhorst of RRR on our tail, and ahead of Ed Tenney, by about 60 seconds! BTW – Ed had long pants on…go figure! Other attendees were Rudi and Melissa, Jeff Lefleur, Josh Yeager, Candidate Chris Ledger……but still no Cheryl, Ryan and Travis.
As we gathered for a short safety meeting, finally the arrival of our lost Cheryl, Ryan and Travis….they managed to pass Deer Flats road, and go to Index for a morning drive!
We split into two groups, one heading to the Tight n Twisty trail to block some by-passes, including Ed, Rudi and Melissa. The rest of us Tamers and some others, loaded rock into our rigs and buckets, and headed out to the Water Fall on the G9 Trail. This has gotten dug out over time and needed some traction rock and some fill. We finished this pretty quickly and headed over to the G11 trail to do the same to another water fall area. During this time frame, we had rain, sleet and hail….then more hail that hurt when it hit you, and covered the trails and rigs. Once that was finished, it was close to noon, and so we took a short break for lunch/snacks.
Scotty really didn’t have much else for us, as we had accomplished his main task, plus another. He had word of several tree blow downs, up on the single track trails, so most of us decided since we were already there, and committed to getting some work done, we would head out and get those trees cut and moved. Off we went to the upper regions of Reiter, where the ghosts of passed trails had been and old fun times, were being remembered!
We found the first group of blow downs, and quickly cut and removed them. Found the 2nd group and quickly cut and removed them. On to find the last group, which sounded like it would be several trees bunched together. Well, we found them…on a single area of the single track trail there were 5 trees down, completely blocking the trail with a couple trees that block the same trail more than once. Most of cutting and removal was done, some of these large trees, proved to give us some trouble. The last tree, had fallen at the edge of the trail, then crossed over the same trail again, so had to be cut in 2 places. Again, this was not such a big deal. What gave us the grief, was the root ball and stump that was left across the trail, and the chainsaw now out of fuel. Scotty went back to grab fuel, and found Rudi and Melissa and another wheeler, who came to help with this endeavor. Meanwhile, the rest of us are using whatever means including a highlift jack, to try to push this stump back up, and out of the trail. As the jack began to bend, we tried to wedge logs under it, to at least keep the small bit of progress that had been made. When the others returned with more fuel, they also brought extra straps and a come along. There was no way to get a rig up behind this root ball, to simply winch it back, so manual labor was the only way to get this done. This is also in a spot where recent timber has been cut, so there was little to connect to. While several found a sizeable stump to connect to, and rigged the come along to try to pull this stump back into the hole, the rest of us cheered them on. Each person take 3-5 pulls on the come along and then let the next guy try. It was finally moved, and stable enough to let the single track people get through the trail, without injury. About then, it began to snow…………..That was it, we were done for the day!
Thanks to those who were able to come out, and thanks for reading!
Casey TT #256
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