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NCLR - Northern California Land Rover Club

February 2016 MORG

DHappel

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DHappel Mentor

DHappel

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You know, I didn't take a single pic.

 

We ended up with myself (LR3), Luke (LR3), Graeme and Lucas plus Lucas' friend who's name I don't recall (D1), and Nick (RRC).  Luke had his two boys with him, and Nick had his daughter.

 

We met at the Safeway at highway 50 and Sly Park Rd, then headed up.  It was nice and sunny and the road was totally clear to start but we began to see first small patches of snow/ice and finally full road cover as we gained elevation.  Eventually we were on a solid 3'-ish of snow.  I didn't exactly dig down to the base to see exactly how deep it was.

 

Nick had a brief worry when his alternator apparently quit charging.  We popped the hood and nosed around, noticing the external regulator was very hot.  Graeme also noticed the wiring connector wasn't especially tight and re-seated it.  Apparently that was all there was to it as the truck then started to charge again.  No problems.

 

Shortly after this (or was it before?) Lucas at the back of the pack got wide out of the ruts and into the soft stuff and couldn't quite get free.  I backed down to him and with a small pull got him back on the road and moving again.   Forward and upward we went.

 

Not too much further on I thought Lucas was going to do the same thing; he was still making progress but only slowly (he did come to a stop a moment later).  I was moving but watching him in my mirror more than ahead and proceeded to go wide left and get myself stuck.  Luke backed down to try to pull me out with a recovery strap only to get himself dug in instead.  We then used my winch to pull him out and let him re-position on firmer snow, then I winched myself forward off of him.  Meanwhile Graeme and Lucas had been digging and trying my traction jacks but eventually resorted to winching only to learn the 'repaired' clutch on Graeme's winch wasn't so very repaired.  The winch worked, it just wanted to unspool under load when not actually pulling.  Annoying.  With assorted tree straps and extensions and a couple of pulls he got himself free.

 

While this was going on an F250 coming up the hill behind us got himself stuck about 100 yds below us.  I chatted with them a bit and although they were't really experienced they were able to extract themselves.  He had a receiver mounted winch on the front of the truck and was using a recovery strap looped as a choker around a tree.  It was ugly and a little dangerous but he got himself out.  I didn't bother to lecture him about proper recovery technique as he had a couple women with him and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have appreciated that at the moment.

 

And somewhere along here a couple of Jeeps arrived on scene.  They were making pretty good progress and came around the F250 before stopping to air down more.  I talked to them a bit and offered to let them go ahead of us but they said they were in no rush so we started on ahead.  The F250 started backing down the hill only to get himself stuck again so they turned around to go help him and we pushed on.  From there it was a regular stuck-fest with each of us getting bogged/beached/plain-ol-stuck multiple times.  We pretty much used every piece of recovery gear we had - winches, shovels, maxtraxx, traction jacks, recovery straps, tow straps, tree straps, winch extensions, etc.  The snow was pretty firm and hard on the surface but if you hit a slightly softer spot warmed by the sun you'd break through and sink quickly into what was effectively bottomless and become high-centered easily.  We all dropped tire pressures to much lower than normal.  I eventually got down to 10 psi - far below what I would normally use, and although I would never use that in the rocks I never lost a bead or had any tire issues at that low pressure.

 

We eventually turned around about 2:30 (?) and headed back down the hill.  No stucks on the down-hill run and we made steady progress all the way to pavement.  It was surprising how much melt had occurred at the lower elevations in the few hours we had been up there.  Knowing there is a very popular shooting area off MET, nick led us down a muddy track off Bonetti Rd.  We found a couple of other people shooting and made our way to the end which might as well have been an official range.  I had brought a couple of .22 pistols and an air pistol and we set up targets and took some time plinking.  Lucas and his friend hadn't done any pistol shooting before so they got a chance to give it a try in a safe and controlled environment.  I always think it's a good thing when a young person gets a chance to do some shooting in a setting like this as it de-mystifies the whole 'gun thing'.  Even if they have no interest in taking up the sport at least they'll understand it and should they encounter a gun at some time in the future they'll know how to handle it safely instead of becoming a statistic.  

 

Nick and Luke took off and headed for home while the rest of us stayed on a bit longer.  After we cleaned up our targets (plus a few extras that had been laying around) we also headed out.  On the drive in I had noticed a big muddy/rutted hill climb just off the paved road and on the way out I decided to make the turn and see how far up it I could get.  This was going quite well until I snapped a driveshaft with a loud BANG and rolled back down.  At that point we weren't sure what was broken - drive shaft, transfer case, transmission, etc and in all the mud we weren't real excited about crawling under the truck to see.  Plus with my skid plates you can't see much anyway.  It turned out Nick and Luke were only a short distance ahead where they had stopped to air up and they heard us on the radio discussing my issue and offered to come back, but we found I could still drive without any really nasty sounds so I proceeded to ease down the trail about 1/4 mile to the parking area where they were.  I aired up here while Luke and Graeme headed into town maybe 5 miles away; Luke needed to get home and Graeme didn't have his CO2 tank with him so he preferred to air up at the gas station.   Nick stayed behind to shadow me to be sure I got back to town.  Good thing too, as I didn't get far before loosing all drive (see my thread called Bang goes the LR3 for details).  Nick ended up towing me down to the Safeway where we got a flatbed to haul the LR3 home.  The tow truck driver does a lot of recoveries up MET during the winter and was quite impressed we had gotten as far as we had before turning around.

 

And that is the story of the Feburary Sno-MORG.  Aren't you sorry you weren't there?

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AdvRovr Newbie

AdvRovr

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The tow truck driver does a lot of recoveries up MET during the winter and was quite impressed we had gotten as far as we had before turning around.

 

I can only imagine what they charge for "off road snow recoveries". That must be an awesome business. 

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ndamico Newbie

ndamico

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Had a great time..i did take a few pics and will try and upload them tomorrow. I think i like rhe mud more than the snow at least the wheeling part of it.

Guttur on my street is brown from all the mud i washed off sunday.

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lilcrawler Newbie

lilcrawler

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I clicked on the link before I read your last sentence, and was like "Huh... Some of these look familiar." :)

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ndamico Newbie

ndamico

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You should just tell people to start with the princess pics.

 

Those last pics, where I'm pushing you with a rope - that's pretty nice of you to post. ;)

Pics or it didn't happen right? That's the first time I've been pushed by a lr3!

 

Sent from my SM-T807V using Tapatalk

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