This trip was the first Gettin Off Club snow run of the season, or so we hoped. We had initially planned an overnight run but plans changed and we opted for a day trip. I met Manny and Terry in Angels Camp and we then met up with Andrew and Raylene (driving Paul's Jeep) in Arnold. We headed east on Hwy. 4, steadily climbing, looking for snow. When we reached 7000', we found some decent coverage at Forest Service Road 7N09. We locked up the hubs and went in to explore a ways.
As the snow deepened, we stopped to air down before proceeding. Most dropped to 12psi, Andrew and I went down to around 8psi, later dropped to about 5psi for better flotation.
After some fairly easy going, we ran into some trouble on this hill. Up ahead, Terry has run into some soft deep snow drifted into the road cut.
With my tires down to 5psi, and using a 200:1 gear, I could crawl over the deep snow without braking through the crust too bad. I passed beside the other rigs and worked my way up the hill...
It took a few tries, but I eventually broke a trail up the hill. It wasn't terribly deep snow, but enough to hang up the axle on if you dug in to far.
Manny took the outside line, taking advantage of the wind-scoured surface beside the road cut, then dropped into my trail. We proceeded along until reaching a fork with 7N11 and 7N11A, and opted for the lower fork to the left.
We dropped down into alittle valley and eventually came upon a nice cabin. Bradly was trying to decide if he wanted to break a trail across the meadow to check out the place.
As we climbed out of the valley, there were some wonderful winter views.
We then climbed about 800 vertical feet out of the valley on very steep trail. Manny and I made it up without too much trouble.
And Raylene also got up without to much trouble. Apparently after a few sets of tires passed over the damp snow, the cool air temps in the shade caused to to ice over. Terry and Andrew had some trouble getting upt he hill, but eventually made it.
When we finally crested the ridge, I came across a downed tree at which point the clear trail (probably broken a week or two before the recent snowfall) stopped and after breaking out of the trees, I hit a long stretch of windblown, drifted snow and sank in. I pulled out the winch and in about 3-4 pulls managed to clear the first set of drifts. However, the track ahead was very faint. the sun was just setting and it was getting cold. We opted to turn around and head back out the way we came in. I had to winch back over the drift and then we high tailed it back, making it out 10 miles in under 2 hours. We aired back up at the pavement, Andrew stopping to repair a couple of broken beadlock bolts. All in all a fun trip and got us all in the mood for the upcoming CA4WDC Winter Fun Fest in January...
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