psykokid Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 More info on our outing to the ski resort We will be hitting China Peak resort Sunday around noon and leaving around 6 Its just about $80 for a lift ticket w/ board and boot rentals (actually really cheap compared to Tahoe) So you're going to be skiing whilst the rest of us are playing a rousing round of "lets see how stuck/far we can get?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 So you're going to be skiing whilst the rest of us are playing a rousing round of "lets see how stuck/far we can get?"That doesn't sound like fun at all. I mean, how can you give up a chance to bury your rig in multiple feet of snow?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 And we're off to Shaver! See you guys up there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psykokid Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 Safe travels and see you tomorrow. Just looked at the webcam and it appears that the rain is starting to turn to snow in town. Hopefully it will stay that way. Latest forecast I saw this morning was a mix of snow/rain all weekend in varying amounts. The turn off for Rock Creek Road is about 1000' higher in elevation than town and the area we will be going through on Sunday has a forecast of soild snow after tonight till Monday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drafdog Posted February 17, 2017 Report Share Posted February 17, 2017 I have reserved site 225 and will go with the later group since we will be driving up from the Bay Area early Saturday morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2017 Oh, wait for all the smart-arse comments .... Regards, GraemeYou know Graeme, now that you have Lucas full time maybe you should inquire about your very own Swedish au pair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraemeWare Posted February 18, 2017 Report Share Posted February 18, 2017 You know Graeme, now that you have Lucas full time maybe you should inquire about your very own Swedish au pair. Don, For him or for me? Graeme Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drafdog Posted February 18, 2017 Report Share Posted February 18, 2017 I can pass along the au pair agency number!!!! Well there has been a change of plans and we will not be able to make it after all so if anyone wants to use campsite 225 it is available. Have fun and keep the wheels side down! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2017 I can pass along the au pair agency number!!!! Well there has been a change of plans and we will not be able to make it after all so if anyone wants to use campsite 225 it is available. Have fun and keep the wheels side down!Oh sure, you walk in here, throw out a swedish bomb, then walk out like nothing happened. I'm beginning to question the existence of Miss Sweden now all together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2017 And Graeme, you know au pair is French for pre-nup, right? So clearly for both of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2017 Camp update:. Maybe 2" of snow overnight with a chance for more today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcproven Posted February 18, 2017 Report Share Posted February 18, 2017 It barely rained today. We went exploring towards lake Huntington, the old road, not much snow until we hit some elevation, then we turned around, since getting stuck by yourself is not the same Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 Boo....On my way home, got on 99 and picked up a nasty vibration. Feels like driveline. Now waiting on a flatbed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRover Posted February 20, 2017 Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 Don, did you not notice the vibration until you got up to speed? Shaver to 99 isn't just a couple of miles... Sad to hear. Hope the flatbed arrives quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 I ran at highway speeds all the way to Madera with no problems. I think 99 is coincidence. The truck is drivable but the vibration is bad and getting worse. Enough that I didn't want to chance 125 miles of highway driving home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraemeWare Posted February 20, 2017 Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 I ran at highway speeds all the way to Madera with no problems. I think 99 is coincidence. The truck is drivable but the vibration is bad and getting worse. Enough that I didn't want to chance 125 miles of highway driving home. Yeah, that gas stuff is expensive .... better for the tow truck driver to pay for it ....saved 10 gallons at least there .... Graeme Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraemeWare Posted February 20, 2017 Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 Boo....On my way home, got on 99 and picked up a nasty vibration. Feels like driveline. Don, RoverWare.US have a rear driveshaft in stock, and the pillow-block bearing (which is now no longer available). Fronts are on back-order, and GKN won't say when they can supply as they are unable to keep up with LR OEM demand. Graeme Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 Thanks Graeme. I have a rear on hand but not a front. I'm only guessing at this point anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psykokid Posted February 20, 2017 Report Share Posted February 20, 2017 I got home about an hour ago. Ended up catching up with Lutzi and Matt as they made their way down the hill. Caravaned with them until we came to the 41/99 junction where we parted ways. Smooth sailing down the 99 to the 5. Little bit of rain coming over the grapevine and down into Valencia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcproven Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 Same here, smooth sailing... I've never seen this much water in California... EverDon, sorry to hear.I'll have a few pictures in my blog soon enough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 21, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 Shaver '17 is in the bag. Here's what you missed- Michele and I were the first to arrive Friday afternoon. We made the drive up bucking a headwind and with rain pretty much the whole way. When we got to Shaver Lake we found snow on the ground but not on the roads and the temps hovering just a little too high for the rain to turn to snow. We set up camp in the rain and via text learned Lutzi was running behind due to traffic problems and highway closures on his route. He finally rolled in a bit after dark and set up camp - still in the rain. Somewhere around 1AM the rain finally turned to snow and by morning it was grey out but dry and we'd gotten perhaps 2" of fresh snow at the campground. We set out to pre-run the trail to see what the conditions would be like for Sunday but not before I had a truly horrible cup of coffee (well, at least one sip before I spit it out). Seems I had accidentally filled my sugar container with salt. And I usually take a lot of sugar in my coffee so you can imagine the face I made when I took that first drink! We made the drive up Dinky Creek Rd to the Bald Mountain turn off where we found a truck w/camper and trailer parked in about a foot of snow and with no tire tracks. We figured it must have been there for a while but the owner popped out and said he had just parked last night and all that snow had fallen overnight. Just the few hundred feet of elevation between there and camp made a big difference. The road was all fresh snow from there on in running anywhere from 2-3' deep so we aired down and I did my best impersonation of a snowplow with the LR3. Lod range, off road height, mud and ruts mode, 2nd gear, hold it about 5000 rpm and blast forward until I push up so much snow in front I can't go any further. Back up, take another run and repeat. Over and over. Occasionally I would high-center and Lutzi would have to yank me backwards a few feet so I could get moving again but over all the LR3 did lpretty good pushing the fresh snow around. I wish I had gotten video as it was pretty cool watching the snow pile up over the bumper (and a couple times over the hood) like a boat driving into head seas. On some runs I only got a short distance before backing and starting again and other times I got several hundred yards. About 1/2 mile in we were working up a hill that took me 3 or 4 tries to get up. There was a fairly wide area at the top so we thought it was time to put Lutzi's D2 in the lead for a while but as soon as he pulled around me he sank into a good 3'+ of snow and we had to dig him out. I had thought he'd be better able to plow than me but as soon as you got off the main trail a bit it became a real problem unless you had a light-weight rig with really big tires to float on top and not sink into the snow. About this time a group of Jeeps came up behind us and we figured it would be good to let them around since we weren't moving fast and we were at a wide(ish) area. Plus it would make it easier going if somebody else broke trail for us instead of the other way around. This maybe wasn't a great idea. First I tried to pull wide left to make room for them and promptly buried the driver's side of my rig up to the door handle in a soft area. Their first Jeep got by, but then the 2nd and 3rd each got stuck trying to get around and needed help from their leader. By the time they had gotten by, more rigs were arriving and we ended up caught in an endless stream of people getting stuck trying to get by us until we could finally haul my beached whale free and get it turned around. Once we got a break in traffic and got both rigs pointed back down the trail we found the return was easy but rough as all the traffic had churned it up and made for a lumpy run. We returned to camp and found other members of the group beginning to trickle in. By night's end we had Justin and his friends in his RRC and Robert in his 88 with Mathew of Advanced Adaptors also in an 88. From SoCal, we had Jake and a guest in his D1 plus Jose also in a D1 and Chris in an L322 RR towing a shiny Airstream trailer. Somewhere around 1AM Colin also rolled in, though most of us had retired much earlier when the rains started in on us around 10:00PM and put a damper on the campfire. Sunday turned out nice with blue skies. The plan had called for a group to leave at 7:45 and a group at 9:00. However, come 7:45 I only had myself and Jose ready to roll so I pushed it back and ended up rolling out around 8:30 with myself, Colin, Jake, and Jose. Coming through town we picked up David in his RRC and we headed for the Bald Mountain access road again. This time we weren't the first ones there. We aired down and within 200 yards caught up to a group of Jeeps driven by a group of ... let's say 'novice' drivers. They were having a hard time despite the fact the trail was well cleared and still very firm. It was still early so we weren't pushing them but we could see they really had no idea what they were doing and their wasn't any place for us to get around them. After they got free we gave them a little room then started on after them only to come to a stop again soon enough. After questioning them about what tire pressures they were running (uh...I don't know, I just let out some air...) we started to take over their recoveries if only to get them out of our way. We aired down a few of their rigs that were running twice the pressure they should have been, tied a broken winch line together, showed them what a tree strap was used for, and Colin drug a couple of them around. One Jeep in particular was running totally bald tires and was stuck at the bottom of the hill, the last one blocking our path. Colin had been able to get around him to pull one of the others up the hill (a JKU Rubicon on 38s being towed up a hill by Colin's multi-color RRC was a great image) but we were trying hard to convince them to leave the bald tire'ed rig where it was since it was clear he was never going to get any further in that Jeep the way it was. Instead the futzed around with it and eventually got it turned around but now stuck again and in a worse spot on the trail leaving less room to get around him. Somewhere about this time our 2nd group also caught up to us and joined the wait. We now had a couple highly built truggies coming down the trail - one of which had passed us going in on Saturday and apparently gotten stuck in a huge hole just before the turn onto the actual Bald Mountain trail. Given that the hole had swallowed a 2700 lb Toyota buggy on 40's for 24 hrs and it was already getting approaching 2:00, we decided to turn around and head back, knowing this would still take a while. I tried to get past the bald jeep at the bottom of the hill but sunk in the soft snow off-trail. I tried to winch off the Toyota buggy but simply pulled him to me instead of pulling myself forward. Given my rig is almost 3 times the weight of his that's no surprise. I eventually got turned around and waited at the bottom of the hill. Meanwhile a couple trucks had come up behind our group and we had to convince them to back up and make a 3 (or 4, or 5) point turn and head back so we could get our convoy turned around as well. I had anticipated an easy run back to Dinky Creek Road, but we found the warm weather had softened the snow considerably and I think everybody got stuck at one point or another. Even Colin's RRC had to be pulled out of a hole once or twice - granted the last time was because he was deliberately trying crazy lines to play in the snow. On one last hole Chris's L322 sank and dug in and we needed several tries to get him through. By the time he was clear, the hole had been churned up into a truck stopper and everyone after got stuck trying to get through except Colin who came into service as the designated tow-pig. I was last in line waiting my turn when the jeep crew caught back up to us, now with bald-tire guy in the lead. I managed to sink the LR3 and while waiting on Colin to pull one of our other guys free so he could then drag me through the hole, Mr. Bald decided to go around me. (I think he was trying to prove something since I had been telling him to just park the thing earlier and now I was stuck blocking him). I warned him and his buddies that he wouldn't make it but he took off anyway with predictable results. I told them to just wait and we'd have Colin come pull him out but they sent their most built rig in instead, the same JKU Rubi on 38s (at least now they were aired down to a respectable 8 psi thanks to my ARB deflator). He did better but also got stuck. Again, Colin pulled both of them out then hooked onto me. Have I mentioned my truck is heavy? When it sinks in soft snow, it really sinks. It takes a pretty good jerk with a Bubba Rope for a lighter RRC like Colin's to unearth me. Colin was lined up on a harder packed set of ruts to my left, hoping that once I got moving I'd be able to 'jump the berm' and get onto the firmer snow. Instead, his truck was drug sideways and I didn't move. Not to worry, he'll just hit it harder. After all, the Bubba Rope is really soft and stretchy and can take a major hit with almost no impact. This worked in that it popped me free. It didn't work in that it yanked his RRC sideways so hard it nearly rolled and popped both right-side tires off the bead and I was only stopped about one foot from hitting him. No damage, but it did raise the heart rate significantly! But a couple tires off the bead (both beads actually) are just another challenge to overcome. We used a shovel as a base plate and my hi-lift to jack the RRC up most of the way off the ground then dug out under the dismounted tire until we could get a ratchet strap around it, pulled the valve core, then used a CO2 tank to re-seat the beads. Repeat for the rear tire and we had Colin mobile again in fairly short order despite a pretty good snow that was now falling. Once Colin was again mobile we got the rest of our crew through to the pavement with minimal drama. There may have been one or two more stucks but nothing serious enough to recall at this point. We all aired up and retired to Shaver Lake Pizza where we enjoyed some well-earned pies and beer before eventually returning to camp to sit around a roaring fire telling Rover stories into the night. Granted, most of us were pretty well used-up by then so we didn't exactly carry on into the wee hours but as they say a good time was had. The rains did start again that evening while we were around the fire and continued all night and into the next morning when we all broke camp to head our separate ways. One last hitch popped up though - with most people already gone Colin came up and asked if I had a volt meter handy. Uh...not exactly handy since I'd just finished packing the truck but yeah, I've got one. Seems the large diesel pusher RV (rental, I might note) parked next to him had all dead batteries. Both Colin and I looked at it and figure out both their starting and house batteries were totally flat through a combination of user error and poor maintenance. Being a diesel pusher, the batteries were all in the rear of the bus and of course it was backed into the spot. Colin had some jumper cables and was able to plow his way over the snow berms and get his truck back to it so we hooked up and let his Rover charge their starting batteries for about 20 minutes. After that, we were able to get them started and we left them with a stern warning not to shut the thing off again. Michele and I finally got on the road then and though I haven't actually heard from him, I assume Colin has also made it home by now. This should be the end of the story, but after an hour or so of driving just after I pulled onto 99N I started feeling a vibration. It quickly went from 'do you feel that?' to 'oh crap...I need to stop'. I pulled off at the next exit in Madera and couldn't make a solid determination of what it was though it felt like diveline. Perhaps a failing center support on the driveshaft is my guess but it's only a guess as I haven't yet gotten into it. With the vibration getting worse by the yard I didn't want to chance the 125 miles or so between me and home so out came the AAA card and we endured the flatbed of shame for 2 hours. Currently all my wet gear is strewn around the shop drying. Hopefully I'll get a chance to look at the truck tomorrow and at least figure out the problem. So that was Shaver Lake 2017. It was just like the past 9 years in that every year it's a different trip. Some years it's an easy drive to the top; others it's a stuck-fest where you never even make it to the trail. Either way, I plan to be there for the 10th anniversary in 2018! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRover Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 Hey Don, Great trip report! Sorry to hear about the salty coffee and the Jeeps. Shaver never disappoints. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 21, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 Years ago I worked with an old Navy guy who used to sprinkle a pinch of salt on the coffee before putting it in the percolator, but two spoonfuls of salt in your coffee cup is a little more than I would prefer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcproven Posted February 21, 2017 Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 I threw in a bunch of pictures in my blog http://dcprovenlandrover.blogspot.com/2017/02/x-shaver-lake-snow-run.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DHappel Posted February 21, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2017 Got under the truck and pulled the skids and heat shield off so I could get a good look at the driveshafts. Front seems good and tight but rear had some play at the front CV. I went ahead and dropped it out and also found the rear U-joint was very notchy. The center bearing I had replaced a year ago (?) was still good, but the center CV had a little play as well. Although none of these was a glaring fault I went ahead and put a new aftermarket driveshaft I had on hand in and went for a test run. Good up to 70 mph in the rain. Considering how bad it felt at even 20 mph yesterday, I'm going to say that was the issue. Graeme...you know how you said you have a complete rear shaft in stock? Let's just say you don't anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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