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08-09-2009, 02:40 AM
Wow, I'm beat.
Anyways, Pam and I had planned on taking the trailer out today to test it out, and then camp tonight somewhere. Last night after work we decided we might as well just leave then since we could get to Dakan rather quickly and camp two night.
We're on our way to Dakan going up the gravel road off 105 and there's a Ford Super Duty or Excursion going reaaaaaally slow in front of us. Then he pulls over to the left and lets us by. He proceeds to follow us up the switchbacks VERY close on our tail, and at one point killing his lights completely, but we were still able to pick up his reflectors. Needless to say we were ready toWe hauled balls up to the wide spot at the beginning of Dakan and waited for him, but he never showed up. So that was kinda weird. We go past the first few camp spots and they're empty, so we're thinking "sweet, we've got the run of the place" and that we'll get one of the really good spots down south a bit. Well of course they're all full, come back up Jackson Creek, they're all full. We get back to one of the first spots on Dakan and grab it.
The trailer was doing amazing through all of this, couldn't even really tell it was back there.
We got up this morning with the plan of heading back down to Rampart, up to 67 to Deckers, and then up to Pine Junction, down 285 to Jeffeson, then up Georgia Pass and kinda see where that took us. We came up on some type of accident on 67 involving a cyclist. Couldn't tell if he just wiped REALLY hard, or if someone hit him, but he didn't look too good.
We grabbed some more beer in Bailey and headed off towards Jefferson and quickly made our way up Georgia Pass. Georgia Pass was one of the first couple trails I ran in my ZJ back in the day, so it was kinda cool to go back and see how much easier and faster it is on 35's.
From the bottom of Georgia Pass we headed up the North Fork of Swan River. I wanted to get over into the Deer Creek/Webster area before we set up camp, so we passed up a couple primo camping spots on the east side of Swan. We were making our way up to timberline through some pretty steep sections, and I was pushing the trailer pretty well, and it handled everything great. I'm coming up through one particularly steep section that was kinda U shaped and you drove in the bottom. Well this guy on a trials bike is coming down VERY fast and he tries to go up the side of the U around me. Yeah. That didn't work. He ate shit right in front of my Jeep. I had stopped for a bit at this point, and I didn't feel any impact, so I knew I didn't hit him, but he was screaming something fierce. I instantly thought back to the guy earlier on 67 and was already figuring out what the quickest way to get this guy out of there was and get him to EMS. Luckily he just tweaked his wrist a bit and we were all on our way.
Shortly after that we made our way to the top of Wise Mountain and checked out the cabin up there and a couple goats walking around. Goats apparently really enjoy human urine. As soon as I started peeing, one of the goats started heading right for me. Once I was done, he started licking it off the ground. Pam and I just kinda sat there like "uhhhh, dude, we've got some water if you're that thirsty."
I'm fawkin beat. I'll finish the rest and get pics up tomorrow.
08-09-2009, 03:45 AM
Sounds like a good time! I'm still damn jealous of your new toy though....can't wait for the pics!
08-09-2009, 01:10 PM
Working on the pics now, should have them done shortly.
Forgot to mention in the first post too that when we ate lunch at the top of Georgia Pass we discovered that those little plastic egg "protectors" don't do much. 11 of the 12 eggs cracked and our ice was now a mixture of ice and raw egg.
So after the goats we continued above timberline a bit. Amazing views up there. We could see Red Cone in the distance, Georgia Pass where we were earlier, Breckenridge, Dillon Reservoir.
We headed down Deer Creek since it looked like that would get us back down into the trees the fastest to set up camp since it was now about 3:00 and I had hoped to have camp set up by 5:00 so we could kick back and relax a bit. All the camping sites we were coming across were full. We got down to where Webster comes in and headed up Webster, the only one open spot there was right out in the open where Webster comes down and Radical Hill goes up. And the temp display in the Jeep read 37*. No thanks!
We went up and over Webster. Some had said there was a nasty washout on the south side of Webster. We saw where we think they were talking about, but really it wasn't bad at all. Passed a couple more great campsites that were already occupied on our way to the old bog area. Unfortunately it's quickly becoming a bog again. It was a bit surprising when one of the holes swallowed my 35's. Luckily I was able to maintain momentum and get my Jeep and trailer through it without issues. This wasn't your typical Colorado dirty water mud either, this was some goopy shit.
So we got down to where Webster and Red Cone split off, trying to find a camp site still, and they're all full. We went up the road just west of Webster hoping to find something, and there were a couple open, but they were a bit small.
On our way back down I notice the trailer starting to make a bunch of noise. We had been going at a rather brisk pace as we were closing in on 8:00 without a camp site and I wanted to find one in a hurry. I jump out and find the lunette of the trailer on the ground. The receiver pin had fallen out somewhere and pintle hook worked its way out of the receiver. D'oh! Luckily this all happened right in front of a campsite occupied by some other Jeepers and they all came out and helped us out. We couldn't find the other receiver pins I thought we had, but we walked a ways back up the trail and found the pin a couple hundred yards away. NO sign of the little k-clip or whatever you want to call it though that holds the pin in. That could've fallen off anywhere so we didn't try looking for that. One of the Jeepers had a spare and thanks to him we were on our way again.
At this point we decided to just say F it and go home. Little did we know how good of a decision that really was.
I hadn't quite been thinking it through completely when I put our cooler in the back of the trailer. It's one of those Coleman steel belted ones where the latch holds it shut, but they don't quite seal. Any ways, over the course of the day the chicken and brats we had in the cooler got wet. And with the bouncing around in the trailer, they were literally liquified into the water and ice. And don't forget about the eggs that were already in the ice. Then a couple beers and some soda exploded as well. And since the cooler doesn't quite seal, a lot of this "mixture" made its way out of the cooler and into the tub of the trailer. Nothing outside of the cooler got damaged too bad, but it was naaaaaasty. The sleeping bags were a little wet, as was the bag for the tent. So a new rule on the coolers, drinks go in one cooler that goes somewhere less bouncy (I also can drive a bit slower, but thats no fun), and food like that will go in a separate cooler with frozen water bottles as ice.
It was a looooong day yesterday. We got up at 7:30 and broke camp and by the time we got back home and cleaned ourselves and the gear up a bit, it was almost 1:00AM. It was still an awesome day though. We covered a TON of ground, and I got to go on a few new trails that are within a couple hours of my house.
Here come the pics!
08-09-2009, 01:16 PM
Top of Georgia Pass
Old mining ruins, and in the distance what we would find out is park of the North Fork of Swan River that we would go on later
Goats, cabin, and Jeep on top of Wise Mountain
more goats
the view up here doesn't suck
Pam's Jeep with the trail in the background
It was a bit windy up here, and apparently midgets once inhabited this cabin
Goat licking up my piss
onward and upward!
Coming down the south side of Webster
08-10-2009, 01:49 AM
Turns out the trailer did sustain some minor damage too. Part of the c-channel on the a-frame buckled a little bit. Might weld up some reinforcement for it.
08-10-2009, 10:01 AM
Nice.
I would've confronted the superduty before even getting on the trail, but that's just me. People like that piss me off.
08-10-2009, 12:06 PM
I thought about it, but the road was a narrow shelf road at that point and I knew I could outrun him on the trail if need be.
08-10-2009, 01:28 PM
Great pics man! The trailer is looking really good. The goats, however, worry me a little bit.
08-10-2009, 04:12 PM
It's lonely up there...Originally Posted by Elliott
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