Jump to content
NCLR - Northern California Land Rover Club

April MORG - Bowman Lake

Elherbinator
 Share

Recommended Posts

Elherbinator Proficient

Elherbinator

Posted
Posted

 

The revised April MORG is a snow run to Bowman Lake. This is the latest we have run a Bowman snow trip as a club trip, but this is an unusual year. This was the planned March MORG, but it was rescheduled due to too much snow if you can believe it.

So the plan at this point is to meet up Saturday morning (4/1) at 10am at the 76 gas station in Auburn (401 Grass Valley Highway, Auburn)

From there we will head to Bowman through the Town of Washington and up Gaston Rd. 
 

The plan will be to get to the East end of Bowman Lake and camp. We may not get all the way there, we probably won’t get close, but that’ll be the plan. That’s always the plan. If the plan doesn’t work out, then we will find a place to camp along the way. Then we will head out Sunday morning.

Those who want to make a day trip out of it can always just pick a point in the day and turn around and head back. 
 

So please post up if you’re coming and if you’re going to be camping or just doing a day trip. 

The weather should be decent for us and the snow should be pretty deep. Bring wood, warm and dry clothes, plenty of recovery gear (kinetic straps if you got ‘em), bring a good sized shovel (small folding types are useless), air for your tires, and the normal assortment of spares. If you have any specific questions you can post them up or DM me. 

 

 

6E52B4EE-C3A8-45F4-9F6B-38F2812CE99F.jpeg

7356526F-17FD-46A8-80C6-77511ADCE5BA.png

6EC50A97-FC66-4798-9D9D-9082313270A6.png

EFD70EEA-47E8-46A7-A708-BD8C585CAFC2.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Elherbinator Proficient

Elherbinator

Posted
  • Author
Posted
3 hours ago, Revel2021 said:

Me and my son plan on coming and camping. We’ll bring our d90, I am just wondering if chains will be necessary/recommend for the drive up.

I would not think that chains would needed, but this has been a very unusual year so we could run into unique conditions. I don’t anticipate any chp style chain controls to run into. If there is very hard packed and slick snow on the trail, then chains will definitely help you from sliding. So my suggestion would be to bring ‘em if you got ‘em, but otherwise don’t worry about it 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mffoster Collaborator

Mffoster

Posted
Posted

Just saw this, I’m in if it’s a go, way closer to Reno than Shaver Lake.  Will camp over Sat night.  Hopefully my new Ashcroft HD front axles and CV joints survive, and I finally got the 30% lower low range in so I’ll see how that works as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SDS Proficient

SDS

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Mffoster said:

Just saw this, I’m in if it’s a go, way closer to Reno than Shaver Lake.  Will camp over Sat night.  Hopefully my new Ashcroft HD front axles and CV joints survive, and I finally got the 30% lower low range in so I’ll see how that works as well.

Great! I believe it is a go.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SDS Proficient

SDS

Posted
Posted (edited)

All right, we have at least four trucks now: two D2s and 2 Defenders. I’m coming with my wife Anna and we’ll bring our dog.

Eric already posted the meeting plan, which we will follow.

It will take us >1hr to get from Auburn to Washington, so it would be great to start from Auburn promptly after 10am to give us more time on the trail.

The good news is that Auburn is not far. Even from me it is not much more than 3hr on Saturday morning.

@Revel2021,you are the farthest by far. Are you coming on Friday and staying overnight in the area? It’s a long drive from Jamul. 😉

Mike might join us in Auburn, or meet us in Washington.

If we are successful at getting to a camping spot, we’ll need firewood. I’ll bring at least one hot wood box, but we’ll need more. It’s going to be cold 🥶 

I second Eric’s recommendation to bring real shovels: we’ll need them. Traction boards might come in handy as well.

We will use our usual 146.460MHz frequency for Ham communications.

Looking forward to seeing all of you on Saturday!

Sasha

 

Edited by SDS
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Revel2021 Rookie

Revel2021

Posted
Posted
22 minutes ago, SDS said:

All right, we have at least four trucks now: two D2s and 2 Defenders. I’m coming with my wife Anna and we’ll bring our dog.

Eric already posted the meeting plan, which we will follow.

It will take us >1hr to get from Auburn to Washington, so it would be great to start from Auburn promptly after 10am to give us more time on the trail.

The good news is that Auburn is not far. Even from me it is not much more than 3hr on Saturday morning.

@Revel2021,you are the farthest by far. Are you coming on Friday and staying overnight in the area? It’s a long drive from Jamul. 😉

Mike might join us in Auburn, or meet us in Washington.

If we are successful at getting to a camping spot, we’ll need firewood. I’ll bring at least one hot wood box, but we’ll need more. It’s going to be cold 🥶 

I second Eric’s recommendation to bring real shovels: we’ll need them. Traction boards might come in handy as well.

We will use our usual 146.460MHz frequency for Ham communications.

Looking forward to seeing all of you on Saturday!

Sasha

 

Yes we’ll be staying around auburn and driving up Friday, it’s a little bit too long of a drive for Saturday morning 😂

-Roberto 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mffoster Collaborator

Mffoster

Posted
Posted

Since I’m coming from the opposite direction it will be easiest to meet everyone in Washington.  Will take me about 1:45 to get there from my house, so I’ll get started at about 9:15.  I’ll call/text Sasha or Robert when underway.  I will be bringing firewood, tow straps and a shovel!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SDS Proficient

SDS

Posted
Posted

The trip was gorgeous. There was great company, snow, being stuck (a lot), winching and pulling, camping, and then back to snow, and so on. 

Will post photos and write a bit more in the next few days. I only now got home: Hwy 17 had a nasty accident.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mffoster Collaborator

Mffoster

Posted
Posted

Fun trip, Sascha was a great trail leader.  Got about 5 1/2 miles up before stopping to camp.  Only other vehicle we saw was the guy on a snowmobile that lived farther up the trail.  We used every winch, strap, pulley and bungie in our collection.  And a lot of shoveling.  Turns out that when the front axle of a 110 plugs in deep snow no combination of winch pulls or tugs will move the truck until you dig out a ramp under the front of the axle.  One final pull involved Roberto in his 90 pulling Sascha in his Disco 2 snatching me in the 110 (after much digging).  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SplurGn Collaborator

SplurGn

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Mffoster said:

Fun trip, Sascha was a great trail leader.  Got about 5 1/2 miles up before stopping to camp.  Only other vehicle we saw was the guy on a snowmobile that lived farther up the trail.  We used every winch, strap, pulley and bungie in our collection.  And a lot of shoveling.  Turns out that when the front axle of a 110 plugs in deep snow no combination of winch pulls or tugs will move the truck until you dig out a ramp under the front of the axle.  One final pull involved Roberto in his 90 pulling Sascha in his Disco 2 snatching me in the 110 (after much digging).  

That happened to me last year.  my winch was like, "ya, right!" and gave up....

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RobertDingli Community Regular

RobertDingli

Posted
Posted

Thanks to all who joined and made this a memorable trip.
 

We certainly had our work cut out winching, towing and digging our way through the soft surface.  There was about 12-18” of fresh snow over an icy base layer or 2-3’ thickness. 
 

Four trucks (two D2s and two Defenders) is actually a good number to have in a single convoy for these difficult trails. We had a fifth (RRC) on the first day up until about 3pm.
 

There were spots where most or all of us needed some kind of assistance. At times the heavier, big wheeled D2s plowed through and other times they just sank. 
 

Whenever the call went out that someone was stuck, a party would immediately show up with shovels in hand ready to start digging. And there were times when nothing but digging would get us out. 
 

The weather was quite warm and never dropped below freezing. We had light rain in the evening and overnight. It was wonderful to go to sleep with the pitter patter of rain on the RTT. 

I was awesome to meet everyone again, and especially Roberto and Diego who drove up from San Diego to join us. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...