Thanks Shawn, yup, wheeler in the oven. We're still aiming for Friday night. The GPS app on my phone should at least be able to pin your coordinates and show my location (I hope). I don't expect to have too much trouble. If so, we'll just setup camp and try to make contact with someone on Saturday morning, by CB channel 40, or phone.
..... so what ever your planned leave time is, I bet someone will be able to caravan with you who does have ham or gps. you guys start organizing those times (here on this thread is fine).
We're hoping to get out of Dodge about 5:45 Friday night (so probably really 6 pm if everything runs perfectly smoothly) and hopefully get to the camp area before it is pitch black. Anyone else desperate for the mountains after working all day Friday, or is that just Ron?
If so, post up and we'll gladly caravan. Course we don't have Ham, or gps, (although Ron says he found an app for his phone that seems to work for the gps stuff) so we might be just using you for yours, or the blind leading the blind depending....
Thanks Shawn, yup, wheeler in the oven. We're still aiming for Friday night. The GPS app on my phone should at least be able to pin your coordinates and show my location (I hope). I don't expect to have too much trouble. If so, we'll just setup camp and try to make contact with someone on Saturday morning, by CB channel 40, or phone.
I'll monitor the megalink for Shawn's GPS coordinates on Thursday and then translate them here. He may have to try me couple of times in case i can't hear the HAM radio outside of the vehicle. I should be getting the camper ready so I'll be milling around on the driveway. Just let me know roughly when I should be paying attention to the radio.
No worries folks, I think we'll be fine with all of our modern tech available to us!
As of now, the Ali's will be leaving Fri morning sometime. It definitely won't be early but we'd like to get out of dodge before noon if it all possible. If anyone would like to caravan with us, please drop me a line.
For sat night, I'll be cooking up some tasty Carnitas. The pneumatic blender will be ready to go so it may be time for some margaritas to go along with the Carnitas. Bring your favorite TooKillYa along with Margarita mixes, lime, etc and we'll do it up just right. If someone could bring a little spare ice, that'd be great. All we need is the disco ball and I think we're all set!!
For sat night, I'll be cooking up some tasty Carnitas. The pneumatic blender will be ready to go so it may be time for some margaritas to go along with the Carnitas. Bring your favorite TooKillYa along with Margarita mixes, lime, etc and we'll do it up just right. If someone could bring a little spare ice, that'd be great. All we need is the disco ball and I think we're all set!!
Don't let something as trivial as having a baby stop you from the fall Moab trip. Ask Jill about Kian. She was pregnant with him, wheeled in the 40 on the first official HDC Christmas Tree run, then delivered the baby on Monday.
All the guys and wives were ready and willing to help deliver if the baby came a day earlier. I was in charge of boiling the water.
Don't let something as trivial as having a baby stop you from the fall Moab trip. Ask Jill about Kian. She was pregnant with him, wheeled in the 40 on the first official HDC Christmas Tree run, then delivered the baby on Monday.
Yeah, apparently my mother delivered 2 weeks early - the day after going wheeling with my father and friends. I think I'd like to avoid that though - especially 1.5 months early... Besides stopping the whole crew so I could pee every 30 minutes or so seems like a good way to make myself disliked pretty quickly!
Jill - I always plan for way colder than I think it will be! Plus some summery stuff. I hate being cold.
Thanks Jon, I was looking at that route today, and possibly another one. I vote for the Paliza meadow rather than bear springs because I want to come in from the north.
Has anyone looked for a road from about where Rory's rig died switchbacking downhill to the east to the road at the edge of the map? The forest GIS roads layer shows one and I can see traces of it in photos, but am not sure if it is passable or not.
Also, I'm planning to take the kids rockclimbing at Las Conchas either on the way in Saturday or out Sunday if anyone is interested. We don't know what time we're leaving Saturday, that will probably be our determining factor in which day we go.
And temp supposedly drops 3.5* per 1000' in elevation gain.
Just taking a guess but I'd suspect it to be about the same as Fenton Lake. I was able to get weather details and forecasts for Fenton Lake State Park on Weather.com. Low 40's at night, 70's - 80's during the day. You can probably count on rain by then. The 10-day forcast shows it starting about a week from now. But I don't have much faith in forecasts more than a few days out.
Fenton Lake is at about 7,900 ft. If you go 500 - 1000 ft higher, I'd expect 10 degrees cooler temps and a higher chance of rain.
we are going to be a little slow out of the gate tomorrow. still a few things to tie up. I got the ham going in the 40 only. the ford's load for the antenna I believe is bad. have to order it, nobody in town has one that I could find. flat bed is loaded with the 40 and my 40monster trailer. we'll be packed to the gills.
tomorrow before leaving, I will phone Ali for a ham test and to ask how to hit the megalink. Jill printed out some topo parts for us to use too. thanks Jon, we will cross reference them with yours. according to the topo, the slope may be more than I thought at the proposed camp spot, but we'll check it out and report back.
I don't see anyone using the simplex freq 146.460 on this trip, only megalink freq: 145.290. However, that is a repeater freq and maybe very busy with other people gabbing on it.
If anyone has a FRS radio, you can hit my ham radio on channel 5, sub channel 5. Of course, you'll need to be fairly close to me in order for us to hear each other. I'll have the CB channel 40 turned on as well.
I don't see anyone using the simplex freq 146.460 on this trip, only megalink freq: 145.290. However, that is a repeater freq and maybe very busy with other people gabbing on it.
If you tune to 145.290 you will be able to hear communication, but you won't be able to communicate without also entering the offset and tone. Just want to make sure people are aware. I'll bet simplex will work pretty good if you crank up the power once in the canyon.
I made contact with Shawn today at 5:30 and he told me that he's driving the FJ40 with the family in it while towing the off road trailer. They approached Paliza trail from the Valle Caldera entrance. He'll give me another call when they get to the camp site, hopefully in about an hour or so.
One thing that he forgot to pack is a pintle hitch receiver. If anyone in the club has one that he can borrow let us know and we'll take it to him.
Edit:
7:34pm
Shawn made contact with me and has setup camp at this coordinate:
N 35° 46' 08 (or N 35.768°)
W 106° 32' 22" (or W-106.5394°)
These coordinates are using the WGS84 Datum (very common setting in most GPS's)
The Paliza trail has a giant washout somewhere near 15 min in from the trail head (on hwy 4). There's a bypass that is hard to find and it dumps you on an ATV trail for a short while. He states that the washout is chest deep and a little wider than his 40 track width.