Sometimes plans get changed or canceled. Most of the time we try to work around things. Two years ago we had to cancel our trip to Colorado. A trip that Moose and I have been talking about for at least 8 years. Last year many of our plans changed do to fires. This year there was not one reason but many that caused us to cancel going to Wyoming and instead stay in Washington state. For those who may not know South Montana and Parts of Northern Wyoming saw over 10 inches of rain. This caused major damage to the trail system including the Morrison Jeep trail. There were also many personal issues that caused several members to change their plans. I guess that is life.
Friday morning it was just Evan Wendy and I. Evan did learn that it is a good idea to bolt your hardtop down and I learned that the JK tries very hard to overheat pulling our trailer on a long grade. With that said nothing broke. We joined the WABDR in Cashmere which is a pretty steep climb. It could have just been timing but I could not believe how busy the BDR was. It has come along way from the first year we ran it when we did not run into anyone. In fact we were not even sure if you could do the whole WABDR in a 4×4 rather than an overland motorcycle. Evan and I decided we wanted to get away from all the people and we did some scouting. We found a nice little spot along a small creek which we would call home for several days. The next day we picked up Cheryl and Ryan in Wenatchee. We also had lunch in town. It is nice to know that EZ burger is still good like it was in the 90s.
We did more scouting and decided to head up to Chum stick to watch the sun set.
In the morning Evan discovered that an odd sound he heard at night on the trail was actually his Ujoint or now lack of one. We spent the rest of the morning watching Evan work on it. I have to say I got sleepy seeing him do all of that work.
(just in case someone does not know I am joking we all worked on Evans rig) Evan also discovered that he was missing a caliper bolt but that was fine as you only really need one. The outer axle was damaged a lot so we made some calls to town to see if we could find another one. No luck so the word was put out to the Tamers. It turns out that Ed had one. We started trying to pound the old u joint out but were not having much luck. At this point we just needed to get Evan back to two wheel drive mode so he could head over the pass. Time to break out the cut off wheel on the grinder. All back together Evan headed home and on the way he picked up a spare from Ed.
Cheryl had an idea that she wanted to hit North central Washington which Wendy and I thought was a great idea. On the way Cheryl suggested that we visit a ghost town. I thought that was fine as long as we could stay away from long hills in 90+ degree weather. With our jeep trying to over heat I wanted to be careful. I guess I must have said something to Cheryl for her to get back at me because we drove up a 12% grade. If I kept the RPMS low I was able to manage the heat enough to get up the hill. After taking a quick look at the ghost town we headed back down the hill to a gas station and then towards central Washington. We drove east on 20 and left on some road and ended up at Bonaparte lake camp ground. Not only did we get the only open spot at the lake but it was also a double spot so we could park next to each other. This was a relief I was very exhausted and feeling like crap from the hot weather. Luckly I was feeling better the next day.
The next few days we explored and hung out. After that Ryan and Cheryl headed to a hotel room in Wenatchee then onto the central part of the BDR. Wendy and I headed home for a day to make alterations to the cooling system on Wendy’s Jep and to pickup Emily before heading to Hyak were we spent the rest of the week camping at the family cabin.
Although not the trip any of us planned it was great to spend time with quality people. Other than the Jeep wanting to overheat which is very fixable I was very happy with the trailer. It worked great.
Cheers
Curt Brady
Acting VP
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