YotaTech Fall Colors Run Held
October 14th 2006, Greenwater

Once a year YotaTech has a Fall Colors Run to celebrate the changing of the colors in the mountains, and to just get out of the city for a nice leisurely drive in the mountains to enjoy the scenery.

Here is a list of those who attended:
2001millrunner/2001 4Runner (Ray and his girlfriend)
Corey/2007 FJ Cruiser (duh, that be me)
Mytruck/1984 truck (Jim)
Toddski/1991 4Runner (Todd and his boys)
Wiebs6/1993 truck (Garret)

Summery of trip
Not a lot turned out, I guess they saw the crappy overcast weather and chickened out.
We had a hunch that once we gout out of Enumclaw and started the climb for Greenwater, that better weather would prevail.
We were right, the sun broke out right up by Mud Mountain Dam.

We turned off at FS road 72 and pulled over the air down spot.
Most of us aired down to around 20 psi, and that is a pretty good pressure for the washboard roads up there.
My new meats had a nice low squat to them.

We proceeded up the hill to the spot where Mount Rainier greets us in all its glory, and we snapped off a few pics up there of the rigs and the fall colors which were out in abundance this year.
I think we hit it right this time.
In the past sometimes we would go up a little to early and they would not be out yet.

We continued our climb and followed the route we always take.
Next year I would like to try another area up there for the Fall Colors Run, perhaps FS road 74, or 73 upto the Suntop lookout again and that lake we went to a few years ago back in 2004.
We stopped a few times to shoot some more pics of the surrounding fall colors.

We then headed on down to the gravel pit to do some playing.
The one hill we use to like to play on is gone now, they must have used the gravel for road projects.
But there was another area there where we played for a bit.
On this back trail into it I picked up some good forest pin stripping, and I hope it buffs out.
Will not know until we get some waxing weather here, we have rain right now for the next few days as I type this.
The FJ is fat and wider than most other Toyota such as the mini trucks, Tacomas, and all gens of the 4Runner.
Branches love to jump out and kiss the sides of the FJ.

Later on we aired up, and this was where it got fun.
Some had not witnessed the awesome power of my Powertank ;)
I cranked the C02 bottle to 150 psi and filled my first tire from 20 psi back to around 33 psi in under 20 seconds.
For the next tire I cranked the bottle to 200 psi, and the tire filled so fast it was funny.
I had all four tires filled back in under three minutes which included walking around the rig.

Jim filled up next, then Garrett, then Todd.
All four rigs were done and Ray was still on his third tire with his air compressor.
He finished off the fourth tire with the Powertank.
I think all were very impressed with the quickness of the Powertank.

We found out Todd needs a new CB, his would only beep when he keyed up.
We told him to beep once for no, beep twice for yes.
That kind of set a limit on his on the air vocabulary.
hopefully Todd will have a new CB for the next trip.
We plan on making a few snow runs up there starting in November or December.

All in all it was a great day up there, got to meet a few other YotaTecher's, and got to put my new rig into 4WD and have it off road for the first time since I bought it.
I am impressed with the ability of it, but like anything else it takes a bit to get use to.
Little harder to see over the hood on it, and the fenders stick out more on the sides also making it more difficult to see on an obstacle than my old 4Runner.
It will just take a little time to get use to "more rounded features" of the rig.
Did I mention the FJ Cruiser is fat :)

Oh, the power of the 4.0 is awesome too, it blows the power band of my old 3.0 out of the water.
On the roads we went up there the 4RUnner use to struggle to keep up before.
Not so anymore, I have power!

Looking forward to our next trip out again...

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