This Saturday Guy (May 16).

I am thinking meet at the Silverfork store at 9:00 AM, gas up and head around the corner to the trail head. I am not sure what the Silverfork store has for food but my bet is if they have anything it's only pre-made so I will probably pack all my food this time. When Tim and I stopped at Pollock Pines Shell station last week the Subway was order ahead by phone and pickup only, but I didn't see anyone in there so not sure if they were actually open.

Be sure to post here if you are coming so i know to wait, I have a friend interested in the club who is coming along and possibly a friend of hers.

We were on the trail a little bit after 10 am, 4 rigs (3 JKU and a nicely built TJ), sunny and warm, beautiful day. Made it up through V-Rock and Squeeze Rock in good time without seeing anyone on the trail. A little further up we hit a patch of nasty slushy snow. I hiked up a bit and it looked like if we could get through it and the next patch we might be in the clear so we spent about 2 hours getting everyone through them. I plowed some tracks through but the next rigs all had to be winched, other than the TJ we were all fighting getting high centered and by the time the last JKU was in the snow was ugly. A couple motorcycles showed up that had been further up and said this snow was the worst of it. We got through and were working on the next patch when Craig5_12 hiked up from the nasty patch below (new guy that wants to join a meeting and donate the recovery rope he ended up with). He helped us get through that last patch, we chatted a bit and then headed up hoping we were in the clear. About 10 minutes later the trail was lost in snow as far as we could see and it was 2:00 so we decided to have a bite to eat and head back down. Heading down was pretty quick until we ran across a stock sequoia and slightly built older ram truck. We were arranging vehicles so that the four of us could pass and the truck decided to try and tap his buddies bumper and ended up crunching the whole rear of the sequoia in, busted window, kids with no seatbelts on and a really pissed off girlfriend/wife. We could not get out of there fast enough but I did give them club interest cards

It was a great day, learned a bit more about winching and rigging (got to use my snatch block) and we got through mostly unscathed. I pulled my synthetic winch line out of the retaining clip on the drum (the clip stayed but the line pulled out of it). The most line I ever had out still left a full drum and a half covered so does this mean I did not pre-tension enough? We were pulling on it pretty hard, I noticed the mount plate bent a bit. It looks like the retainer could have been crimped on a bit better so I am going to take pics and sent it to Smittybilt, see if they will send me a new one that I can keep as a backup to a better one.

Craig - I forgot to mention on the trail, I was the guy playing around with the expanding foam to seal the gap in the fender well, did you by chance get to take a look?

Guy and Lynda said
Thanks Jamie for the report & the fact that all you made it through OK. A good thing that others went with you. It's hard to imagine getting stuck up there by yourself & having to hike out to cell service for help.

There are rules about unwinding winch rope too far. I think you would need a few raps on the spool to prevent what happened.

Sound like the people you encountered on the trail didn't have the sense to tie-up their kids & the potential to see any damage. Go get the club interest cards back!

 

Thanks again & look forward to Hell Hole!

  

Sorry if it wasn't clear, I handed out a different club's interest cards to them

I was kidding, I don't even have club interest cards.