July 2008 |
Another impromptu weekday night run to Chiva falls with the Tucson gang! SonicFJ, TrAiLbUs1 and TrAiLbUsTy1, microbe and myself set out for what was guaranteed to be an evening filled with excitement and entertainment. The first order of business was for Sonic to show us that he is a man, no a gorilla, amongst us mere boys by going DOWN the center of three feathers.
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We drove from Wilcox back to Phoenix via a dirt route and met our friend dizzyspots along the way. There was a return party scheduled in Gilbert at SDHQ. They do all kinds of stuff from sales and basic installations to high end custom work. A few FJ's have gone through there and their work is obviously extremely good. What's cool is that the owner, Ryan, opened up the place on his off day (Sunday) just for our party! Woohoo! My birthday was a few days before and I was surprised with a super awesome cake of an FJ driving over a mountain or something. Here I am treating the cake FJ in the manner I do my own...
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Just when I thought the adventure was over, we discovered something very interesting on the way out of the campground in the morning... the only way out was completely blocked by a HUGE tree which had fallen apparently some time during the night. Fun!
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The day I dreaded was drawing closer and closer - soon the trip would be over. We were to cross into Arizona today, a symbolic end to our journey. Because of problems with gated ranchlands near the border, we were on pavement for much of the day. We passed this HUGE mine... here you can see one of those dump trucks that are the size of a house.
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Just to change things up a big, I decided to pitch my ground tent for the night. Nathan and I found a small clearing and set things up. In the morning we awoke to find that I'd nearly slept on a cactus, and Nathan had in fact slept directly on top of a huge ant hill!! He was fine inside, but the whole thing was pretty funny. Lance split off the group to explore one last possibility of an alternate route while I drove back to the muddy water crossing to see how it looked. In a bold and courageous sacrifice of his own body, Nathan ventured into the unknown depths to check the surface quality and depth.
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Once it was light out I walked back up the trail to see what we'd done the night before. The amount of 'construction' we did was amazing, and you can see some of it in this pic. But like all things, pics do no justice...
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At the BUGS campground in the BUGS morning there BUGS were lots of BUGS little things flying BUGS around in BUGS the air. I BUGS couldn't be sure BUGS what they were, but BUGS they kept landing on me... maybe BUGS some kind of BUGS alien life form. I'll never BUGS know for certain. Once back on the road, it was only a few minutes before disaster struck yet again. Another tire gone! Fortunately this time it was actually caused by something and not just a random explosion like I'm used to... The tire appeared repairable! Check out Lance's writeup of the repair and our impressions of the ARB tire kit on the Disabled Explorers website. The offending object turned out to be some kind of fishing implement!
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Making breakfast I discovered something shocking that I'd grown to take for granted thoughout the trip. My fridge had died and was over 80F inside. This was especially a problem since any inspection of the fridge and its wiring required removing incredible amounts of crap due to the comical over-packing of my truck especially after the Summit where I gained a few huge boxes (i.e. complete suspension system). I had little choice, so I unpacked most everything to get to the back and sides of the fridge. My first course of action was to see if the fridge itself was still operational. I suspected it was since they are pretty renowned for reliability, but best to check anyway. Plugged into the AC, it whirrrrrrred back to life instantly. Must be the DC juice that's off. Plugging my cell phone into the DC outlet for the fridge... sure enough, it was dead. I took the top off my Don Box and what had happened became clear. The cheap plastic battery box had broken on the bottom and the battery, though strapped to the floor, had enough room to wiggle about an inch forward. It was just my luck that the wires happen to be tangled in such a way that this movement pulled a crimp apart and opened up the circuit. An easy fix, but kind of annoying. Most of the contents of the fridge were OK after a night at high temperatures... but getting everything packed back into the truck resulted in even greater disorder and tightness. As if a commentary on the state of my truck, we passed through Hell's Gate at the begginning of the day... It was sort of creepy how the cloud seemed to point us into the gap in the rocks. Certainly, this is where our doom lies.
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The day after the Summit was a bit uneventful. We left town late in the morning just looking to make any amount of distance. There was quite a bit of time to get through New Mexico and no set dates along the way, so the rest of the trip promised to be a bit more relaxed than our race to get to the Summit on time. After an experience like the Summit, finding inspiring scenery for pictures is a bit more difficult... we did pass a cool lake with some sailboats on it, though.
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Late last night, after going back and forth on what to do, I officially wimped out on doing Black Bear Pass today. The thought of doing it alone was a little scary, but adding the whole 'exploding suspension' thing into the mix made me think it would be a tremendously bad idea. Fortunately I received word that the crew from FJC-Central were going to do the Alpine Loop, so I thought I'd go with them and take it easy. Only a couple miles into Alpine, the shocks had clearly leaked the last of their fluid and the truck was almost impossible to drive (why I even went out I'll never know). Hitting a rock about an inch tall would send the front end flying into the air, only to crash down into the ground, and over and over again... I embarrassed all of FJ kind for a huge group of Jeeps when I was coming back down the trail by struggling madly to descend a couple of 1-3 inch rock steps without smashing the front end into the ground. It was humiliating, for sure. I told the guys at All Pro about my predicament - that I still had a week of the expedition to go, we were scheduled to be back on the road/trail the next day, and I had an undrivable truck. They helped my out big time with a seriously hardcore discount on a FOX 2.5 front and FOX 2.0 rear system that they had with them... now I would just need to install it somehow! I pulled the FJ up into the parking lot of the Best Western and, just as the raffle was beginning, started to tear down the front end. The raffle went something like this, "And the winning ticket is BRABRABRABRABRABRA *CLUNK*" Luckily I had the invaluable help of Mr. R2 and we were able to get everything done. Luckily too, Lance and I had every possible tool between us including air compressor, CO2 tank, impact wrenches, etc. Oh, and knowing how to install suspension was a bonus, too. ;)
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After an amazing day at the first day of the Summit, I was excited to rise and face day two! The original plan was to run Ophir, but I learned from talking to some folks that I might prefer to do Imogene and it just happened that the R2's were doing that this morning... I met up with them only to find that our trail leader had not showed up! Fortunately we were more than equipped to lead the group, the R2's took charge, had a brief driver's meeting, and we head out!
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At last, the long awaited FJ Summit! After unloading a ton of crap into my ground tent at the KOA and turning it into a kind of 'stuff cache,' I head over to their Kafe for breakfast. Meals at the Kafe were cooked up by a delightful old couple who were incredibly friendly and exceedingly good cooks! Each day they had cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven... yum! I was scheduled to do Alpine Loop and met up with my group in town. It was fun to hear the designated simplex frequency abuzz with chatter about the summit by all the HAMs in attendance. Not much to say for the trail, hopefully the pictures speak for themselves. It was raining at the top of Engineer and at one point we were driving directly through (and then above) the clouds!
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Because I had to split from the group to head into Colorado Springs for some personal business (banking), this day was a break from the expedition and spent almost exclusively on pavement. The night before we'd camped in a random pasture, which is admittedly one of the strengths of the whole roof top tent deal - the ability to camp literally anywhere (weird grass and cow poop included).
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This was a day I had been very much looking forward to. Finally we were in the mountains of Colorado. There is a reason Colorado is known for it's mountains despite the range covering many others states and we were about to experience it to the fullest. We met up with Scott ('Sky' on the forums) who would be our local guide for the day. Scott was, despite his modesty, a master photog and taught us many things over the radio throughout the day. Plus, it was pretty cool to see his 150-pound, 100,000-megapixel camera with a 57-foot lens... slight exaggeration, maybe.. but still very cool. Also, Scott is without question the only person in the world to have a white All Pro roof rack!
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We spent much of the morning in Rawlins running errands for the trucks. I needed an oil change (badly!!), Michael continued his quest in search of a shock for the trailer, and Lance had to find some bolts that had rattled loose out of his skid plates. I found a 'fast' oil change place, but like the bulk of our other experiences in Rawlins... I would be there all morning waiting. As soon as I became excited to get out of Rawlins and back to our own pace on the road and trail, everything came crashing down in the form of insane construction. It was one of those 'one-way with a flag dude' things, but was miles and miles long. We were stuck. On the map it appeared that we could bypass the whole mess by going near 'Adams Reservoir' so we gave it a shot. The trail to Adams was primitive and overgrown... perfect.
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The day in Atlantic City began with.... MAN BREAKFAST. Not really anything special, just eggs, toast, OJ, and Red Hot, but still quite a bit manlier than cereal or something. This also gave me a chance to test out my $2 toast thingy, which in fact works quite well.
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The Grand Tetons are absolutely wonderful, much more cut and jagged than the mountains I'd seen to this point along the Continental Divide.
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As we awoke next to the lake, we were happily surprised to learn that the bugs sleep late and we'd be able to enjoy breakfast without breaking camp. Back on the road, we crossed the Continental Divide several times, occasionally marked by really cool huge signs.
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Last night Nathan and I went on a small side-trail excursion away from the group that lead to some good muddy fun. As night fell, the effectiveness of both my headlights and HID's was nonexistent... we were able to imagine why, and as the sun rose in the morning we confirmed it. oops.
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With its epic scenery, incredible hikes, and wonderful campsites it was hard to leave Glacier National Park but come morning it was time to move on. We stopped at a few lakes, waterfalls, and rapids on the way out and got back into 'dirt mode.'
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After a last minute change in plans and a pretty good delay, I finally met Lance just north of the Canadian border. We looked around for a campsite and found a nice one next to a lake called Dorr Road. After camp was setup, I went over to the lake to attempt some night images of the lake (none of which worked) and started talking to some folks who had a campfire by the water. They were some crazy Canadians and we wound up talking for a very long time, having a great time. In the morning we hit the first sections of the trail. It was a lot of fast dirt roads through some thick, though often burnt, forests.
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I stayed at the Mosquito Creek campground, hoping the name was something of an irony. It was a great night! The campground was typical of national parks - assigned spots, picnic tables, etc. but there were a few additional treats available including a HUGE stash of available firewood and a hut with a wood-burning stove. Back on the road, the scenery madness continued.
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By the afternoon I'd arrived in Banff... wow. Banff National Park is the first national park in Canada, and only the third in the world. It only took me until the end of the day to decide that this is in fact the greatest place I have ever been.
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I have two and a half days to make the 1,000-mile or so trek from Winnipeg to meet Lance in Cranbrook, BC. The plan is to blast across Canada on the Trans-Canada highway, giving my enough time to head north of Cranbrook aways and visit Banff and Jasper National Park. So far so good, I don't meet Lance until tomorrow evening and am only about 6 hours from Calgary. Nothing really notable happened on the way, except for this.... I've been making fun of the name of this town since I was very young. And now, finally, I have been there. My life is complete.
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A huge thanks goes to Woodhaven Toyota of Winnipeg for storing my FJ free of charge at the dealership while I was gone on my fishing trip. Secure storage of my truck and all my gear was a very important logistical concern and Myk Shane of Woodhaven came through big time for me, even moving the truck indoors at night in the service bay. Helping me out like this was really impressive since the dealership is literally in a different country and they really stand nothing to gain by doing this for me. Myk and others at the dealership were very enthusiastic and interested in stories about the FJ and how it came to look the way it does. All in all a great experience! After the time I had there as a random dude from 2,000 miles away, imagine how they must treat their legitimate customers!
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Day four brought devastating news... a province-wide fire ban was in effect and there would be no shore lunch. NOOOO!!! Oh well, at least there would be fat steaks at the lodge for dinner.
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Day three of our fishing adventure brought more crappy weather. Fishing in the morning was slow, also, which is odd since the general feeling is that the fishing improves when the weather sucks for whatever reason.
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After being assured relentlessly by my dad (who controls that weather) that there would be nothing but blissful sunshine, we head out for the day into cold, strong winds. At this point I was VERY glad I'd stopped at the Cabelas in Grand Forks for rain gear... boat rides in the high waves and wind were basically like sitting and having 5 gallon buckets of water repeatedly dumped over your head. One interesting thing about the weather up there though, is how quickly it changes. This is the scene when we stopped for lunch...
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