DHappel

This Thursday is the date of the Sac area DitD for February It also happens to be the 11th of February. 2-11-21 also happens to be the day I officially become an old fart. With these things in mind, I'll be hosting the Feb DitD at my shop in Walnut Grove. If you feel like a bit of a drive come on by and partake in a beverage of your choice. Start time...6 or 7 or whenever you get here End time...10 or whenever people leave Nothing formal, just a get together to talk rovers with friends. Maybe pop a truck or two up on the lift for show and tell. That sort of thing. Ping me if you need directions. Or just show up in Walnut Grove and ask where the guy with the Rovers is. It's not a very big town.

Don't know anything about the AB part, but rockauto has waterpumps from $25. Middle of the road, AC Delco, is $60 https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/land+rover,2004,discovery,4.6l+v8,1440627,cooling+system,water+pump,2208

I'm still planning to head up Sat morning to meet at noon, but there's a small chance I'll come up Friday if Michele bails on me.

Yeah, even in the dry I wouldn't want to take a full truck camper up Bald Mountain. It's not an especially challenging trail but that's not a trail rig; it's a dirt road rig. In the snow he'll sink like a stone. No offense - it's a cool rig. But better as a tow rig/base camp for your Series crawler.

You mean have I even started planning it yet? uh..... I'll get right on that after Shaver

I used the LR3 to drag my trailer around the yard collecting all the debris from the last wind storm. Normally I'd use one of the RRCs for this but I decided to use the young 'un this time.

A bit about this trip- Most of you have done this run before as we've been doing it for 10+ years now. This year is a bit different with Camp Edison being temporarily closed but the rest still holds true. We can't predict the weather but given what we've had just this last week I expect this will be a pretty heavy snow year. I'd say it's only 25% chance we make it to the top. Dinkey Creek road is a paved and maintained road any you should have no trouble there in any vehicle. The turn off to Rock Creek road is where we normally air down and the challenges can start. This is a gravel fire road that in the dry would be passable by any car. But as it's not maintained we have found anywhere from a few inches to 5'+ of snow on it. Some years we have to take several attempts just to blast through the berms thrown up by the plows on Dinkey Creek. I don't think this year will be that bad but we won't know until we're actually there. Our current plan is to head in to one of the wide open areas a short distance from the start and make camp there. You should expect to get stuck at some point. It's part of snow wheeling. You need solid recovery points front and rear and full recovery gear including a shovel. If you have a winch, test it now and make sure it's working. You may also want to review safe recovery practice at least mentally before heading up as you should expect to see everything from winching to kinetic ropes to maxtracs in action. If you bring your kids or pets, keep an eye on them during recoveries. Come prepared to spend a full day on the trail. Even if we don't get very far you can expect to be in and out of the truck often and in snow that could easily be waist deep in places. Boots, gloves, gators, etc. You'll also want to bring lunch as we will be out all day. We typically get off the trail about sunset before heading into town for pizza then back to camp. On the trail you will want to air down more than you normally would for rock wheeling. Running on deep snow is about maximizing floatation and staying on top. To that end, running light helps so if you have lots of extra gear on-board that you're unlikely to need for this trip consider leaving it at home. our Rovers are already on the heavy end but saving a few extra pounds won't hurt. Also be sure you bring a compressor or air tank to air back up at the end of the day. For those in late model Rovers, I find the 'snow' mode isn't really best for deep snow. It seems geared more toward snowy roads than seriously deep stuff. I often run the 'mud and ruts' mode as it gives a fairly soft launch to help keep from digging in but then allows more wheel speed to help keep moving forward. I also tend to shut of the DSC as soon as I get on the trail. Too often I've found the electronic nannies kill throttle right when I wanted just a bit more. (my experience here is in an LR3 so as they say, YMMV) Snow conditions can change radically as the day wears on. In some conditions you can creep slowly and let the tires bite and find traction. In others you need wheel speed to sling snow out of the treads. What worked on the way in may not work on the way out as the day warms. Experience and trial and error are the only real way to know what will work best. And this is how you get that experience! One key thing to keep in mind - As you are working your way through the snow if the truck stops moving forward don't keep spinning the tires! You'll only dig yourself in deeper. You can literally feel the truck stop moving forward and start moving down in some cases. Down is bad. Since this is a holiday weekend and one of the few Sierra trails open in winter, it's likely we'll run into other traffic. If they're faster than us, we'll let them by. It's also probably we'll get stuck behind somebody at some point. There's little we can do but sit back and relax. If they want, we may offer to help but you never know who or what you'll find - courtesy is really the only option even if they're less than courteous. Most other wheelers are pretty understanding but try to do what you can to make things easier for everybody anyway. There is no cell reception on the trail. As normal, we'll be on 146.460 for trail coms. I'll bring a couple extra hand held radios I can loan out if you don't have one in your truck. There is no cell reception on the trail. As normal, we'll be on 146.460 for trail coms. I'll bring a couple extra hand held radios I can loan out if you don't have one in your truck.

I've done some searching for a room and come up dry other than a $1500 cabin (sleeps 8 though....) That being the case, I'll likely be heading up solo as Michele won't be down for snow camping w/o electricity and bathrooms. If Camp Edison doesn't open up (I'd say it's 50/50 at this point) I'm solo. In that case I may be up for going on Friday. We'll see how thing shake out.

Michele has made it clear she will not be camping in the snow. If it comes to that, I'm solo.

OK - it's still a bit up in the air but we have a plan: We're going to Shaver Lake and running Bald Mountain trail as per usual. With a small caveat. At this moment, Camp Edison is not open. However they have given us reason to believe they may open before the holiday weekend. We'll be in touch with them regularly to see, but in the mean time we're going to plan to dispersed camp along Rock Creek Rd near the turn-off from Dinkey Creek Rd. Directions from the gas station in "down town" Shaver Lake to Rock Creek Rd https://www.google.com/maps/dir/37.1073002,-119.3189828/37.069056,-119.1812324/@37.0854446,-119.2698234,13z/data=!4m2!4m1!3e0 -Saturday we will be meeting at the Shaver Lake Pub n’ Grub for lunch about noon. -After that we will head down Dinkey Creek Rd and use the entrance to Rock Creek Rd as our staging area. -From there we will head down Rock Creek Rd to find a suitable camping area, preferably something close to Dinkey Creek Rd. -Day trippers should come up Sunday morning and head down Rock Creek Rd to find our camp. We should be easy to find from the road as we'll be camped very near. -Depending on how many vehicles we have, we will run either one or two groups. Day trippers should plan to be here by no later than 9:30 as the last group will leave by 10:00 -it appears that indoor dining is still a thing up at Shaver, so a post snow run meal somewhere in town should be doable As some people may not like the idea of camping in the snow without power (such as Michele) there are rooms available in Shaver Lake. I'll be looking into this myself and will post some options when I find them. IF CAMP EDISON OPENS - we will return to our normal plan of camping there where we will have power available. Again, that is only an IF at this point. We will keep in touch with them over the next week to see what happens. There you go - given the weather, 'rona, and generally closed trails in the Sierra this time of year it's a bit late in the planning stages and still not set in stone, but one way or another we're going to play in the snow. See you there!

Another option we are looking at is Miner's Camp in Forest Hill. They have cabins available and it looks like they may offer us a discount rate. It would be easy to get to as a base camp and we could put together a route from there based on snow levels. Several options out there; just keep your calendar open!

Stay tuned to this channel for updates - we may have an option for Camp Edison after all; awaiting a call back at the start of the week.

I think I'm going to call it - week of March 29th. I'll plan to use the Saturdays on each end for travel, so let's say heading down Sat 3/27 and returning Sat 4/3. That'll give us a full week to bum around the desert. To the calendar!

And apparently Wentworth Springs campground is closed from last year's fires. So I'm doing well here. The Wentworth Springs rd (trail) will still be open so we could dispersed camp along it if we want to go that route. Or we can make a long day-trip out off it. Or I'm open to other suggestions

EDIT - looks like UTC's bar is actually closed for Rona as well.

As most of you know, for many years (10? more?) we've gone to Camp Edison at Shaver lake in February and done the Bald Mountain trail as our big winter trip. Recently we've been doing it over President's day weekend (2/13) as some people have that monday off. But this year we've still got the rona to deal with and Camp Edison isn't open. I've been putting this off as long as possible to see what happens but we're down to 2 weeks out and I think we're just going to have to call it a no-go. We may however revisit them later this year once things return to normal. We've been looking at other options, like Huntington Lake but they too are closed. We do still need to get out and do an overnight snow run though and with the storms coming through the last few days there's plenty of snow in the Sierra. With that said, we have a few ideas to propose: We could do an overnight to Uncle Tom's Cabin. They allow camping on the property behind the cabin/bar. There are no facilities other than outhouses, (and the bar) and it will certainly be busy during 'business hours' as it's a super popular destination. I had envisioned this as meeting at Georgetown in the morning (say 10am) then heading out all day before arriving at UTC in the evening to make camp, however with this weeks storms just getting to UTC may be a challenge for the heavier and/or less modified trucks so we may instead want to head there directly then depending on what we see head out for some exploration. We could head into Wentworth Springs campground. Again, this will likely be challenging and not for stock trucks. The campground has some picnic tables and outhouses as I remember but no showers or power. No reservations here, so it's possible we would find others but certainly it's going to be far less busy than UTC. Both of these destinations are close enough to the Sac area that people from there could easily make it a day-trip if they preferred. We could head out toward Bowman Lake, but we already have a trip planned there for March so I'd probably save that for later. I'm leaning toward option 2 - Wentworth Springs. We can meet at Georgetown and head in from there. Likely we'll spend the better part of the day getting there and setting up camp but if we want to push further the trail gets tougher further on as it is one entrance to the Rubicon. No big rock crawling to get to the campground, but if the snow is deep as expected it will be enough of a challenge. Regardless of destination, we will be heading for the mountains in 2 weeks. Let me know if you have any preferences and we'll nail this down this weekend!

I've tallied the comments re: dates and as expected, there is no clear consensus. Too much spread to make everybody happy. I have 2 for 3/29 One for 4/12 one for 4/5 two for 'not 4/12' and a few 'I can do anything if you'd just pick a date already!' If you have any last comments let me know as I'm going to nail this down ASAP.

I can't give you a fair value of the RR as I'm not especially dialed in on them, but I would agree about Hagerty - they're one of the better specialty insurance companies around from what I've seen. If you wanted to search for specialty sales to compare it to, maybe try looking on BaT, Hemmings, CarsandBids, etc. With low production volume you'll still have the same low sales numbers but you're more likely to find educated specialist buyers/sellers on these sites than CL, Ebay, FB, etc.

I'm planning to be there as a trail leader as well. Will tow the D1 out a few days early to pre-run; possibly leaving on the Friday prior but haven't planned that far in advance.

You don't want my shop - it's overrun with old RRCs! Actually, spent Sunday on Greg's RRC again. We got a new battery and alternator in, added a battery disconnect, cowl on, suspension bushings changed, new steering box in, and did some alignment work. If his new tail lights had arrived it would be on the road!

Other than reviewing my old routes I haven't worked up anything. Tried watching some videos on locations but didn't get much out of them. I'll try to nail down a date this week and set something concrete so we can get it on the calendar.

Hollister back when the Pit Bulls were still new.

Another "not really a water crossing but unexpectedly deep" picture. Fair play though - neither photo resulted in any damage.

OK, which one of you is the U-boat commander?

I was looking at my old routes from that Gold Point trip. I wasn't planning to visit GP again, but a lot of that looks usable. Just not sure if I want to cover the same ground or try to find new routes.