North West Cruisers of Idaho did a run of the same trail on both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend. The trail was called Lost Trail mostly because route finding it terribly difficult in a land of monotonous sage brush and desert mountains without GPS coordinates and having run the trail numerous times. The trail is one of the easier trails of the area with a few lava rock ledges, some twisty washes and a few optionals. I had originally planned to go out both days. It as been a while since I have been wheeling and I was eager to test out the truck. Eric Vogt and I made up the Saturday group while the Sunday group was a bit larger with 4-5 vehicles. We got to the first optional challenge and my front elocker was dead so I was unable to climb that one. Already I was starting to see getting home early repairing the locker and making that climb on Sunday. Didn't happen!!!!!!!!! In a twisty wash, my front tire knocked loose some lava rock off the edge. One sharp one punctured my front right. I was attempting to climb out of the wash when my rear took a 2 inch clean slice right through the side wall. We were prepared to winch the truck up to some flat ground change out the tires and get moving. However, my battery slipped sideways in the tray and removed the negative cable from the post. This set off my much hated alarm and disabled the starter. This would not have been a big deal but I left the keys with the remote at home. We loaded into Eric's 80 (2 adults and 3 kids under the age of 6) and headed for my house. We dropped off my kids, got my other keys, grabbed the spare off my 97 80 series, and returned to the scene of the crime. We filled the front with CO2 (thanks Eric) but could not do anything about the rear. It was an easy winch up with a few moments of scary slide will with a flat downhill rear tire, and finally getting to flat ground. We changed out the rear and started on the front when we noticed that Eric's 35" spare would not work with the bigger calipers on the front of my truck. So we get the smallish worn 33" spare from my 97 on a stock rim and fit it to the front. Last problem, we did not have the special lug nuts for the rim so we had to use what we had. The trip home was slow with frequent stops to check that the lug nuts were still tight. The day ended for us both just before midnight. Eric is now skilled at running this trail day or night. I believe that other tires may faired better on the font side wall puncture but the rear tire tear was ginormous. All in all a very good day.
Michael Aaron
91 V8J80 with 3 good tires.
Michael Aaron
91 V8J80 with 3 good tires.
Great pics, as usual and say hi to Cooper!.
