May 2008
www.RC4W.COM
Rough Country 4-Wheelers stamp
P.O. Box 3253
Cheyenne WY 82003
Top dog runs
2008
Rod Pepper 3
Richard Cisco 0
Dewey Williams 2
Howard Segal 2
Steve Wykoff 1
Brian Kubal 0
Scott Grimm 0
Jim Carter 0
Craig Goble 1
John Stone 2
Marlon Seals 3
George Brook 2
David Kipf 0
Paul Bickerton 2
Chris Ladd 1
Joe Huston 0
Matt Romero 0
Zach Martin 1
Travis Kolbo 0
* Superday
# Work Trip
Calendar of Events 2008
May 24th Club Run
Walden Sand Dunes
Several of us will be camped together
so stop by.
June 3rd Club Meeting
7:45 pm Uncle Charlie’s
Upstairs meeting room,
6001 Yellowstone Rd
June 21st Club Run
Lander, WY
Trip Leader: Marlon Seals
Anniversaries
Joe Huston 05/2006
RC4W Snow Crawl (and sink!) ‘08
“ Holy piles of snow, Batman”! would have been the last thing Robin, the Boy Wonder, said before he plunged out of sight, had he been on RC4W Snow Crawl ’08! The April run had some of the craziest conditions I’ve ever seen. 9 rigs battling 5 ft. of snow on the level with drifts over 30 ft. tall!
The weather was incredible. Really nice! It would have made a great SUMMER day in the mountains! However, because of the balmy temps, the snow had the consistency of egg shells. We started into Hell’s Canyon and hadn’t gone 200 yards when I went on my side. Once you fall off the snowmobile tracks it’s a long way to dirt! We regrouped and decided that Hell’s Canyon wasn’t going to be very kind to us on that day.
John Stone suggested Muddy Creek, knowing full well how bad we’ve gotten our butt’s kicked there before in April! So, off we went to do battle with the “Mutha“ of all snow bashing trails! I turned off the main road onto the trail and was stuck within 20 ft., going DOWNHILL! And I thought, “ This isn’t supposed to happen with 500 horsepower and 42” Iroks”!
The snow was the consistency of wet cement, not quite set up! It STALLED the winch! I ran the tree saver 6 ft up the tree to try and lift it out of the snow. We still had to dig it out. This happened 3 times trying to crawl it, twice in the same spot, and I wasn’t 50 ft. into the trail. I don’t do defeat well, so the next time I flung the gate wide open and let all the ponies out! That was good for about 100 ft and then down I went again! This time it smoked the winch lead right out of the battery terminal! And I thought, “I’m gonna slap John for this”!
It took a considerable amount of time to just get everybody onto the trail and down to the first meadow and “John’s Hole”. There was so much snow in the first meadow we just floated over John’s Hole without incident. Now, I’ve been running the Muddy Creek trail for over 35 years and working on it for 20. I know the trail. After John’s Hole I could not find the trail AT ALL!….. EVER! We just winged it down through the valley for about 2 miles. At one point, Marlon Seals, who was right behind me, got on the radio and said “Hey, did you know you just ran over a fence”! I said “No”, “it was just a log buried under the surface of the snow“. After stopping and taking a look, it was the TOP rail of a 5ft. Buck fence that WE built on a work trip years ago. I was running in about the top 12“-18” of snow with an occasional 2 to 3 ft. drop!
Staying on top of the snow, whether driving, walking or just standing on it, was a bag full of surprises just waiting to happen! You could be just standing there and down you‘d go! It got pretty humorous after awhile! Same with the rigs. Driving on it felt like you were wallowing along on giant, unstable marshmallows!
After a couple hours of stuck/pull, stuck/pull, stuck/pull, I was more than happy to have Marlon take over the lead for awhile. Following in HIS tracks was easy but trying to pull him out wasn’t! At a creek crossing (we think!), he buried his 46” tires! We hooked up both John’s and my winch but much to John’s surprise, his winch had already bit the dust! Gee, John, two April runs to Muddy Creek and two winches put out of commission. Still wanna “Go tear ‘em up”?
When we could go no further, we backtracked and headed for Cinnebar Park to run the monster drifts. On the way we regrouped at the Rob Roy intersection. While there, several of us engaged in a spirited little “High-Mark” contest on a hill that just happened to present itself. On this run we had a new guest, Justin, from Laramie, in a mostly stock full size, manual transmission, Blazer. A welded rearend and 36” Iroks were all he had but he still managed to out-climb one certain Club Jeep sporting a built 383 stroker, an automatic, and 42” Iroks! Twice! And then pulled said Jeep out both times! Really, a pretty funny scene! Justin is a student at WyoTech in Laramie. The kid can flat-out drive! He hung with us ALL day long!
The monster drifts at Cinnebar Park were nothing short of spectacular! We played like kids in a toy factory! Driving on top of 40 ft. of snow still amazes me. Especially when, like at Cinnebar Park, it’s sculpted like large sand dunes, with cornices, drop-offs, undercuts, bowls and BIG climbs! This thing is like a freak of nature! It’s the “Super Snow Ride and Slide” at an amusement park!
Club members on this outstanding run were, Howard Segal, Dewey Williams, Marlon Seals, Pauly Bickerton, John Stone, George Brook and Rod Pepper. Our guests were Cody from Ft. Collins in a Jeep/Buggy and Justin from Laramie in a Blazer.
From the time we left Albany that morning until we got back that night, we NEVER SAW DIRT! What a run!!
Happy Trails,
Rod
50/50 Raffle
Steve Wykoff who picked his own ticket…hmmm
SOUTH DAKOTA TRIP
If there are any club members still wanting to attend the club trip in South Dakota, they need to turn in their registration package by the end of the May meeting.
Marlon Seals and Rod Pepper