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| CA4WDC Winter Fun Fest 2000 | Short Cuts | ||||
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By: Mike Pulskamp
2/2000
Avalanche Express
Friday evening, rush! rush! rush! Get everything into the jeep. As soon as my wife gets home, shoot up the hill... well how about plod up the hill. During the week, we finally had some weather in the mountains and the first good weekend of snow-play in the Sierra always makes Interstate 80 a bit crowded. As expected, the traffic lightened up once we turned off on Highway 49 toward Grass Valley. Soon it seemed that four wheelers owned the road, with rig after rig zooming through the forest night. Everybody was heading the same place with obvious enthusiasm.
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| Registration at Winter Fun Fest 2000. Mike Pulskamp |
After checking in to the hotel, crowded with fellow wheelers, it was time to zip down to the fairgrounds to register and get some of the famous CA4WDC grub. The food at these events is always exceptional and the bar, tended by the Capitol City Mountain Goats, is nothing to scoff at, either. After stuffing ourselves and greeting dozens of friends, we got down to the paperwork. We had registered for the most challenging run of the event, aptly named Avalanche Express. As both Deborah (my wife), and I have a good bit of experience wallowing in the deep white stuff, we were both anxious to see what area we would be exploring. This info is held back until registration to help guarantee that we will hit some virgin snow that has not been pre-run. Run specifics are also kept secret because trail choices may actually change the day before the run if a small storm racks the high country. This year's trail was Eagle Mountain road heading up past Valley Lake reservoir toward Big Valley Bluff.
Saturday morning came early but I figured that it would be a good day upcountry because it had been drizzling all night in Grass Valley. I hoped that this implied that there would be new snow at higher altitudes! After a tremendous breakfast of ham, eggs, French toast, and potatoes, we were ready for a nap... Oh well, my boss, I mean wife, told me "that would be a waste" and as usual, she was right. Off we went.
The weather could have been a little better -- but not the scenery. The forest along highway 20 between Grass Valley and Emigrant Gap is as nice a woods as anybody could ask for, a natural cathedral with the trees only showing a small strip of the sky above the road. Just before we reached Interstate 80, we started to see some snow along the side of the road.
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| The staging area was slick and wet, but not yet snow-covered. Mike Pulskamp |
Five minutes later, we lined up at the trailhead near Eagle Mountain Ski area. Tom Gracey of the Grass Valley Four Wheelers was our trail boss. He gave us a quick drivers' talk and picked up the safety check sheets.
This run had 31 guest vehicles, with 4 trail crew vehicles spread out in the line to make sure that everything went smoothly. We all aired down, locked in, and introduced ourselves. With only slight wheel spin in the snow at the edge of the paved road, we were off! I was apprehensive because we were running some not-so-perfect tires, and although we knew a lot of the people there, it's never good to show up less than fully prepared. In fact, in snow, under-preparedness can be dangerous or even deadly. Luckily, airing down to about 10 psi did the trick, and we had no problems keeping up with the crowd.
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Mike Pulskamp |
At about the spot that the group hit fresh, virgin snow, some problems showed up. One of the lead rigs knocked a tire off the bead, and I noticed a thumping sound from my Jeep's right side firewall area. I guessed that it was a loose battery tray, so we pulled off the main track the first wide spot -- and my guess was confirmed. A nut had rattled loose and fallen off, letting the lower support for the tray swing out, causing the tray to bump against the firewall. If it hadn't been for the snow we could have had this little mishap fixed before the rig behind us even caught up with us. With the slipping and sliding my wife and I were doing as we walked around outside the Jeep, by the time we had dug a nut and bolt out of the parts box the CB was chattering about our battery tray, with offers of help -- how embarrassing! We did get it patched up by the time the other guy's tire was back on his rim. Our group had a couple more tire bead problems along the way, par for the course when aired down low.
At about noon we stopped for lunch and most of us gathered around a canopy erected by the thoughtful Sierra Treasure Hunters. By this time the rain was coming down pretty hard, and the makeshift Tarp City was a welcome shelter. We passed hot drinks and bowls of mongrel soup (a mix of everyone's varied cans, from minestrone to clam chowder).
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| Untracked snow made for some glorious stucks. Mike Pulskamp |
The trail crew told us that we could go out and play on the unbroken trails up ahead, until three o'clock. That's when we planned to regroup and head back down the mountain. This was a great plan that allowed those who wanted to break fresh trail and get stuck in the deep snow to do so without holding up the run. Do these people know how to put on an event or what!
The drive down was uneventful for the most part but when we stopped to air up I heard that an early Bronco driver had over heated his steering pump and the overflow had caught on fire. Luckily a quick eye and a little fire-suppressant snow had him back on the road with hardly any damage at all.
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| Jeep CJ. Mike Pulskamp |
Toyota Flatbed. Mike Pulskamp |
Of the four years I have been attending this event it seems that each year the California Association of Four wheel Drive Clubs' Winter Fun Fest gets better and better. This year some things were the same and some things were different but overall, I enjoyed it more than any of the previous four years' events. The weather was better than last year and a few small changes like self-administered tech inspections made this year's run go smoother than the previous years. That is really saying something with a record 600 people and a sell-out 237 rigs in attendance!
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| Toyota Minitruck. Mike Pulskamp |
Josh Emrich's 4Runner has a slick live-axle swap using coil springs. Mike Pulskamp |
Next year the prices are probably going to go up and there will be no on-site sign ups, so remember to get your registrations in early if you plan to attend this exciting and fun event.
For more pictures, CLICK HERE or CLICK HERE.
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