Continued from Winter Run '03
I stopped by Blackjacks place of work (the new 6 States in Soldotna) and picked up his pull pall. The sign across the street said -9* but I could tell how cold it was by the sound of the snow crunching under my feet as I walked back across the parking lot. It was 8:30 am now, and the sun was going to be coming up any time. I needed to get on the trail as soon as possible, as we did not want to be working on Gus's buggy in the dark.
The moon was out, and the sky was clear, and as I drove toward the Caribou Hills I couldn't help but to stop and enjoy the beautiful views.
As I pulled back onto the road, I realized I had left my trailer spare at home. "hmm, this might not be starting out so well", I thought to myself. I completed the rest of the drive with out incident, and met Gus at about 9:30 am. The temp was noticeably colder here, than it was at home, and the wind was blowing enough to kick up the occasional snow devil.
Unloading my truck from the trailer presented some what of a challenge. I had parked it in my shop overnight, but the trip down was cold enough that I could barely make the thing turn over. The 20w-50 wasn't helping things either. :D After a few minutes of cranking, my red top optima was about to give up the ghost, so I jumped it with one of the two yellow tops that I had brought along for the impending weld job. Gus heated up the block and oil pan with his propane torch, and we had to give it a few healthy shots of starting fluid before she would spark over. Once we got Gus and Diane's gear loaded onto the Freak, it was readily apparent that there was no more room for Gus. He jumped onto the back, held onto the roll cage, pulled his hat on tight, and we were on our way.
We took a shortcut down an old trail that I hadn't been on in over 10 years, and were making good time. As I was running the rest of the trail in my mind, thinking of obstacles that might become problems now that they had a 6" of snow on them, we came across some bear tracks. I looked over at Diane and asked if they had brought any kind of Firearm. No, and neither had I. I had made the mistake of thinking, "Gus will bring one, so I can save some room by leaving mine at home". Oh well, I figured that the bear would probably head off in another direction before to far, and it did.
I felt relieved as we headed down the trail, seeing only moose and wolf tracks. Only a few hundred yards later, we came across some more bear tracks, this one was a Brownie according to Gus (Gus and Diane are both avid hunters) and the other was a Black bear. We followed the track for several miles, right up to the last intersection before we dropped off into the valley where Gus's buggy awaited. I wasn't concerned about bears while we were working, but I was concerned about having to walk out for some reason. Should for some reason I break down, we would have to walk out before ever reaching the broke down moose buggy. There would be no way to carry all the repair gear across the stream, and up through several swamps, in the amount of time we had available.
I dropped into the valley and continued on toward our final destination. The ground had frozen enough in the last week that we made quick progress until I dropped into the slightly frozen creek and found out that it had risen about 400% and was covered in 3-5" of ice. When I dropped off the bank, I was expecting to break some thin ice and just drive right across like I had last weekend. No, this time water came over the front winch, and nearly swamped my distributor. I was committed now, so gave it more gas, breaking more ice, and got the back tires down from the bank. Now here I am sitting in almost 4 feet of water, surrounded by ice, my front winch is rapidly freezing, and my exhaust is clear under water. The ice is too thick for me to break it, and water is splashing off the engine and tires, and all over the engine. Diane was sitting in the passenger side seat, and had quite the look of concern on her face. Truth be told, I was very, very uncomfortable at this point.
This was not a situation I had ever been in before. We were 15-20 miles from our tow rigs, and another 10 miles from a warm cabin, and probably 4-5 hours from any outside help. Our cell phones wont work here, and its a good 3 hour hike to get enough elevation to get signal. The creek was moving fast enough, that even if it wasn't covered in rotten ice, you could not have waded it even if you wanted to. The Ice was thick in spots, and thin in others, and some of it had water running over the top so running a winch cable to the other side was completely out of the question.
Gus had jumped to shore by now, and was trying to figure a way across the creek without having to break so much ice. Diane wanted out to take pictures, so I jockeyed my buggy around so she could climb out the drives side door. Once she was clear, I began my attempt at freeing myself from this frozen hell. Backing up through the ice was a better option due to my hydraulic steering lines on the front, so I kept working at it until I had enough room to turn almost completely around. I put my front left tire on the side of the bank and gave it hell. A few attempts brought me out of the water, and up the 5 foot embankment. Unfortunately I had doused my rear winch in the water, and now IT was frozen too.
After much procrastinating we all decided I would drop back in the creek, but this time in reverse, and work my way across by breaking the ice up with my rear axle. The one major down side to this option was that If I killed the engine, the water pressure would push water into the engine, and we would be completely screwed. Gus jumped on the back of the rig, and helped guide me between the underwater boulders, and the thicker sections of ice. 30-40 minutes later, we were across the 50 foot wide stream, and quite relieved. From here to the broken buggy, it was smooth sailing.
We arrived at the buggy by approximately 1:30 and quickly began the necessary repairs. The tire came off, and Gus started preheating the knuckle. I set up the Ready Welder, and had a bite to eat while I was waiting. Since last weekend Gus had fabbed up a small steering arm with a hole drilled and tapered into it, that we could weld to the top of the knuckle, right above where the stock one broke off. He fired up his little Honda generator, cleaned up the weld area, and cut off the broken portion of the stock knuckle. Once we were happy with the pre-heat, I welded the little arm onto the knuckle. I am very impressed with the Ready welder. Even though I did see one weld start to crack, the welder had plenty of penetration to weld such thick material, even at 15* below zero. Gus followed up the weld with some post heat, and Diane worked on putting a new tie rod on. Once back together they noticed that the new tie rod was too long. Way too long. Not wanting to put any more stress on the repair than necessary, Gus set about grinding the welds off the old tie rod, that I had welded to the knuckle last weekend. A few minutes with the angle grinder, and it looked good as new. Well, not really, it looked like crap, and I had reservations about whether or not the TRE stud would break. If it had, we could have easily cut the new tie rod in half, trimmed it to length, and then welded his Hi-Lift handle over it to act as a sleeve.
The repairs only took a few hours, and we were back on our way well before sunset. As I followed Gus back down the trail, watching his tires grabbing at every bump in the trail, I
couldn't help but cringe. Welding cast to mild steel, especially in such an uncontrolled environment, while laying on lumpy, frozen ground, with willows and alders poking you in the ear, doesn't always net you the greatest welds :p
We crossed the creek with Gus in front, but the ice was packing up behind him, causing the water to build depth. Soon the water was over my 45" tall tires, and starting to come in the doors. The ice was stacking up, and I could not break through. I didn't have room to turn around, and now water was splashing off the tires and onto the engine. Soon water was splashing into my air filter, and the engine was starting to run rough. I backed up a few feet and Gus drove in backwards, breaking the ice dam so I could continue on. I made it another few feet, and again, the ice piled up and my progress was brought to a sudden halt. This was the first time I have ever been not heavy enough. :( Gus backed in a few more times, and I was free of the creek once again.
The rest of the trip out was fairly uneventful. My rear shocks had frozen up, so the suspension was bottoming out on every good bump, my heater still wasn't working,
but we still made good time and were back to the tow rigs before dark. Gus and Diane had to chip 2-3" of ice off their trailer before they could get loaded, so I took the time to throw some snow chains on the tow rig. Good call, cause I would have been stuck for sure leaving the
parking lot.
It was dark now, and no sooner had I removed the chains, I had two moose run across the road. I slammed on the brakes, the truck and trailer started sliding through the corner, and just missed the moose by inches. As I barreled toward the ditch, I miraculously caught traction and straightened
out, seconds before smashing into the trees.
Once back to town, we met my wife for dinner, Gus and Diane's treat. Sure was nice to have a good steak after eating frozen junk food all day.
Brook Green
