Snow Fun
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Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 23:20:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Jonathan Albrecht
Subject: Moscow mt.
To: Toy4x4@tlca.org
Friday night I got a call at about 5:30 from this guy I met about a
month ago right before I went home for winter break, and he wants to
know if I'm up for 4xing at 7:00. Am I! Hell yeah.
At 7:00 I met up with him and a few other guys at the Conoco station.
There were four of us:
Me--'87 4runner. New 35" bfg muds on 15x10's, 6" of lift and not a darn
thing else.
Mark--'85 toyota p/u, lockers f/r, stock gears, 33x12.50 wildcat muds on
15x8's, on-board air and lotsa other nifty stuff. NWOR 3.5" springs,
long shackles, monster bilsteins.
AJ--'67(?) Bronco, 3" Duff lift, new 33x9.50 buckshot mudders, 302v8,
and a 4spd granny (np435)
Don--'70's(?) Jeepster. Stock, stock, stock! Auto tranny and 30x9.50
wildcats.
After showing each other our trucks, we headed off for our local 4xing
spot, Moscow mt. Ten minutes later we make the transition from dirt
(snow covered) roads to the actual mt. roads. It's pretty easy going,
but I stopped and dropped into 4low. Might as well, it's good for about
65mph! Anyway, we go on and on. It gets steeper in a few places, but
for the most part it's easy going. Maybe 6" of semi packed snow. Oh
yeah, the order was: Jeepster, bronco, '85 p/u, 4runner. Anyway they
come to a stop, I get out. We BS a bit, they lock in their hubs. Mark
tells me that it's us 'wide tire' guys versus the domestic skinny tires.
I guess Don and AJ seem to think the narrow tires are the way to go. Me?
I dunno, I never really considered my tires wide in the first place!
But I can't help but like wide tires better. With all the hubs locked
(we're still on really easy stuff) the two guys in front tell us that
they're only using 2wd. Fair enough, I still decided to use 4low
though. We take off again, and I notice that mark (in the toyota p/u)
only has his in 2wd, so I slow down and drop into 2wd (more challenge I
guess). We go on and on. Eventually we come to this steeper hill. But
not that steep. The two guys in front drive up it VERY easily. Looked
just like they were driving up a paved road. So I leave mine in 2wd.
Mark goes ahead of me, and I give him some space, eventually pulling up
about 30' behind him (in 2wd). It starts to get REAL steep though, so I
dropped into 4wd. Apparently mark had his in 4low, cause I was just
about to run over him going up the trail. Eventually I had to slow
down, and lost momentum, and started spinning. So I stopped, and waited
for him to continue up the trail. Once he got up around the next bend,
I dropped mine in 4low, and tried to get going again. I wish! All it
did was spin.. and start to slide backwards. I backed up a good 30'
(those power rear windows are so nice on 4runners!) to a flatter section
and gave it another go. I could only get about 10' before I just can't
go any farther. Great. After a few more tries I backed up into a snow
bank, shut off the motor, and start letting some air out of the tires.
I got one down to about 15psi or so when Mark walked down to where I was
stuck. He seemed to think I needed to go way lower (at 15psi, my bfg's
looked almost the same as 30psi--no bulge hardly). We pulled the valve
cores, and let them all down to about 8psi. (here's a good tip I found
out, with the valve core out, the tire will start whistling around 15 or
so psi.. once it stops, in my case, I'm at about 10psi). I tried the
hill again. And again. And again. AUGG!! I just couldn't get up the
darn thing!! So we let out more air. With all tires at or below 5psi
(my 5psi guage didn't move anyway), I tried it again. Boy, I've got to
say that driving uphill in icy conditions is a real art. What I finally
figured out, is that you need momentum, BUT, as soon as the tires start
to loose traction, you've got to let up on the gas, to keep that
traction. I was literally amazed at how well my stock EFI motor was
able to idle me up at or below 1000rpm. Eventually I cleared this first
hill. Man did those domestic guys give us some crap! The guy in the
jeepster with the bad front axle was like 'shoot, I thought this hill
was sorta hard, but then again, I was in 2wd!' He was kidding. I hope.
It flattened out a good bit, and we continued on. And yeah, I
kept my truck at 5psi the whole night. Mark Also aired down his toyota,
to about 8psi or so. The other two (adament that weight and skinny
tires are the solution left their tires alone).
We continued up the mountain, and it started to get real darn steep. I
couldn't believe how well I was keeping up with mark in his fully locked
toyota. After 10 minutes or so of really steep stuff, mark stopped in
his tracks with all four tires spinning. Uh oh. I'm screwed. So I
stopped, and backed up into a snow bank about 40' behind him. Mark is
definitley the crawler of the group. He was adament against speed: by
his reasoning, you can crawl anything! So I sat and waited for him to
try and crawl this hill. He'd get most of the way up, but every time
he'd loose momentum. Every time! So finally he decided he needed less
air, and dropped them down to about 3psi. or so.(rims about 1.5" off the
ground). He tries it again and again. A few hours later he FINALLY
makes it up the hill, by trying it in 2nd-low and just gassing the heck
out of it.
By the time he got to the top, the hill was all slicked off. The
jeepster had it easy, there was just one track on the road when he tried
it. I almost didn't even try it. I mean Mark is a pretty good driver,
and his truck is fully locked. And it took him a few hours to do the
hill. But I still tried. The first time I did it in 2nd-low, (holding
it at 4000rpm) and almost made it. After that, things started to go
downhill. I tried another 15 times, each time seemingly not getting as
far as before. But finally, I tried it again, 2nd-low, floored,
4000rpm, all tires spinning and howling away.. And I made it!! It was
awesome! Course the first two in the skinny tired trucks did it first
time no problem.. oh well.
We continued on up, and got to this side trail, with a big bump (they
call it a kelley hump down here), and after this bump, about 10' of semi
packed powder. After that.. it's crotch deep. AJ in the Bronco tried
it first. He got over the kelley hump with a bunch of spinning, then
got into the thicker stuff and promptly sank. He got out, and we aired
him down to about 15psi. Between those buckshots and his heavy bronco
(this is a bobtail btw) they squated down pretty nice. We did some
digging, and after about 20 minutes we had his heavy tall tired beast
unstuck, and parked. He didn't like the deep stuff much.. Time for the
toyota's to show 'em what it's all about!
Mark in the p/u tried it first. The kelley hump was zero problem, and
same with the packed powder. The deeper stuff though, was. He'd get
about 2' into it, and then he'd just stop. The powder was pretty thick.
So he'd back up, run at it, get maybe another 1' forward, and continue
on. Eventually he got about 8' or so into the stuff (not 8' deep, but
managed to drive about 8' forward), and then he got stuck. All four
tires spinning, the entire undercarage packed with snow. Just stuck.
Since the Bronco was parked about 10' to the side of Mark's p/u, AJ
decided to try and pull him out. He drove around, and then below Mark,
and they hooked up the strap. AJ gave a good run at it, but all he did
was get stuck at the end of the rope! And the toyota didn't move an
inch. Next, we got out the shovels, and started digging.
About ten minutes later we had both vehicles undug and unstuck. This
time AJ was truly done with this section of the trail, and he decided to
park his beast for a bit. I was anxious to try my truck out, so Mark
also parked his. To my surprise, my truck did really well. Those new
BFG's dug great, and with so little air in them, they did an excellent
job of floating above the bottom 10" of snow (of course I was still
pushing through a good 18" above that). I drove through the spot where
Mark had gotten stuck, and continued on into the deep stuff. The first
thing I found out here, was that this deep stuff was tough going. After
driving about 2' into it, my truck stopped. I popped it into reverse,
gunned it back about 4', then into first, and ran at the deep stuff
again. Each time I made another 2 to 4' of progress. Talk about slow
going! after making a good 20-25' of headway I decided that this was
just a good way to wear out my clutch and gave up before I really got
stuck. I backed out, but at the last 3' or so my truck slid off the
main path, and into the 3' deep stuff along the side, and there I
was.. stuck. Mark in the Toyota drove around me, so he could pull me
out from the front. We hooked his up, and with him driving in my
tracks he had me free in no time. This time backing out I did it a bit
more carefully and didn't get stuck.
Well, I was done with this deep/wet snow, but Mark wasn't. He spent the
next hour going 5' at a time through the deep stuff. Eventually he gave
up too and we decided to head on down the main trail. I hopped in my
truck, and attempted to back out, over the kelley hump at the entrance.
I thought I was lined up right, but apparently not--I got nice and stuck
on top of the thing! Mark hooked up to the front of my truck to pull me
out, but it was a lot harder than I expected.. probably took him 5 or 6
tries to free me off the top. After that, we continued on.
Half an hour later we come to yet another side trail. The bronco and
Jeepster had already made lots of attempts, but couldn't get up the
first 20' of it (after that it flattens out). Mark (in the toyota)
tried it and before I knew it, he was on top, ready to try what was
above it. Once again it was slow going. The snow was a little
shallower here though, and he made it along about 10' at a time. While
Don rode with him, AJ and I talked and watched.
Close to an hour later he's made it a good 100' down the trail, and
most of the way up a steep hill in the distance. He can't seem to get
any further, so once again he let out some more air. I'm not sure what
pressure he had it at (it was below my 5psi gauge) but the rim was
solidly on the ground on at least one of the tires--the other's had a
bit more air in them. He tried again, and again, but could only get so
far. Since it was already 2:00am, we decided to give up and head back.
Once back on the main trail, Mark decided to hook up the 'ol air
compressor. Now I've never seen his air comp. before, so I didn't
exactly know what to expect. He popped the hood and I saw it. What a
beast! He'd moved the battery to the drivers side, and in it's place he
had a compressor about the size of a small motorcycle engine! Honestly,
it was bigger than an 8hp Briggs and Straton. Setup was kinda weird.
He had a fan belt that he ran from the compressor to the crank pulley.
Then he had what looked like a pulley on a kick-stand that he popped
into place to tension it. Then he told me to fire it up while he aired
up the tires. I started the motor and.. wow, I'd never heard such a
loud compressor! Sounded like a cummins diesel instead of a toy 4cyl.
The other two guys were still playing on the hill when I started up
Mark's truck, and they came running--they thought we'd blown his engine!
As noisy as it was, it did work great, and inflated the tires from about
2# to about 15 in about 30 seconds each. After that we headed back to
the gas station for the final airing up.
Over all a great night! I got home at 3:00 am on the dot.
_______
Jonathan Albrecht __. /_/__|__\__
albr9619@uidaho.edu __/__|\___ |_.--.__,--;
http://www.uidaho.edu/~albr9619 :--.__|.--.|,---- ~'(__)'`(__)
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