Whipsaw 2011 Story - The 2nd Group

[asutherland]

Cam and Gina came over the other day and sat down with Kerri and I, had a beer or two, and decided on the best photos
and videos from the hundreds that we had. Although we started the trip out as one big convoy, shortly thereafter the group
split into two because of Cam's unfortunate luck. :whoops:

I went over to the mainland on Friday, met up with Jason at his shop and helped him install my awesome new front bumper
and skidplate. Stoked on the new hardware, I stayed at Greg's house Friday night. It was just the two of us, and we stayed
up way too late drinking and making plans on what to bring and how much fun we were going to have.

The following morning Greg (my co-pilot) and I drove back into Chilliwack and took the Vedder Rd exit. As we passed
Tim Hortons on our way to Safeway for corn on the cob, ice and more beer, we noticed Cam sitting on a camp chair in
the parking lot behind his 60. He was drinking something and had a straw cowboy hat on. Apparently he was there an
hour early because he was so eager to get going.

When we got back to Timmies, we met up with Cam, Jason and family, Pete, Glenn, Jeff, and Jason's friend Paul
(and family). We headed up the #1 as a great big convoy.

We took the #256 exit just past the old toll booth area (after trudging up the Bear Snowshed hill at about 60km/hour) ,
waited for the group to reconvene, ate some lunch and aired down. Then we drove through Brooksmeer and along the old Kettle Valley Railway bed.

Shortly after we stopped to take a group shot. Right after, a mini-van drove by and we decided we needed to get moving to hit the trail!

After passing by a bunch of beautiful resorts on Otter Lake, we got into Tulameen, and shortly after into Coalmont.

Shortly after Coalmont we turned up the gravel road towards Lodestone Lake.

Once we reached Lodestone, we attempted to set up camp. We then ran into the problem that we didn't have enough room for everyone!
Moved to the other side of the lake and set up there. Out came the multiple roof top and trailer tents, our screen house
(thank God we had it - the bugs were BAD) the camp stoves, Jason's amazing M101 trailer kitchen, and the

A few of us (Cam, Jeff, Pete and Greg and I) decided to venture up the road a bit to the top of the mountain for some amazing views.

Here is where these amazing views took place, and where Cam would be for the next 36 hours........

At this point I will pass the story over to Cam to continue for the next little bit!

Cam?

 

[slowandsteady BJ]

After spending some time at the lookout chatting and re-hydrating, Andrew spotted a hill. He charged off and gave it a go.

He climbed right up, and invited others to try. I obliged and tried to crawl up. Its funny how small hills look when one is staring down at them, say from a lookout. Often when one is at the bottom of a hill, looking up, it appears much bigger. None the less here we go again. 4 lo locked F&R crawl..... nope. Perhaps a little throttle (just a bit) 1500RPM.... climbing..... climbing... Bang. Excessive profanity flowing whilst sliding backwards down the hill with no brakes.

At this point my trip just took a sharp left turn away from any type of plan or schedual. What have I done?

 

[slowandsteady BJ]

We, (Jeff, Pete, Andrew, Greg, Glenn, Jayson and I) as a group made a skid for the broken side from salvaged bits of wood and tried to skid the three legged truck to a flat spot. I couldn't help but notice a lot of camera flashes slowly chipping away at my ego, one flash at a time.

 

[slowandsteady BJ]

We hobbled the old girl along and made a sharp 180 degree turn to a flat spot thanks to Pete's winching. Once the winch was unhooked and the turn complete she dragged herself along a bit reluctantly.

The reason for the slow pace became appearent as Jeff noticed the OTHER back wheel was walking out of place. Yep, thats right not just one but two broken shafts.

We abandond the 60 and headed for camp. Of course my tent, food, water, cooking tools, sleeping bag, matress and other stuff was all connected to my dead truck. I pulled the sleeping bag and a pillow out and became that last minute, unwanted house guest that shows up un announced and un prepared. People were nice enough to feed me and come bedtime I cozied up between Greg and Andrew in their tent. Glenn made me coffee in the a.m. and we, as a group came up with an action/salvage plan.

I would stay with the 60 and prep everything, Andrew and greg would rocket the 80 into Po Co and get parts and the rest of the group would carry on as planned. Clearly I had some work to do and about 8 hours to do it in. Grunt.

 

[asutherland]

As they say in the comic books, Meanwhile...................

Greg and I left Base Camp Cam at 10:00AM sharp. We had 1 day to make the round trip. You
may note that the time estimate on the map below is ONE WAY not return.

We PUMMELED down the forest service roads with Jeff (Enigma) at top speed, leaving via the
Lawless route and ending up on the #5 near Coquihalla Lakes Lodge. Once on pavement we
stopped only once to air up. Next stop, a coffee shop in PoCo (4 hours away) where we met
with Mat who graciously had nearly ALL the parts and supplies we required to do the trail repair
on Cam's truck. I bought a freakin' $5 latte.

We had been given a very specific grocery list of items to pick up from Mat by the Coastal Cruiser brainstorm that happened that morning.
If we missed ANY SMALL ITEM we would be SCREWED and have to repeat the 9 hour return trip again a second time. The list was as follows:

- 85 BJ60 semi-float rear axle shafts (both sides)
- 2x Rear axle bearings
- 2x Rear axle seals
- Slide hammer
- Right stuff gasket maker
- 3L of 80-90w gear oil in squeeze bottles
- Magnet to collect shrapnel out
- Beer

After we met with Mat (very nice gentleman I might add) we flew back to Chilliwack, where we collected the magnet, extra shop towels and brake
clean. We stopped only once for personal reasons to have lunch at Safeway and to sneak into their bathroom to wash faces and brush teethes

Now if our group's luck wasn't bad enough, on the way back to help Cam THIS happened right at Exit 256. Changing a completely flat 35" tire on the side
of the Coquihalla with 18-wheelers flying by at 130km/hour is NOT FUN at all. One of us was traffic point person, and would quickly inform the other (well
underneath the truck) that you know, oh "Uhh... 2 semi's are coming side by side... they're not moving... might want to get out of there for a min... NOW..."
Then we'd switch jobs. It was that stressful.

We got back to Base Camp Broke-Cam via the same way we came in with the group the day before. Greg and I were curious to see which route was faster.
Turns out the Lawless way IS faster, though only by 10-15 minutes. The Lawless way isn't as nice scenery though. We stopped along the Kettle Valley Railway
to have a wobbly pop whilest airing down.

We arrived at dusk. Flooring it up the last 20km of trail at top speed in 4-low, windows down and Rage Against the Machine blaring. (it had been a long day and
we were very tired) Cam and Ian were just finishing up the prep work on the 60. We set up camp for the night, made some dinner, and finally relaxed.

Back to you, Cam...

 

[slowandsteady BJ]

Well I must say, it was a bit lonely up there by myself, at least I had 10 000 mosquitoes and a hand full of horse flies to keep me company. Once the truck was jacked up and cribbed the disassembly started.

Ian made a return trip to finish the trail with us and help out with the wrenching. He showed up about 5 hours after Andrew left and now I had someone to help and bounce ideas off of.

Getting the broken axle shafts out took 2 hours beating the end of a breaker bar with a fire axe (ian bravely held the carrier and the breaker bar while I threw the axe around like a retarded aul Bunion. Long story short we did it, time to re-assemble! Where oh where is Andrew?

No worries though the day's stress was over as night was fast approaching. Ian and I chatted loudly as we were both def from the axe hammering, had a beer and fished for broken metal within the axle tube. When that got dull we cleaned up and drank some more till wh heard the "oh so sweet" purr of a 1hd-t

Dinner, more pops, a baby wipe shower and a good nights sleep.

 

[slowandsteady BJ]

This picture is so good I feel it deserves its own post. Good shot Andrew.

 

[Enigma]

That...is an awesome picture. Send it in to Toyota Trails!

 

[asutherland]

Day 2 - The Story Continues!

In the morning Cam and Ian worked on the 60 while Greg and I played and made breakfast and packed up. Don't get any ideas Ryan, that's ALL we did.

After hash-browns, eggs and bacon, we finished packing everything up, put the wheels back on the 60, crossed our fingers and left Base Camp Broke-Cam.
This was about 1:00pm

A little while down the trail we ran across some cows. They are important to the story because they made Cam very nervous. Not sure why...

On my Backroads Mapbook GPS tablet the trail now turned from a solid line to a dotted one. This made everyone very happy and excited for the afternoon.

Had to stop and get a couple 80-series-rear-sway-bar-still-connected-poser-flex shots...

It started to get really muddy. Which Ian thought was freakin' hilarious. He even enjoyed being pulled out by a cruiser! To be honest, the little Dakota
was really a shining performer. It was doing far better than Cam and I had expected. Of course that had a lot to do with the driver. There were very few
times we had to give Ian a pull.

 

[seapotato]

nice camping trip.


So what I get from all this, is that Cam's not gonna be allowed to make fun of Andrew for a LOOOOONG time...

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Keep it coming - lots of action and drama to Cam's and Andrew's most excellent adventure. You guys have a great story and you should consider submitting it to Toyota Trails - what great memories are made of ...

 

[asutherland]

Around 3 or 4 pm (don't know, didn't care!) we came across the "Mud Pit" that everyone had talked about. They said there was a bridge built across it.
Suuure... maybe for ATVs or a Suzuki!

Afterward we stopped and a)had lunch b)got eaten. Quickly packing up while killing hordes of little blood sucking fiends, we continued onward.

We then came to a really nice alpine clearing. The view was amazing! Though the fog was coming in like soup. It made for a beautiful, yet eerie landscape.
We stopped and poked around for a bit. Cam found a little trail up the side of one of the bluffs and headed there. Soon he showed up top of the bluff. Ian
and Greg and I followed.

 

[Cruisin']

That "Mud Pit" really was a problem about 2 years ago. What is now a matter of driving through took over 2 hours of winching 6 trucks through, and up the nearly 3' vertical shelf to get out (that was going through the other way). I like it this way better. I just finished removing my rad and getting Whipsaw mud cleaned out of it from when this hole was still deep.

 

[asutherland]

That "Mud Pit" really was a problem about 2 years ago. What is now a matter of driving through took over 2 hours of winching 6 trucks through, and up the nearly 3' vertical shelf to get out (that was going through the other way). I like it this way better. I just finished removing my rad and getting Whipsaw mud cleaned out of it from when this hole was still deep.

Yeah, we figured something like that must have been the case.

 

[neoworm]

The only reason there are two parallel trails is because drove through the meadows to make new trails. Enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[asutherland]

The only reason there are two parallel trails is because drove through the meadows to make new trails. Enjoy it while it lasts.

In fact there were a lot of parallel trails that were there for the simple reason of getting AROUND some of the difficult areas. Some of the more used sections were clearly not even the original trail. But yes, there were
many signs of people who drove around like morons and damaged the eco-system. We stayed far away from these areas. We also cleaned up garbage and took a wack load of crap left at Wells lake back in Ian's pickup.

But thanks for your contribution to the story.

 

[Wheelingnoob]

Do not want to sound like an here but I will anyways.

You do realize that in this last video + the one crossing were the bridge is are both off trail right? It may be boring to drive on the dry track but that is the trail what those video's show is you mud bogging in a sensitive area. I do not care if its marked or not use some common sense!! like that is what has everyone up in arms over wheeling in genearal and on the whipsaw in particular. Behavior like that makes all of us look bad and will result in that area getting shut down.

Why is it so hard for people to enjoy the trail for what it is with out tearing through the mud bogs offshoots that are obviously more damaging than staying on the trail its self.

I'll stop now but like has to STOP!

 

[Toshi38]

Great trip boys... wish I wasn't driving across canada and could have joined!... keep the story coming

 

[asutherland]

Do not want to sound like an here but I will anyways.

You do realize that in this last video + the one crossing were the bridge is are both off trail right? It may be boring to drive on the dry track but that is the trail what those video's show is you mud bogging in a sensitive area. I do not care if its marked or not use some common sense!! like that is what has everyone up in arms over wheeling in genearal and on the whipsaw in particular. Behavior like that makes all of us look bad and will result in that area getting shut down.

Why is it so hard for people to enjoy the trail for what it is with out tearing through the mud bogs offshoots that are obviously more damaging than staying on the trail its self.

I'll stop now but like has to STOP!

No, I hear you for sure. There were tons of "offshoots" like you mentioned and we did stay clear of them. To be honest this one section really did appear to be trail in either direction
(one high side and one low side). I'm sorry if I was wrong about that.

 

[neoworm]

In fact there were a lot of parallel trails that were there for the simple reason of getting AROUND some of the difficult areas. Some of the more used sections were clearly not even the original trail.

IC. So what you are saying is As long as your truck and/or wheeling skills are not up to the challenge it's ok to go around stuff but only if many others before you have done it.

OR

maybe as long as many people have driven there before and now it looks like a trail it's OK even though I still know that it's not really right.