August 3rd, 2002
This was a spur of the moment
I had early Friday evening for Saturday morning.
We headed up to FS Road 73 to
Suntop Lookout, but it was gated one mile from the top.
We ended up running the 15 mile
loop for FS Road 72 which offers many scenic views of Mt. Rainier.
Here are the people who went.
Corey, '91 4Runner
Jim (mytruck) & his wife
Trudie, '89 Extracab truck
The videos are best viewed if
you right click the link and save it to your desktop. If you merely click
on the link, it will play, but it can be choppy, and some parts may not
play at all.
Links to 1024x768 resolution pics
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6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
Videos I took
Mt.
Rainier out my rigs window
Me
coming down a hill, left rear tire off ground is making the rig rock back
& forth
Me
coming down the hill again
Me
trying to go up hill. This is a locker type hill, loose sand
Me
on same hill, tires bouncing from lack of traction
Lost
traction on the hill behind the other front hill
Me
coming down hill, right rear tire comes all the way off the ground
Jim
trying out the hill, loose sand, no traction
Jim
on the same hill again. Yeah, we know, we need lockers
Lots of bugs out, but I was prepared
this time, unlike the last trip in July.
I loaded on the REI Jungle Juice which is almost 100% DEET, and the stuff
works great. Not one little bugger landed on me.
No sunburn today either like
the last trip. My trusty REI Sahara hat did a great job protectin' my head.
The route we took starts in at
Forest Road 70 off of Highway 410 and heads West. The route we were
on was about 15 miles long back to where it intersects with FS Road 70.
If going on the highway the
distance is a lot less, but surely not as much fun or scenic as this.
We hd many vantage points to
Mt. Rainier to view it in all it's splendor.
No matter how many times I see
it, you can't get enough of it. And I see it about daily as you can see
it from my town.
But close-up views from up where
we were is no comparison.
We also messed around a little
on some loose sand/dirt hills. Trying to go up the hills was a challenge
as both of our ties would dig in and sink down.
Had we aired down to 15 to 20
lb, I'm sure we would have made it up. Perhaps not, maybe a locker would
have been needed.
Going down or up one wheel comes
off the ground, so I'm sure a locker there would have taken care of that.
We also met a guy up there with
a friend in an '85 Toyota truck. All stock except for a gear change. Of
course it had the solid axle on it.
Nice little rig for fixing up
for some of the trails up there one may encounter.
Overall it was a great day to
get out and do some wheelin' in the mountains of WA state.