Dusy Trip

August 21-24

Steve Friend

We left Thursday morning and met up with Paul Beckman (Beck) in Sanger. Wow, Beck’s new paint white paint job on his Four Runner looks fantastic. Thank you Mo (his wife) for setting him straight. He is sporting new front fenders and some tire track graphics on the hood. Next time we take this trip, we will travel up to either 41 and transition to 180 or take 180 off the 99. This turns out to be a straight line shot right to 168 and Shaver Lake. No more town and very quick. We camped at Voyager camp ground and started dinner about 7ish. And then the rain hit. It rained pretty hard and filled our dinner plates right away. Renie jumped in the Jeep and I (thinking ahead for a change) brought my very large tarp. I covered the Jeep and even had room for a patio we could hunker down under. The rain lasted about an hour and then we had a reprieve. Paul Nasvik (and Wendy) showed up about 9:30, missing all the fun. That night we had a bit more rain and woke up to a fantastic morning.

My Jeep was loaded with about 1000# of junk (seemed that way) and I could feel it. Beck was similarity loaded, Nasvik was too, but left a lot of essentials home, like a CB, Spare Tire, High Lift, etc. Needless to say, he was much lighter. About an hour or more into the trail, I felt my steering getting a hitch when turning in either direction. We stopped at a nice spot and had a look. We found that the bracket that attached to the tie rod for the Ram Steering was broken. I was not too proud of the bracket in the first place and it was temporary, and I forgot about it. Anyway, out came the welder and within an hour, it was repaired, better than new.

We pulled into Thompson Lake to camp for the day, in time for lunch. We had a very relaxing day the rest of the day. Nice weather and cool in the evening. I was worried about gas and by the time I made it to Thompson Lake, I had emptied 10 gallons of gas. Just what I had planned. I was worried that if we had to use the welder much, then I would not make the trail with what I carry. In fact, I needed a total of 25 gallons to cross the trail, exactly. Beck’s and Nasvik’s rigs just sipped gas.

Saturday morning we were off by 9 am and made Ershim Lake by 2:30. I had proceeded to flood the Jeep, but a few feet of being pulled was all that was necessary to get it fired up. Beck had an interesting noise in his power steering, but that seemed to diminish as the day wore on. (Bet he has a new one on order by now). Amazing how things go with only 3 rigs. We only had one interesting spot where a log that Nasvik had kicked out of the way with his tires, rolled up an embankment and stop (Paul was leading this time). I did not give that silly log another thought as I was negotiating around a tree. As I glanced away, the log rolled back onto the trail and right under my left front tire. Lifting the front over a foot. My windshield frame hit the tree and bent, but did not break. But the tree was now caught between the windshield frame and my rear loop of the roll bar, and heavily into my new tube doors. We used a screw jack under the axle to lift the tire and we pulled the log free. I was so close to loosing the windshield. All that really happened is it bent the rain gutter and added an element of sap to the red paint.

Beck caught the only trout after we fished for an hour or so.

This evening was a good time to try out my new shower. I bought the propane-powered shower shown here. (http://www.4outdoorfun.com/zodhottaptra.html). Man, that thing is nice. The water is warm, not hot, but certainly warm enough. I will have to think about a portable shower curtain though in the future. Nasvik’s engine shower worked fine with his new Shurflo pump rebuild and Beck’s worked fine too. He build up a menagerie of things that included a SS pressure tank (as in a sprayer), a showerhead with an on/off button and about 9’ of line. He heats the tank over the stove, pumps it up 8-10 times and wa la, has a portable shower. Neat idea.

Sunday AM we were off by 8 am. We all slept thru the night for a change. NO BEARS! About an hour into the trail, about where the really neat meadow is where you cross a stream, my tires took off to the driver’s side and I almost ran into a tree. I had broken my Pitman Arm. We found out that you can still steer with the Ram steering although interesting is not a good word for it. We pulled down to the grass and welded it up and boxed it in. It had broken at the thinnest area of the arm, where the upper ball joint is attached. This repair took about an hour. By 2:30 pm, we were off the trail. This is the only part of the trail where we got dust.

The trail has changed a lot. There was one spot where we used to have to skinny around a tree while steering left, up a hill, and the right tire hanging over a washout, and another where we had to go thru two trees that were almost too small for a standard Jeep. Both of those spots were bypassed somewhere. Thompson was fun, loose rocks everywhere and Kaiser was rough but now there are so many bypasses that it’s challenge has diminished.

Had a great trip, lots of drinks, great food, good stories and great company. Renie and Wendy had a great time, especially with not having to fight hot weather and lots of dust. No bugs and no mosquitoes.

SF