~ jbjeep & MudBall's webpage ~
Naches
– June 06
Trip Motto: “Remember,
it stays light until 9pm…”
|
Thursday
15 June I loaded up and headed out around noon or
a bit later. Circumstances had changed
things around, so I had already loaded my Jeep up on the trailer behind my
friend Steve’s big Dodge earlier in the week. I headed up to |
|||||||
|
|
|
Friday
16 June Up late, a kind of leisurely
morning. Getting to sleep in was
heaven! Best night’s sleep I had
had in days. When we woke up Rex was
missing. He didn’t come when we
called. Steve took a walk around the
campground looking for him and letting people know we were missing a yellow
dog. He sort of shrugged and said he
will come back. So, we got the rigs
unloaded from the trailers, and about 11 or a bit after we headed out for
some trail. It was Dan and his
grandson Kyle in the flat fender and Steve and myself in my TJ. No one else had made it for Thursday
night. We headed out up the 676 trail
that is right across the road from the campground. It’s a pretty trail, and sure enough
it started to look familiar in spots to me.
This was the 4th time I have run up in that area, but I do
not know my way around. I had a map,
but it was one I picked up in 1999 at the Gad-Zuk’s run up there. We played around, having a good time. Finally we came to a spot I couldn’t
make. A steep cut out clay hill with a
huge puddle at the bottom (we were trying to go up). We could have winched it, but I figured
with just two rigs, why bother. We
headed back down and checked out some roads, and eventually found another
trail to play on. It was a nice
day. When we returned to camp late
that afternoon we spotted Rex curled up asleep on Dan’s trailer. We saw that he was chained there, and his
food and water had been moved over there in his reach. On Dan’s windshield was the following
note: Hello, I found Rex about 9 miles up Ravens Roost. Apparently he had spent the night with some
dirt bikers who couldn’t keep him off of the bed. They fed him a full pound of cooked bacon
for dinner and eggs and toast for breakfast before letting him continue his
adventure. I split my lunch with him
while we patrolled the Little Naches and looked for you. He was a great partner for the day and
would make an excellent ranger when he grows up. If you have any questions or concerns,
please don’t hesitate to call me at the Naches Ranger Station 356-1431. ORV Ranger Aaron Schlosser I was laughing so hard that it took me
three tries to read the note out loud to the others. That was one tired puppy dog we had. After a while we got a fire going and
started dinner, and folks started rolling in.
First was Brian and Blake, and Mack and his son Kenny. Then came Todd, and last to roll in was Keith. We had spots for everyone. |
|||||
|
Saturday
17 June Not long after we got up in the morning,
I saw a familiar looking green truck pull up.
Sure enough, it was ORV Ranger Aaron, stopping by to check on
Rex. We talked for a while,
Aaron’s brother works on my district for the Corps of Engineers; he is
stationed on the dredge Yaquina. We
both got a laugh out of that, it is such a small world! He wanted to make sure that Rex was ok, and
we had come back to get him, and that he was left in the right camp for
sure. He was pretty sure, he said,
since he had seen a piece of mail on the dash of Steve’s truck and the
name on it matched what was on Rex’s tags. He said he had fed Rex banana bread the day
before and had he not had tags on he would have taken him home and probably
kept him. After a bit we all got loaded up and we
headed out for the trails. The group
decided that since Wildman was missing I was now the defacto leader. So I grabbed either Keith’s or
Todd’s trail printout and map, my map, and we hit the road. Today we were headed up top to Moon Rocks
and Funny Rocks. I have been to Funny
Rocks once, but not to Moon Rocks. The
first little bit of trail we hit on the way up was a nice hill climb, we had
Rex bail out and run along side (have to tire him out somehow), and then we
went up it, and then no one showed up, and no one, and no one. Finally Mack came up and told us that Keith
had a breakdown, so we went down the hill to see what was up. Once we got him running again, we headed
back up the hill and after a little guessing and no wildly wrong turns we
were up on the ridge. We headed over
to Moon Rocks first to play, since it was the bigger area. I headed for the top of the rocks and
stopped to look things over. After a
bit of looking around Brian headed down into one of the cracks to play. Keith headed down another. Only, as he topped out on the rocks
something went “pop”… turns out there was a press fitting
in his steering that he didn’t know about and it broke apart. We brought my Jeep down and put the winch
line on him to stabilize him and he ended up welding it right there in the
rocks. Once that was finished, he was
able to continue playing. I also did
some playing around in the cracks. It
was pretty fun. After a while we
headed to the lower side of Moon Rocks and Keith found a crack that he liked
and with Todd spotting, headed up. It
didn’t look too bad, so I followed once he was at the top. Only, it wasn’t so easy, I kept
falling off the rock and out of the line I needed. After a bit of mucking about with wheels in
the air, Steve hopped out to take a peek (either that or I scared him,
lol). It only took a minute or so
after that and I tried going forwards again and up she went and bang! Over on my passenger side I went. Luckily I didn’t have far to go. I managed to climb out and the guys got the
Jeep back on its wheels and I got back in and backed down the hill. Some scrapes here and there and a hole in
the sheet metal is all. Nothing too
bad. Funny, no one else other than
Brian wanted to try that line after that.
Brian did his usual magic and walked up the whole thing like it
wasn’t even there. We then
checked out some stuff further down, and then we headed over to Funny Rocks,
which is a smaller area with a different composition to the rocks. Keith, Todd, Brian, and I played around a
bit. I discovered that I had a tire
too low, and every time I went over a rock I lost more air (there
wasn’t all that much in there to loose). Mack got me aired back up and once Keith
and Brian got tired of playing we headed on down the trail. The intent was to head along the rim and
then catch the 676 trail down to camp.
Only trouble was we ran into more people, snow, and some
Rhino’s. This was fun, we had to
get turned around, get out and stay ahead of the “Rhino
pack”. All was going well, until
one of the rigs in front of us got stuck in the snow. He dug, and dug, and eventually Todd was
able to get into position and pull him out.
The next rig was a bigger rig and clawed thru it. I was not able to get over the ice bar that
they had created and had to winch, after being pulled back several times by
Brian. Brian just bonzied up the trail
and hit it hard and not only went over it, but broke the ice bar out of the
trail. No one else had much
troubles. We went back the way we came
and headed down the mountain for camp.
Once we hit the end of the trail, we tossed Rex back in the back of
the Jeep. He seemed quite content to
ride for a while. When we got back to
camp he just curled up in a little yellow ball and stayed out of trouble. A while after dinner Keith and Todd
talked me into a night run. I told
Steve I would go if he went, so he kept me company. Dan decided he was too old for it and
Brian, Blake and Mack just wussed out on us.
We headed up the 676 trail again.
Wow, it’s a whole new trail in the dark, even when I just ran it
the day before. It was a fun little
jaunt. We were only out for a couple
of hours. I was too tired to do much
more than that. We sat around the fire
for a while after we got back and then hit the sack. |
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
Sunday
18 June This morning Todd decided that he would
lead. He had a trail map and such that
he had downloaded for the trail to what I think is called So from there we headed down the trail
again, only soon after Mack lost a brake line. So those of us in front bailed out onto the
road and waited for them to get it fixed and catch up with us. From there we headed down the gravel road
to camp. I took one wrong turn and instead
of putting us on the road to camp we came out one road lower on the highway. No biggie, might have even been
faster. We got back into camp and
everyone started loading up gear and rigs for the trip home. |
||||
|
Tales
From the Trip Home: Todd:
Did everyone make it home OK? I pulled in about 9:30 and just dumped everything
on the garage floor. Keith, that was
some serious head wind coming through the Gorge. Did you have trouble? I
couldn't get into overdrive until Cascade Locks. Did you notice the traffic
advisory sign flashing coming down the hill from Goldendale? I'm guessing it
was warning motor homes and trucks about the wind - I tuned to AM 1610 like
the sign said and got nothing but static. Keith: I
got in at about 10:40pm. LONG
drive. I saw Brian pass me just as I
was getting into We pulled into Goldendale for gas and
dinner, and while Todd and I were talking standing next to the trailer he
noticed something hanging down below the spare tire on the tongue and said
"What's that?". I looked and
saw a fuzzy brown thing hanging from the C channel below the tire. Didn't know what it was, so I bent down to
look. Imagine my surprise when I saw
two little beady eyes staring back at me!!
Apparently sometime before we pulled out from camp WAY back up on the
mountain, a ground squirrel had decided my trailer tongue was a nice place to
take a nap (or maybe hide from Rex).
Poor little thing had managed to hang on through the bumps, twists and
turns, and occasionally 65 mph speeds for 2 hours!! I managed to convince him to hop down and
he scurried away to make new friends and find a new home. Dan: We
got home about 7:30, I think. No
problems. 10/4 on that head wind. Still cleaning stuff up. Great trip. Steve
& Jenn: We headed over Chinook pass on 410,
figuring to hit the cutoff (SR123) and end up back in the Packwood area and
head into |
|
||||||
