Buck Meadows Work Party

On Saturday the 23^rd of September, 1999, a few hardy souls from 4X4XNorthwest and the USFS from Cle Elum met at Buck Meadows to move some tank tracks into a trail area for work in the spring next year. We had three trailers that were trail ready and four jeeps to tow them. There turned out to be less helpers than figured and more tracks than planned, so with capability to haul 12 tracks at a time we set off to see how many we could get into the trail. The tracks weigh about 300 pounds each so we had to rig a pulley system to load them into the trailers. A chain was strung between two trees and a snatch block and winch were used to get the tracks into the air.

Rick backs up the trailer while Jackie, Chuck, and Bryan load the trailer.

After the trailers were loaded we were off to the trail. We were going to open the old back way into region four meadows to speed up the trail running part. After about an hour of running the trail it was obvious that it was going to take a lot longer to run each trailer in than we had figured. We sent the other rangers waiting at the tracks home as they were going to have a long wait for us to get back. About halfway in one of the trailers, which had been modified to use as a road sander and was top heavy, tipped over at a creek crossing. This trailer was equipped with a ball so it just popped off the hitch on Chuck’s jeep. After much thought and looking we got a block and cable up into a tree and reloaded the trailer, another hour gone. At the trail site we unloaded the tracks in a similar manner.

The trail section these tracks are to go in is a very muddy section with deep ruts. Some of these were filled with rock a few years ago by PNW4WDA volunteers, but the other sections of this part of the trail are being bypassed when the trail is muddy. In order to keep this trail open this spot will be bypassed with the tracks next summer and this will hopefully stop the problem.

After three trips on Saturday and Sunday morning we decided to have some fun and do some much needed trail marking on the Rock Garden trail. We had a little four wheeling fun and used up five cans of red paint in marking the trail so it is more visible and easier to follow in both directions. We also spent some time scouting future hard routes in this rock area, these will be allowed for trail lost around Shoestring lake.