Once again my club did the trail opening of our adopt-a-trail. Lonnie, the forest service ranger met us at the trailhead and gave us a speech about how important our work is and the good that it's doing for the trails. He went ahead of us with his ATV and scout out what needs fixing. We picked up trash, dug drainage channels for rain run off and blocked off illegal spurs.

After the trail opening, we headed toward slickrock but found the road to the trail was covered with about 3-6 feet of snow. I aired down to 11psi and we were off. For my first real snow run it was pretty neat and was definitely a learning experience. I got stuck a couple times with my axles hung up with the packed snow. Kind of interesting to see all 4 tires spinning at idle and not going anywhere. The 2nd time I got stuck I was really stuck. We hooked up a strap to a jeep and she got a running start to yank me out. Well, she came to a quick stop and I didn't even feel anything...I was frozen to the snow. She did that a couple times until she too was stuck. Finally, we had a 4runner yank me from behind to free me. I'm very impressed by the strength of the tow hooks.

At that point, I aired down to 6 psi and turned around. It was getting late so the rest of the group turned around too and we started back 5 miles to the beginning. The only carnage was a jeep that had lost a cap for the driveshaft U joint, effectively knocking out his 4wd.








Here's the rest of the pics:
http://www.robinhood4x4.com/gallery2...20Spicer%20Rd/


.

 

nooooooooooo runner being pulled by a jeep, no wonder you couldent get out through the front

 

Cool Pics! Reminds me of going up Iron Mtn Rd in Pollock Pines

Where exactly were you? I live up in Placerville and get up the hill alot.
If interested I am trying to get some folks to come up to Robbs Resort for the Memorail day weekend(Near Loon Lake in El Dorado Cnty) It may be busy but depends when and where you go. In any case I will bring the dig camera and catch the action .

 

was your runner getting pulled by the 4x2 jeep? that lost its cap on its ujoint? thats really sad

 

This was up hwy 4 near alpine lake, not terribly close to placerville.

No, she wasn't the broken one. At 33", I have some of the smallest tires in the club, the jeep's probably got 35s or bigger, plus they're a lot lighter than me.

 

Nice pics btw, one thing that might help on your next snow run. Once your rig starts slowing and the wheels spinning, stop, backup and go at it again before digging yourself a hole. That's one of the things I learned over winter doing my first snow runs. Can't believe how well my truck did with 31 inch BFG A/T tires and open diffs, neither could the other guys I went with hehe.

 

Yeah, a guy in the club suggested that and it worked pretty well. It's a bit different than what I'm used to in the sand dunes. When trying to make it up a dune, you can usually keep the pedal to the floor until forward progress stops, then put it in reverse and back down.