Buck Meadows Work Party

The Cle Elum ORV ranger Tom Smart called us and needed some help. The trail to Shoestring Lake had been closed and rerouted a few years ago and now people had reopened it. We needed to help again close the trail. People had years ago started driving through a small arm of the lake and were tearing up the banks of the lake so it was closed permanently. Most of us showed up on friday night to camp out and work on the trail the next day. About 4 rigs came on saturday along with Tom and a couple of his seasonal motorcycle rangers.

The closing of the trail only took a few hours, the secret to any good work party is a little work and alot of wheeling so we headed up to the Rock Garden, one of our adopt-a-trails, for some wheeling. We wanted to show ranger Tom the new extreme trail we had mapped out in the Garden. We had a couple of rookies and stock rigs with us so some of them hopped into some of the better set up rigs. After getting to the Garden we played in the lower parts and a couple of rigs tried to climb a couple of hills. The rocks in the Garden are not real large so when trying to climb much of a hill they just roll under your rig and you start hopping and not getting anywhere.

Nick starting up the new route.                                          Nick getting some air in one of the holes.

At this point ranger Tom and a couple of other rigs decided it was time to turn around and leave the hard stuff to the others. Chuck was in the lead, he usually is at the back hence his nickname is Tailgummer, and he picked some of the harder lines. After the first rollover attempt his passenger, his brother in law, decided he needed to walk to better spot for the drivers.

Chuck on the third rollover attempt.                                   Jim claws up a loose hillside.

After everyone made the uphill areas we made the turn to go downhill, the ledge you go over has to be approached just right or it sends you down at a bad angle into a ravine. Chuck came down on the edge, 2nd rollover attempt, with the left rear wheel about 3 feet in the air. Thanks for showing us the bad line Chuck. The next few got better at getting down with a minimum of problems. Now we had a long steep hill to go down, the first time we ran this trail this was covered in snow and you could just slide down. A couple of rigs slid this time, just a little more dramatic in the rocks.

Austin coming down the steep hill.                            Nick making his way up one of the play hills.

Everyone made it down the big hill and onto the next ridge, only a couple of small ravines and one more drop off and we would be out, just in time for dinner. At the next small ravine Chuck had trouble dropping into the center, rollover attempt 3, but got through the bottom. Next came Jim and while dropping into the center he did not turn sharp enough and over he went, 1st rollover attempt was a success. We hooked a winch onto him and with everyone helping got him back over, a little lost power steering fluid and he was ready to go. As he started to go we discovered that the snapping noise we heard while going over was a broken front axle. We got him to a flat area and attempted to remove the shrapnel. Those high strength 44 axles that take so much to break don't want to come out of the hole after deforming. We were able to get out the outer but could not get the inner out of the housing. It was getting dark and the wind was beginning to blow. With cold getting worse and near darkness, the only time something breaks, we decided that Jim could drive out with 2 wheel drive. As we got to the bottom of the trail Chuck noticed that his drivetrain was binding and feeling funny. Flashlight inspection revealed that his spring mounts had come unwelded from the axle housing and the housing rotated so the pinion was pointing at the oil pan. We did not have an onboard welder so we unhooked his driveshaft and he went in 2 wheel drive also. After a couple of us towed Jim and Chuck up a couple of the hills on the way out we finally got out for dinner. The seasonal ranger that was stuck with us got her money's worth on her first serious trip. After a dinner of bratwurst and potato salad and green salad we forgot all about the cold.