habanero

Hi again Bojangles and it sure has been YEARS and YEARS. Capitalization warranted. I remember your name somewhat vaguely. That's not saying much, it's hard enough remembering what breakfast was.

Thanks, I've taken to calling the 96 my fidget spinner....poor thing gets picked on a lot when I need something (other than housework, always other than housework) to mess with. I've learned an awful lot since then, mostly that I haven't learned near enough!

Pics of your new truck are welcome, btw.

coopster

"oops! Forgot one!" They are watching you!!

Ms Habanero; I appreciate all the effort you went to. (I am not so certain I would be as magnanimous(?)).
Old(something) posted a few up about new greedy ceo. Here in the front range, everyone is greedy. Might be a survival instinct. Or just a reaction to the stupidity and the traffic

habanero

Afternoon, coopster.

I use this thread to remember what and/or how I did stuff, if others get something useful out of it then icing on the cake. So see, selfish.

I don't know or care about Photobucket's situation. Sure, it would have been awesome if it had lasted- way awesome- but when we use stuff on the net it's at the mercy of the site, right? Wasn't exactly expecting a no-mercy killing, thank you PB, but hey, in my case I got more than what I paid for. More than nothing for nothing. Le sigh.

Now if Yotatech calls it a day....

habanero

96 4Runner 292,183 - 295,469 miles
Old Flowers Road
Old Fall River Road
Rabbit Valley/ Kokopelli Trail
Fins N' Things
White Rim
Elephant Hill
Black Bear Pass
Imogene
Cinnamon Pass
Old Monarch Pass
Weston Pass
Mosquito Pass

Things were broken, torn up, fell off (!), bent, saw some things I wished I knew the end of the story to, caught up with the Toyota Trucks and Trails podcasts....you know, the usual. A bear got personal with the 96, we were hailed on, things happened. But not too many things. Maybe too many things, but that's okay.

In other words, it was an excellent trip.
Pics and (not of!) junk to come once I get them downloaded n'stuff. Got home a few hours ago, unloaded, rinsed off the stuff, dinner just beeped. Have a terrific evening, tonight for the first time since 7/13 I won't have to air up the mattress before I sleep on it.

chuckles89

Sounds like an awesome trip!! Can't wait for the pictures

dropzone

iTrader: (6)

sounds like an awesome vacation!

habanero

Hey Chuckles, dropzone, it was awesome!
On Friday 7/14 we drove to Wilson state park in Kansas... kind of an any port in the storm sort of place for us, so many people, so many rvs. There are a few tent areas, of course that's what we chose.


7/15 We drove to Old Flowers road a little west of Fort Collins and found a camp spot for the night. Old Flowers had some work done since the last time, less brush and more obvious where it hadn't been before. It's not a hard trail, narrow in spots and heaves that were probably put in to combat erosion- there was a massive burn there some years ago.


7/16 We finished driving Old Flowers road and went on to Rocky Mountain. We got there a bit late so ended up driving Old Falls River road up to the visitor center. An even easier road, maybe not for long vehicles but absolutely no problem with the 4Runners. It was busy but we eventually got up to the top. Up there I ended up giving a guy the gas in my gas can since his gauge said he was out. He offered to pay, I told him he should ask how much BEFORE the gas goes in but fine, he could pay either a million dollars or just pay it forward. Nice guy, the relief on his face that he'd be able to get back to town was certainly payment enough for the few gallons I had.





On the way down the west side of RMNP it went from rain to snow to hail. By the time we got to the bottom it was all wet but just rain again.


From here it's on to Winter Park. Where a bear hugged my truck. Tomorrow, because it's late and I'm tired. Good night everybody.

habanero

7/17 4:42am, Winter Park
Husband woke to the sound of thumping and messing about. We went to check it out:

And interrupted a bear doing the Yogi.


Bear smutz all down the right side of the 96, glad he or she wasn't one of those Peel and Eat bears!

After bending the clips back into a reasonable shape the Trash-Opossum was up and running again. One or two of the scratches on the 96 may have been bear related but it's hard to tell with all the other scratches.

This was our first bear encounter and the only one on this trip. That we know about. Having driven by a campsite while a bear was roaming through it as the people were sleeping in the tent....what goes on outside (hopefully!) stays outside.

Took the bikes out and rode the Tipperary Loop, always a good ride, especially the part after climbing for nearly 8 miles.


Afterwards a long drive over to Rabbit Valley on the western side of Colorado for a quiet campsite.

habanero

7/18 Woke up in Rabbit Valley, took the Kokopelli trail out. Mostly easy, some moderate spots, one squeeze between a boulder and the edge, a shelf road, a loose-ish climb. We ended up in Utah near hwy 70, close to the Cisco exit that will take us to Moab. Scenes from the Kokopelli trail:






Got to the open-air potty on the trail, opened the lid and all these gnats flew out. This resulted in a little lizard running all around my feet catching them which was....entertaining...
And also this developed on the 99 during that stop:


When I'm saying easy assume a vehicle with 4x and high clearance! More about that later.

habanero

7/18 Moab
It's hot so we did Fins n' Things because we wanted to and because a/c, the 1st half and also the alt route on the other side of Sand Flats road. After that we were out of time and took off for the Whole Enchilada bike trail trailhead to camp so the hubby could take off 1st thing in the morning while me and the kid got lazy and ate food and stuff.
Random Fins pics....I'd call this an occasionally puckering moderate trail, it's not like anything else, driving those crazy steep fins. Interesting to be so steep the truck is schootching itself downwards and all you can do is keep it straight enough and controlled. The alternate was the tallest of what we did, it was all cool.


















the kid had a ton of shots of some of the crazy stuff but the camera pulled an uh-oh so lucky you, this is all I got.

habanero

7/19 the hubby mountain biked the Whole Enchilada
Me and the kid ate food, lazed around, and dealt with this:

The pipe from the muffler is pointing straight up at the floorboard. The tailpipe......is not doing anything it's supposed to be. Thank you walker- the exhaust was rusted nearly though on either side of the flange, no wonder it broke.


uh-oh


little bitty hacksaw of cuteness to redirect exhaust away from the floorboard, leaving a 2"ish stubb for an elbow.


Elbow and muffler clamp points the exhaust away from the airbag. Hubby thought I should point it straight down but I decided downward but more sideways to avoid knocking it off while wheeling.

habanero

7/20 White Rim in the Island In the Sky section of Canyonlands NP. Shaffer trail- the long winding downhill- was closed so we took Potash Road in.
Still can't get over the crazy color of the ponds




The first half of White Rim was pretty easy for the 4Runners, got to thinking it would be a scenic drive. We spent the first night at White Crack and hiked the short trail there in the morning. Short but neat scenery. Day 2 was definitely more interesting to drive starting with Murphy Hogback. Nothing too crazy, but lots of up, down, loose stuff, shelves, cool stuff like that.










We spent night 2 at Taylor with a nice view of Moses and Zeus, another short hike we did in the morning





Next we drove the shelf road, regular rutty dirt and then up the switchbacks and off to breakfast in Moab
Here's the green truck coming up the long road

habanero

7/22 and off to the Needles section of Canyonlands and one of my favorite little drives, Elephant hill. I'm not sure what it's rated, but it's a bit trickier than what we've done so far. The trucks are built for it.

While airing down for Elephant Hill a guy came up to us- he has a nice-looking stock 2017 4-door Tacoma with running boards and one of those brush guards. He'd never been wheeling before and wanted to know if he could tag along up Elephant.

Hmmmm. We pointed out it was by permit only. That it was rough. Told him to go walk it. Still wants to go. Suggested joining a 4x club or at least starting out on easier stuff to get a feel for his truck and what protection he needs rather than jumping in whole hog. Told him he'd lose parts off the truck. Still wants to go.

Finally went over to his truck and physically pointed to his running boards, "You WILL lose these" and his brush guard "And this will get knocked off too" and the lower part of his bumper "And this will very likely get trashed too". That did it and we were on our way without him.






We camped at Devil's Kitchen that night

habanero

7/23 Woke up in Devil's Kitchen and did a 9 mile hike with a ton of fluids.




The kid accidentally kicked a cactus. It got him back.


We spent one more night in Devil's Kitchen and drove out the next day to restock and eat breakfast in Moab

habanero

7/24 From Moab over towards Silverton, not quite all the way up to Clear Lake to camp
It's been raining many afternoons, the bus depot awning was perfect for us, sometimes we velcro'd it to trees, sometimes to a truck. Sure, it's heavy and not convenient like, say, an ARB awning, but it works awesomely at shedding the water and soon you'll see another reason why I didn't mind not having the ARB.

habanero

7/25 The big day! Black Bear Pass is open! I drove it some time back but it's been closed when we've had the 99 and my husband really wanted to cross this one off. I'll call it moderate- there's some sections that are off camber and there's a few drops. There are a couple of switchbacks that require a certain amount of care.

Anywho....heading down towards the notch...

habanero

I don't really want to talk about this part but I'm going to as a....I don't know what....a cautionary tale? I'm not sure why what happened happened. Every day I looked at the suspension for funny business, what I didn't look at was the roof rack.
So I'm heading towards the notch and do a drop-off that I came down a little harder than expected on. No worries.
Half a second later something goes flying over my head and I have just long enough to register that it's my light bar before here comes the whole rack!! Still attached to the load bars!

Well. That was seriously unexpected!

At least I did a decent job of strapping everything in-
1 gas can with 5 gallons of gas
1 bones 3 bike bike rack
1 Pett system toilet
and
1 empty home depot 5 gallon bucket

nowhere near the 150# load limit.
stayed with the rack

Am now brainstorming how to keep that from EVER happening again!!! Everything was still tight except possibly one knob. The front endcaps are broken off, the rack sliders are distorted.

Luckily there was a place to park off trail so the hubby and kid moved the rack out from in front of me, grabbed all the broken bits and we got out of other people's way.
Everyone was very nice about the delay and sympathetic.

I'm not crying over spilled milk...er....rack... but it haunts me a bit- what if I'd been in a car accident and that happened? I need the rack, but definitely have to come up with a solution! I never want to be responsible for another person being hurt or worse.

habanero

It breaks down into two pieces, I was able to get everything into the truck and ratcheted in.


Would you believe a bear attack? Okay, a rack attack.

habanero

Once everything was stowed away it was onward through the notch, the switchbacks, the falls and on to Imogene.

habanero

Still 7/25, off Black Bear, up Imogene