Well, Matt and BLACKDOG stayed the night Thurs at the trailhead and cooked us breakfast for us early morning arrivers. Mom and I got up at 3am and left at 5am on Friday, ended up hitting the trail at 11am
Our group started off consisting of myself, my mother, and Mr. FFC, yota18, Snowshoebrue, BLACKDOG, Spotter, and mikerob, blackdiamond, Billy and Tomoko (a couple from SF who are lurkers on the board - time to join up Billy!!!), JayD, Chris and Donora (K5), Rob and Becky (tube buggy).
Our friends in the K5 tore a tire at Gatekeeper, and about 500 feet later busted the steering shaft in the steering box, so we went on without them in hopes that they could get the part they needed and catch up with us. Our first huge obstacle was on Walker Hill when BD busted his first half shaft, and realized possibly his hub was busted as well. My mom and I waited around a couple hours and started hiking to Buck where Matt's friends were camping. We arrived at Buck within about 90 minutes, and hung out and had dinner with them while we waited for Matt. Several hours later, the rigs still hadn't arrived, so we set out on a "Matt Rescue Mission" as his buddy Chris called it.
Well, 4 rigs heading against the flow of traffic can't make it far when there's a busted birf/knuckle in the way on the trail, so we helped them move along out of the trail until we hit the slabs. Once we hit the slabs, we saw someone flashing us from Old Sluice. Come to find out, someone had rolled up there and needed a winch up. (This is around 11:30pm by now). We took about a little more than an hour and got them rolled back over, then headed up the slabs lookin for (by this time, what was left of our group) Matt, BLACKDOG, Snowshoebrue, and JayD. We found them at the top of the slabs and headed back to Buck. Come to find out, Matt had thrown a few beads and JayD twisted his rear driveshaft. About 20 feet from the campsite, BLACKDOG busted another axle
We called it quits a little after 1am and probably laid down to sleep around 2.
The next morning, we all woke up and ate a quick breakfast. Snowshoebrue welded straps around and down JayD's driveshaft, and BLACKDOG replaced his half shaft yet again.
My mom and I started walkin to the Springs. We figured we could at least help out there at the Springs if Marlin and Chrstine needed a hand. After saying our hello's and all, the gang finally showed up around 2 (I think). We set up camp, had the usual tri tip dinner and raffle - which was a BLAST!!!
Sunday morning Marlin's Alternator went out, so he trail fixed it and headed out Cadillac. We headed out Loon around 10am, with Jud and Snowshoebrue. At the bottom of Big Sluice, BigMike, TURBO, and a bunch of other folks joined up with us. About halfway up Big Sluice TURBO busted a birf, so that laid us over a couple hours.
After the birf incident, we all hit the trail and had an eventless trip until just below Little Sluice where Jud blew a bead. We fixed that and got him through. I started driving the rig at Soup Bowl. About 500 feet later, I busted the tie rod end
And to make matters worse, it was on FLAT GROUND!!
Rick from Canada made quick work of helping us replace the tie rod (courtesy of fordh8r
) and we were on the road again. Again, eventless until we got to Granite Bowl where Matt and I ran out of gas. Thanks to some guys from Toy Connection, we were able to siphon some gas from one of their jerry cans and get back on the trail.
We got to the trail head around 11:00 and loaded up our stuff, said our goodbyes and headed home.
A big thanks to everyone who helped us out, and it was a pleasure wheelin with all of you!
