9 am I pulled into the County Market parking lot.. Michelle ran to McDonalds for breakfast while I drove to Cenex to fuel up. I waved to Mike and Loretta Kelly as they drove from Cenex to County Market. I topped off the fuel tank, bought a cup of coffee and some pop, and headed back to County Market.

We sat about and chatted for a bit and ate our breakfast. Don Gordon was going to try to catch up to us later, so we had to decide where we were going and then call Don and give him the cell phone numbers we had with us.

Finally we decided to head up to Park Lake and the Foehner Meadows and Lava Mountain. We called Don and got things arranged, and we rolled for Clancy.

Four rigs left County Market. Mike and Loretta Kelly lead the way in their '74 Ford Bronco - 351W, NP435, 4.09s in the ARB/Dana 44 and Detroit/Ford 9", with 33x10 Buckshot Mudders. Nate Sinerius took second in his 2" lifted EBronco with 31s. I followed behind Nate in my '77 Scout II - 4" lift, 33x12.50 Cooper STTs, Lockright front, Tracklok rear, 4.09s with a close ratio T19 4spd. Bringing up the rear was Ryan in his 305 Chevy powered FJ40 with 31s.

We pulled off in Clancy and Ryan fixed his windshield wipers at the Legal Tender parking lot. We then headed towards Park Lake as I commented how my Scout liked to lean and roll around the corners with the anti-sway bar disconnected like it was.

We drove along and Mike went through the big snow drift Ryan had mentioned being impassable the week before. Mike went through just fine, Nate got strapped once or twice.. and then he was through. I got stuck.. trying to take the drift in 4-hi and powered out. Seemed like a good time to air down..

Michelle caught this picture of me airing down... at this point, only to 12psi.

I got a strap rearwards, backed up, put the Scout into 4-low, and then stood on it in 2nd gear.. as Mike put it, "Way overkill".. but it was fun!

Tom blasting through the drift

A little farther up the road, Nate got sucked into the ditch.. so I strapped him out.

Nate then went off to the OTHER side of the road! d'oh!

After I strapped Nate backwards he waved me by to take a shot at the drift and open up the road.. I backed up and gave 'er a run.. and promptly got stuck as shown here:

Nate strapped me backwards out of the drift.. I backed up and plowed through the snow to the other side. It was then Nate's turn again. He didn't make it... so I tried to pull him forward. He had just installed the winch bumper the night before, and hadn't installed tow hooks yet, so he had a chain on the front bumper which had everyone a little concerned. I gave him a slow pull on the strap, but didn't budge him.. so I backed up and put a little umph into it..

Here I am throwing some snow...

Nate received a tug from Ryan backwards. Mike Kelly then decided that he'd show us all how to drive and "finesse" Nate's open/open Bronco through the snow....

Guess who got Nate's Bronco even more stuck??

We used a Hi-Lift to jack up the rear of Nate's Scout and then another Hi-Lift to "come-along"/winch the Bronco from the side of the trail.

We got Nate unstuck and he and Ryan through the drift and continued on, with me in the lead this time. At this point, I had driven off of the road to the right. The moment I fell into the snow, I stopped the throttle, and backed out.. I picked a line to the left then.. and promptly fell off the other side of the road! Ryan hooked up to give me a tow..

Yeah, it's a little deep over here..

Ryan started towing me..

And I moved.. though not back onto the road..

In fact.. I got stuck much worse...

Yeah, at this point, I was feeling a little.. uneasy.. I thought I had a good chance of rolling.. so did Mike n' Loretta.. ;-)

Help, my driver's side tires have been swallowed by the trail!

Ben Martin - along for some fun and a break from working on his '75 Scout II - up to his hips in snow. Next time he'll remember to bring spare shoes and socks..

Mike came to my rescue and drove up with his 8274 and snatch blocked to bring the rear of my Scout back onto the trail and move me away from that side-ways kinda feeling (did I forget to drink my V8 that morning??)

At this point, we'd run out of cable. I yelled out the window for Mike to get his Bronco out of the way so I could drive my Scout out of the hole I was in.... his reply was, "If you drive that Scout out of that hole, I'll give you a NICKEL CASH".. as he limped away to put a new alternator in the Bronco, since the 8274 had stopped working from a lack of juice.

Here Ben is giving me some spotting directions.. I was working the Scout forwards n' back trying to get out..

The result of Ben's spotting - I fell off the road and all the way into the deep stuff! d'oh!

We spent.. oh.. an hour (1/2 hour anyhow) digging out the Scout.. working it.. digging it.. working it.. I spun the tires down to dry dirt in the process. I was told I couldn't reveal who it is that's digging me out in this picture.. I can only say it wasn't me. ;-)

Finally it was time to get out. I took a cue from the Mike Kelly Driving School and shifted out of low range and into 4-HI. I then pulled my hand throttle (since I still have a bad hesitation on the Holley 2300) and got the motor racing. It took a few tries of just standing on the throttle in reverse.. then rock it forward a bit.. floor it and go... rock forward... but..

Out I came!!

And this is the hole I left behind me... I was greeted to cheers and claps from the rest of the group - that had just finished putting a new alternator into Mike's Bronco.

I was in the lead.. and thoguht Mike was going to get stuck, so I jumped out to take this picture..

Unfortunately, he didn't get stuck then.. but when he pulled up behind me to wait for Nate and Ryan, he got stuck!

Hmmm.. there's a Scout.. doing just fine.. with a Bronco stuck in the Scout's tracks! Go figure! Of course.. Mike had to show off and hit 85mph without going anywhere after he got stuck... but still..

Then it was Ryan's turn to get stuck behind us..

When I drove over this section, I didn't know what the right line was.. and if the hump on the passenger side was solid or soft.. Mike made it look easy (and it was)

A Bronco and an FJ..

A stuck Bronco that drove off the trail again!

Hmmm.. Mike's a little stuck!

Ryan and I drove up behind Mike to help out if needed..

A Scout sitting on the snow..

Mike tried to winch himself out at a very side-ways angle and popped a C-clip on his fairlead which then cut the cable on the winch. I broke out the on-board air and my mini-die grinder and Mike cut the winch cable cleanly and the winch-cable-weaving party began. Around this time Don and Tyler Gordon showed up. In this picture, Left to Right - Ryan, Mike, Nate's Dad, Tyler, Ben, and Ryan's friend.

Close up of the "underwater basket weaving" class...

Mike tried to break the cable again.. the weave didn't hold very well.. so instead he just drove out of the hole. Knowing Mike, he probably forgot he wasn't in 4wd yet.. We got turned around, and headed back. Here I'm blasting over a "Cattle guard"

Ryan followed...

And got stuck on this long stretch.

Around this time we noticed Nate had a single flat tire. Some snow had gotten between the bead n' rim.. we started airing him up periodically with my on-board air setup. Here we've stopped to air up again.. and I called out on the CB, "Nate has THREE flat tires"...

Just a "romantic" picture of Mike n' Loretta holding each other while watching Nate air up.. now, they were either holding close 'cuz they still love each other.. or they were just plain COLD. Probably a good bit of both!

Don Gordon got stuck.. out came the shovels..

Airing Nate up some more.. and the 4 rigs that left that morning all in a row.. this is around 7pm.

The last picture. Nate's Bronco stuck. At around this point we changed out two of his flattening tires for Mike Kelly's Buckshot spare and my Buckshot spare. Nate now had two 33s in the rear, and two 31s up front - which made the lil' Bronco hop some.. but it stopped going flat. What followed was a winch fest.. Don Gordon winching Nate and Ryan the entire way across some deep snow up to where I got buried earlier in the day. Just before 11pm we were finally moving along on our way home..

On the way down, I noticed my heater stopped working (right after Ben put his wet stocks on my defrosters.. lucky me, or my Scout would smell like Ben's feet now!). Uh oh. Then I watched the temp gauge start to climb... when we reached the "Clancy or Unionville" turn-off I veered off the road and hit the brakes, popped the hood.. to find smoke billowing forth. Everyone, tired n' exhausted, stopped to see what was the matter. When I opened the radiator cap.. NOTHING. No steam came out. Hmmm. We looked around for a cause and only found a screw driver lying inside the shroud. I grabbed my spare coolant and poured some in. Tyler chimed in, "It's coming out as fast as you're pouring it in!" Great. Don was kind enough to fill my jugs up from the nearby creek while someone else put one of the empty jugs under the radiator to collect what was leaking out... we filled the rad, then dropped the hood, and I high tailed it towards home. As I reached town, no heat again.. so limped into Mini-Mart on drag and noticed my steering was awfully difficult.. I chalked it up to the 9psi in the tires. We stopped at Mini Mart and someone staggered by and said, "Woah.. I think you're leaking coolant" as it ran quickly out of my radiator.. "HELLO? Thank you Mr. Obvious!" Apparently they didn't think the group of "rednecks" standing around my truck had a clue. ;-) We filled some jugs from a faucet at Mini Mart and quickly filled the rad again. At this point, I noticed someone had broken my passenger side of the bench seat.. it just gets better! ;-)

We filled the rad up, dropped the hood, and I was racing for home. I parked it that night and took my sister's car to take Michelle home - complete with NO BRAKES it turned out! d'oh.

Here's the morning after.. notice all of the mud on the hood.. and the very large puddle of water underneath.

I set about fixing things. Turns out all of my spare radiators had leaks.. so I put a less-leaky radiator in. Don Gordon had noticed I was about to lose the an alternator bearing the night before.. so the alt came out, too. I put my 90amp in.. only to find it wasn't working at all. So instead I went from a 63amp to a 90amp and then dug up the stock 37amp which finally worked. At the same time, I noticed I'd blown a power steering hose.. changed THAT out, too.

My best guess is the screw driver got bounced up and thrown into the radiator which caused the leak. The Rad is fixed now - $60 later and I swapped it back in.

While I was putting in the "less leaky" radiator, Erik Dawkins from Bozeman stopped by to show me pictures of his Jeep CJ7 on "Helldorado" in Moab.. he'd just returned the day before... grrrr...

I still had a blast wheelin' though.. and I look forward to the next one! Yee-haw!

-Tom
Antics/Trail Rides
Copyright 1999, Tom Mandera, TMComputers