Whipsaw pictures
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HeadDamage
- Horn Blower
- Posts: 574
- Joined: Thu Mar 18, 2004 3:21 pm
- Location: Calgary
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shawn doherty
- Wrecker Bait
- Posts: 212
- Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:09 pm
- Location: Kingfisher BC
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DaveB
- Defender of the World
- Posts: 1749
- Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 7:45 pm
- Location: Vernon, BC
5 Rovers headed to Lodestone Lake on Friday night.
Land Rover Series III, Shawn & Charlie
Land Rover Defender 90, Bill
Land Rover Discovery II, Dave, Pamela, Willow, Oliver
Land Rover Defender 110, Kris
Land Rover Defender 110, Pete & Georg
Also, joining us on the trail, Wes & Mike in Wes' Jeep. (HoT)
The road to Lodestone was easy, and we did some cleanup of the site, along with Shawn and Bill painting the sign and outhouse. At the current temperatures up there that paint's gonna take 2 weeks to dry.
We then headed down the trail to see what it was like. Well before we got to the Badger turnoff we were encountering about 2 feet of snow on the trail with fallen trees every few hundred metres. Some quite big, but not nearly as large as the tree fallen across the road on the Nicola Valley run. Kris was out cutting in most cases well before we caught up to him. Thanks Kris for breaking trail.
After about 3 hours, where we could drive quite well if we stayed on top of the snow and didn't dig through, things started to change. For one thing, we were getting into hillier and steeper terrain, which resulted in tree-holes on each side of the road up to 4 or 5 feet deep. If you slid into one of those, not only was it gonna be a tough recovery, but body damage against the tree was inevitable. This presented some significant challenges as the trail is already narrow in many spots and this further narrowed it.
Around 4 hours out, we came across the first major dip, which crosses a stream and has been the scene of some of the mud-bogging over the years. I needed a tug u=out due to my BFG A/T tires, but the mud terrains made it up. However, the next few hundred metres get steeper and in a short while it was obvious that with the depth of snow increasing, and many more trees fallen, we weren't gonna get through this trip.
So we rallied and had lunch back at the dip as there was actually some solid ground to stand on. After lunch we started back. Well, the weather had changed, getting much wetter, in fact we were kind of in the middle of some clouds. this changed the consistency of the snow and parts which had held up the trucks weight before started collapsing, while other sections became like hard rock as the water packed into the snow. This made for a winchfest which lasted almost 5 hours as we drove sometimes as little as a few metres, then hooked up and winched again, then inched forward... Pamela and I were getting pretty good at tag-teaming the winching, only to have the winch cable on my new Warn 9.5ti let go under load and the gears spin free. That was the end of our winching for the day.
With Wes turned around and Mike shoveling, we were extricated from our predicament and from that point we had to be tugged a few more times now without the winch. Talking around the fire later, the change in snow conditions almost felt like the trucks had lost some of their 4wd ability. More than once I wondered whether I had lost the front drive shaft, but really nothing had changed on the trucks, just the snow had changed.
Bill and us got back to Lodestone around 8:00, and Wes & Mike headed home shortly after that. Kris showed up another 20 minutes later, after having abandoned the huge tree he had been dragging for firewood. It took another hour for Shawn and Pete to appear, as they had to contend with the tracks (and holes in the snow) caused by all the other trucks, which made for a few extra helpings of winching. But Shawn was smiling as his winch had stood the test.
We decided to head down the mountain and out of the clouds, and ended up at Copper Mtn Pub for a late dinner at 10 PM, followed by a rather sleepy drive to Copper Creek campground, which, thankfully was empty. We had a nice quiet night and disbanded in the morning.
Whipsaw 1, Rovers 0, but next try will be July 7th & 8th, so get ready!
Dave
Land Rover Series III, Shawn & Charlie
Land Rover Defender 90, Bill
Land Rover Discovery II, Dave, Pamela, Willow, Oliver
Land Rover Defender 110, Kris
Land Rover Defender 110, Pete & Georg
Also, joining us on the trail, Wes & Mike in Wes' Jeep. (HoT)
The road to Lodestone was easy, and we did some cleanup of the site, along with Shawn and Bill painting the sign and outhouse. At the current temperatures up there that paint's gonna take 2 weeks to dry.
We then headed down the trail to see what it was like. Well before we got to the Badger turnoff we were encountering about 2 feet of snow on the trail with fallen trees every few hundred metres. Some quite big, but not nearly as large as the tree fallen across the road on the Nicola Valley run. Kris was out cutting in most cases well before we caught up to him. Thanks Kris for breaking trail.
After about 3 hours, where we could drive quite well if we stayed on top of the snow and didn't dig through, things started to change. For one thing, we were getting into hillier and steeper terrain, which resulted in tree-holes on each side of the road up to 4 or 5 feet deep. If you slid into one of those, not only was it gonna be a tough recovery, but body damage against the tree was inevitable. This presented some significant challenges as the trail is already narrow in many spots and this further narrowed it.
Around 4 hours out, we came across the first major dip, which crosses a stream and has been the scene of some of the mud-bogging over the years. I needed a tug u=out due to my BFG A/T tires, but the mud terrains made it up. However, the next few hundred metres get steeper and in a short while it was obvious that with the depth of snow increasing, and many more trees fallen, we weren't gonna get through this trip.
So we rallied and had lunch back at the dip as there was actually some solid ground to stand on. After lunch we started back. Well, the weather had changed, getting much wetter, in fact we were kind of in the middle of some clouds. this changed the consistency of the snow and parts which had held up the trucks weight before started collapsing, while other sections became like hard rock as the water packed into the snow. This made for a winchfest which lasted almost 5 hours as we drove sometimes as little as a few metres, then hooked up and winched again, then inched forward... Pamela and I were getting pretty good at tag-teaming the winching, only to have the winch cable on my new Warn 9.5ti let go under load and the gears spin free. That was the end of our winching for the day.
With Wes turned around and Mike shoveling, we were extricated from our predicament and from that point we had to be tugged a few more times now without the winch. Talking around the fire later, the change in snow conditions almost felt like the trucks had lost some of their 4wd ability. More than once I wondered whether I had lost the front drive shaft, but really nothing had changed on the trucks, just the snow had changed.
Bill and us got back to Lodestone around 8:00, and Wes & Mike headed home shortly after that. Kris showed up another 20 minutes later, after having abandoned the huge tree he had been dragging for firewood. It took another hour for Shawn and Pete to appear, as they had to contend with the tracks (and holes in the snow) caused by all the other trucks, which made for a few extra helpings of winching. But Shawn was smiling as his winch had stood the test.
We decided to head down the mountain and out of the clouds, and ended up at Copper Mtn Pub for a late dinner at 10 PM, followed by a rather sleepy drive to Copper Creek campground, which, thankfully was empty. We had a nice quiet night and disbanded in the morning.
Whipsaw 1, Rovers 0, but next try will be July 7th & 8th, so get ready!
Dave
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DaveB
- Defender of the World
- Posts: 1749
- Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 7:45 pm
- Location: Vernon, BC
I just got a call form the Warn repair depot in Port Kells where we dropped the winch off Monday afternoon.
The repair guy said, yes it was covered under warranty — whew! He said he had never seen anything like it inside, every gear was just exploded and the entire guts are being replaced. Their hunch is that something may have been wrong with one of the gears which failed under load causing the rest to be destroyed in the process. He said he'd have a baggy of parts when I pick it up in a couple of weeks...
Dave
The repair guy said, yes it was covered under warranty — whew! He said he had never seen anything like it inside, every gear was just exploded and the entire guts are being replaced. Their hunch is that something may have been wrong with one of the gears which failed under load causing the rest to be destroyed in the process. He said he'd have a baggy of parts when I pick it up in a couple of weeks...
Dave