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03-17-2008, 08:19 AM
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#1 (permalink) |
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Contributing Member
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how we have fun in Colorado
Brand new thread to document Scooby_do getting his offroad cherry popped. In a lot of deep snow! This is gonna take me a while so be patient, I'll do it in sections since I'm at work.
Scooby - you better chime in here with your side of the story! First, scouted the area EARLY saturday morning (hit the start of the real trail at sunrise). Plenty of snow, but not too terrible. Chains handled it well, I turned around about when I got here. Had to work at 11am so couldn't risk getting stuck.   Noted good places to turn around, weather was beautiful but cold (didn't get above about 18 degrees). That was all fine and dandy, till it rained all night in town Saturday night, which meant more snow up in the hills. DOH! Well, so much for scouting, this was gonna be a fly by wire trip! Met up with Scooby in Loveland Sunday around 10:15, had a blast tearing up the twisties to get up to the start of the trail. Ok, he did more tearing than I did, my ATs will only hold so well on dry pavement. Definitely made me jealous for a turbo as I see him keeping up with me with ease on roads he's never been on. Then did some nice drifting on the 10 miles of grated dirt/gravel road. That was a hoot. Thank heavens for rally armor mud flaps, but I'm sure I was still tossing up alot of pebbles into Scooby's face. Hit the trailhead at ballard road, had some fun tooling around on the lower trails. Not much snow (no need for chains, even for Scooby and his "snow tires" which proved to be not so great in the snow...), weather was beautiful. Sunny, upper 20's. I was aware of the storm that was gonna roll in, but for the time being things were perfect!   Head back to ballard road, keep heading up the mountain which of course means more snow!
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Dash: '03 XS MT propensity for going down roads I aught not. |
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03-17-2008, 08:19 AM
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#2 (permalink) |
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Contributing Member
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Up up up we go. Ballard road is easy, that is without any snow on it. about another 1/4 mile in is when we started counting how many times Scooby could get his car stuck. If you were able to stay on the road, you were golden. However, just a few inches on the road on either side, and you're in snow up to your knees! The ATs handled themselves beautifuly, running the ruts very well. Scooby was consistently loosing traction, bouncing all over the place, which of course led him to slidding into the deep stuff. I had all my recovery gear with me, and opted this time to bring a set of ATV ramps I had which proved very useful!
   Oops, forgot to add a pic of Dash doing his first offroad extraction! (This is the first time I've ever been wheelin with another vehicle) Man it was slick under the snow around here, Scooby and I almost fell on our faces several times! I was able to connect a 30ft tow rope to my 12 foot chain so that I could get my tires on the only exposed dirt we'd seen for a while...  We reached the crest of Ballard road without chains, just dug Scooby out three times. Just a little digging, put the ramps in place, a little tug from me if necessary. I still have yet to get stuck (don't worry this WILL change). Started clouding up, but still no snow falling. There is another offshoot at the crest of Ballard, just a little loop that goes to an awesome vista of Fort Collins. However the snow was too deep and the hill too steep to attempt that one. (I'm doing my best not to get incredibly stuck, for fear Scooby won't be able to pull me out) Looking down on the other side of the crest, the snow is deeper but still managable with chains. Time to chain up! And away we go back down the hill. With the chains on, Scooby did a brilliant job staying within the ruts. His [beautiful] skid plate did it's job wonderfully, I'm quite jealous. Well, we make it a bit down the road (I have no idea of distances at this point as we were taking it pretty slow), and man is the snow getting deep! I'm keeping my eyes out for a place to turn around, but no luck. We can't back up the hill, nor can we do a 6 point turn on the trail cause the sides are so deep. No choice but to keep going until we find a spot. Dug out Scooby another time, then he gets stuck again but heck if I can back up the hill to get to him to help. I go forward a bit, around 2 more turns and EUREKA there's a spot to turn around! Just a place protected by the trees so one side of the trail isn't deep. I make it turned around, head back up to Scooby to give him a hand. Round the bend, and there's an old isuzu trooper with some decent tires and a wench that's caught up to us. woohoo wench! (insert jealousy). 
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Dash: '03 XS MT propensity for going down roads I aught not. Last edited by Smash81 : 03-17-2008 at 09:38 AM. |
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03-17-2008, 08:20 AM
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#3 (permalink) |
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Contributing Member
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I hop out of the car to go meet the driver of the trooper, his name is Kurt and is up there with his wife Karla, they're maybe in their mid 40's. Great couple, completely hysterical. They're from Loveland, but come up all the time to help keep the trails open (I think that was their excuse to go play in the snow like teenagers
 ).Well at this point the crystal snow just below the surface is becoming a pain!! Even the trooper (with 4 low and good tall tires) was getting stuck! He was working on getting unstuck to a point where he could pull out Scooby backwards, Scooby and I are digging and placing ramps to try and get him unstuck coming forward. Sometime around here a MASSIVE scout shows up! Unfortunately I didn't catch the name of his driver and passenger  , but it's two guys in their late 20's early 30's who are members of the mountainers, a serious local 4x4/rock crawler club. Man this was a serious vehicle! ARB/Warn everything, big lift, tires, wench and a sweet sounding hypercharged chevy 350 V8. The driver does all his own wrenching, and definitely knew how to handle his right. Well, he basically hung out behind the trooper while we all worked to get unstuck. (here's a pic of his rig later, the only one I've got) This is also about the time snow starts to fall, slowly but gains speed throughout the day. I think it's about 1pm... Well, we got Scooby unstuck (inch by inch, we'd get him out and he'd slide back in, several times), and his confounded chain breaks!  We try to rig it the best we can, but nothing works. (note to self, bring d rings or something in the future...) I'm facing Scooby, so time for me to back down to just a bit to a wider area of the trail, so everyone else can get around me. and the moment you've all been waiting for, i get STUCK! oh yes, miserably, beautifuly, completely stuck.  LOL I hate backing up, especially in a situation like this, just can't control the car to keep it from going into the deep ruts. Lots and lots of digging, leapfrogging the ramps for the tires in the ruts, and some pulling from Scooby and I get out enough to get down the trail a smidge and get out of the way. Well, then who gets stuck again? scooby!  In the same rut I was in. Keep in mind we've still got the trooper behind us (he gets stuck and unstuck a few more times, but with the low range is able to get himself out pretty easy), and the scout behind him. We all decide to make a plan (and have a beer, thanks scooby!  ). Walking down the trail a bit, we check out where I turned around. There is also another offshoot here (too deep for the Foresters, but the trooper will handle it with a run and of course the scout won't have a single issue), so I'll stay out of the way (got myself stuck again, backed right into a bunch of thick tree branches. doh), everyone will get by me, we'll get everyone turned around and head back up the trail together. (Snow is falling harder, but we're all having an absolute blast helping each other out, I love Colorado people)My apologies for the lack of pics, we were all busy digging!
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Dash: '03 XS MT propensity for going down roads I aught not. Last edited by Smash81 : 03-17-2008 at 09:30 AM. |
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03-17-2008, 08:20 AM
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#4 (permalink) |
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Well, with more leapfrogging of ramps, digging, and all of us pushing Scooby, we finally get him past me. Keep in mind one of his chains busted, so we took the other one off. Hardly any traction for him with his snow tires, looked more like performance oriented all seasons to me by the tread pattern. Needless to say, he makes it to about the first turn and he's stuck again. Kurt and his trooper head past me to help Scooby out, the scout comes to give me a quick tug out of the muck I'm in. Well, me and the scout driver and passenger realize Scooby is stuck, so we walk down to give them a hand. At this point, Scooby got a bit farther, and got stuck trying to turn around!
Snow is falling harder, temp dropped to about 21, but we're all in fantastic spirits. It's beautiful up there, and with good company and laid back attitudes, getting stuck this much can be seriously fun!  We decide to get the trooper turned around first, using the offshoot. Get scooby unstuck enough to move him, Kurt's gonna need a bit of a run as the snow is deep. A couple of tries, things are going well, then I hear this little *pop. Insert curse word, there goes the trooper's front right hub!  So he's down to rear wheel drive, and stuck. NEW PLAN! The scout will get turned around and help me up the hill, then come back for Scooby, then back again for the trooper. Thankfully we're not far from the crest, once we get to that all of us will be able to get out. Alrighty, so I'm first. Tugs me out of the hole with the tree branches , unhooks me. We'll hook me back up if I get stuck running up the hill, but will follow him under my own power as long as I can. Hehe, had a good time opening his eyes to the power of subaru on that hill! Followed him right up, no issues. You shoulda seen his face!!  So he turns around, I get up to the crest. I figured this was gonna take a while, so I'm about to fall asleep when these two guys coming walking up from the other side of the crest.  Evidently they've got a '90 F150 4x4 completely stuck just around the corner! Doh! I'd been sitting there, about to fall asleep, for 20 minutes and had no idea they were there. So I drive down, and again behold the power of the subaru! Actually towed that behemouth forward about a foot. I couldn't believe it, this guy was really really really stuck (on terrible tires). Levi was the driver and sam (i think) was his passenger, had just come up to get to the crest and hike around a bit. He was completely high centered. I realize I'm not gonna get him unstuck, so we just hang out waiting for everyone else. And here comes the scout FLYING up the hill with the trooper in tow, bouncing back and forth in the ruts. " Well, Kurt's got a wench, so he comes down to try and get the ford out. Yeah, that's not happening, it just pulls the trooper towards the ford no matter how we work the cable. time to wait for the scout! More bsing, chatting, laughing, telling stories of the day. at this point the snow's coming down hard enough to cover us and the cars very quickly. Up comes Scooby! Who I guess got up most of the hill under his own power!! WOOT! Scout comes down, yanks out the ford like it's nothing.  We all head up to the crest so we can get facing the same direction and head back down.   Heading back down the hill is wonderfully uneventful. Everything's getting blanketed in a fresh layer of snow. No wind (we were lucky!), temps hanging in there in the low 20's, absolutely perfect. Once we hit 44H, Scooby and I head up a little further to the stone hut for sandwiches, beer, chit chat and the obligatory photo shoot!! (had to attach one of the images, i can't seem to get it to host correctly)  Got back down just fine, in foggy and blizzard conditions most of the way. Woke up this morning to about 5-6 inches of fresh snow on the ground! Trail damage: more scratches for me and a little less clutch disk, at some point Scooby lost his rear wiper arm (he'll have to chime in with how that happened). Scooby's cherry has been busted, I had a blast, we met some great people. Oh, and Scooby wants to go up again! Albeit once some snow melts... ...until next time... Smash out!
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Dash: '03 XS MT propensity for going down roads I aught not. Last edited by Smash81 : 03-17-2008 at 10:09 AM. |
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03-17-2008, 08:40 AM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Contributing Member
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well like smash said the day started out well, the twisties leading up to the trail head was a hoot unwinding lock to lock. then we headed out up the mountains in search for some fun times, and man did we find them. as we were heading up we scouted the roads ahead to see if the snow was hard enough for us to make it through, unfortunately that trail was still too soft for us to drive in and i thought our drive was over,but smash knows his way around up there and found some offshoots for us to have fun in. he lead the way on this trail (sorry i dont know the names of the roads yet), beautiful scenery, snow was getting deeper with ruts, crests, and snow drifts on both sides but still a very enjoyable drive. then the roads just kind of disappeared and the only way we could follow the trails were the tracks of some snowmobiles. it was then i started noticing that my tires were starting to lose grip and i was sliding all over the place and eventually got stuck in a rut against a snow bank. BIG THANKS TO DASH AND SMASH for the awesome recovery. further along the trail the crests and ruts got bigger and am i thankful i whipped those bash plates on! to be continued...
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PSM '04 FXT 4EAT |
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03-17-2008, 09:33 AM
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#10 (permalink) |
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Woohoo! Looks like a right proper adventure, guys. Nice pics! I would have been in the ditch with scooby, that looks very soft!
Glad you got back down before the storm hit, too. We got 6 inches of spring snow in Fort Collins so I'm guessing at least a foot fell up where you guys were. Good timing! 
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04 XT 5MT |
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03-17-2008, 05:50 PM
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#15 (permalink) |
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Contributing Member
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yes i have a grand ol' time even though i kept getting stuck constantly it was awesome. i plan on going back up in 2 weeks when the snow has melted a bit more. ill write up the rest of the story as soon as i get home. been busy today with st. patty's day and all
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