Sorry guys, We're back but busy.
Good trip. Without getting to deep into it, here's a few teasers.
220 miles from trailhead to trailhead. Less than we hoped, but time and fuel dictated no more. The gassers averaged 5mpg on the fast days and about 1.5 on the slower days. We used every drop that we brought along which we had hoped was enough for 400 miles.
We had a couple of days straight of slow speed cross country travel up on high alpine ridges and rocky meadows. Covered 25 miles in two full days of travel and burned a full tank of gas in the '40s.
We had a couple of fast 4 foot river crossing, but nothing daunting.
Things were pretty dry so the mud and bogs and marshy areas were not all that tough. Bruce had to take the strap a couple of times and break out the winch about 8 times or so. I found a couple of deep holes in couple of different grassy marshy spots and winched out rather than chewing things up to get moving. I don't recall Kevin ever getting stuck.
The '40s with the 40 inch boggers pretty much tractored our way through everything. The '74 had to use a little more momentum and power. Overall I can't say anything negative about the rig when you consider how suited it was for the long distance run from Calgary to join us.
We didn't make it to the area where we had hoped to. Some of my info turned out to be inaccurate. We did make it all the way to the Susitna River, but were unable to find any track to get very far west ward toward the Talkeetna. I know the route is there since I've seen it from the air. But we were unable to find it on the ground. Once we got back in there, there were many places where the trail we were on was difficult to keep track of. And cross country at the speeds and fuel consumption that is dictated for the kind of distance that would have been called for just wasn't an option this time around.
We had great weather that changed constantly. Only rained once though.
We caught grayling that practically jumped on the hook. We had a moose practically walk into camp, looking right at us the whole time. We had a caribou cow and calf walk right up to us while we were sitting on a 6000 foot peak watching about 300 of them on the next ridge over. We had a 360 degree view for miles and miles in every direction. All all day hike up and back.
Spent most of our time in country where virtually no one ever goes. Spent some of our time in places where *MAYBE* half a dozen people a year ever see.
One busted birfield. One loose wheel spacer (NOT mine). On shattered leaf spring (the whole pack). One very bruised leg. (NOT run over this time... and yes it was mine again). One dog/porcupine run in.
A few miscellaneous tuning type issues as we actually got going. Including significant amounts of water in the fuel cans that I dumped into my rig right before hitting the road. One clutch that gave up the ghost as we hit the road on the way out (actually started slipping on the trail, but we limped it all the way home. It was for the BJ74 and we had to get a disc custom made, but we have a place in town that can handle that. Got it all cheap too!
Bruce and Charla are on their way home tonight. Jim flew out this morning.
Much more to it than this stuff, but it will take time organize it all to tell. All in all GREAT trip.
More later. Maybe Jim, Bruce or Charla will have more to tell when they get home.
Mark...
