Old Flowers Road, Moody Hill, Help some buggies
|
|
| Miles |
Elapsed
Time |
Speed Average |
| 65.9 |
11 hours |
6 |
| A quick visit to the radio towers as they have
some nice views and are close to the top of Rist Canyon. In this photo, Cheyenne WY is about 48 miles away, about the center of the photo. |
| Looking to the southeast from the radio towers
we see the west side of Horsetooth Mountain. |
| Rolling west of Stove Prairie road on gravel
to get to the Old Flowers Road trailhead. We are passing through the
Stove Prairie Ranch. |
| The last house before entering the trail |
| Another of the "each time I'm here I take this
picture" |
| Jim & Carol |
| Forecast stated a
greater chance of rain for Sunday and a clear day on Saturday. Saturday
was the better day so we scheduled this for Saturday and I pulled the
top off of the jeep. These clouds are getting dark. In the end, we will
get wet. While the rain was not severe it also was not trivial. Many
thanks to my guest for accepting the conditions. Carol, thank you for the snacks - they hit the spot! |
| From our lunch spot, we're heading south to the main trail. A nice view across the valley. |
| Over at Moody Hill we came across a black buggy on the trail. Two guys
and two gals - one vehicle with two seats. Where is the second vehicle? The black vehicle has front axle issues. The left front strut separated from the axle at the lower connection. The track-bar also separated from the chassis. When the strut separated it took out the front brake line. The transmission cooler line was also damaged. They were good to get limping to the other vehicle. Where is the other vehicle?? The other vehicle (yellow), about a 1/2 mile away near the quarry, had a dead battery - the alternator was not charging. Black, with battery cables, was headed to yellow to help. The folks, in all of smiles and good nature, kept saying - this is a close, easy, local trail - we're just heading out for a short bit - we didn't toss in all of the things we could have - because it's a short, close-to-home trail. Queue the S.S. Minnow's "Three Hour Tour" With the black buggy slowly rolling under its own power to get to the yellow buggy (Yellow's driver and passenger walking alongside) we drove to the quarry to play around there a bit. We noticed the black buggy had not appeared to get the yellow running. On the way out from the quarry, passing by the non-running yellow buggy, we stopped at the black buggy - sitting on the trail. They were winch line connected to a tree working to center the axle under the chassis (track-bar issues). I offered a ratchet strap to the project of keeping the axle where it should be. When they were set with the axle centering issue for black, yellow's owner jumped onto the back of my jeep and I and Joe (new green Bronco) headed back to yellow to get it running. Yellow needed a few minutes of battery charge time and I chatted regarding the issues at hand: Yellow: The on/off switch, today, acted up and they modified the wiring to get it to run. The engine overheated and lost most of its coolant. The battery was not being charged. But - it could move under its own power but it needed coolant. Fortunately, I left two 1-gallon jugs of water in the jeep from last week's camping trip. Yellow's cooling system took about 1.5 gallons of water. Black: The left-front strut separated from the axle. It broke the front left brake line. The axle's track-bar mount separated from the chassis. When the axle moved, I believe the front drive shaft disconnected (and was removed). The transmission coolant line was disrupted and black shortly lost all motion from the transmission. That's a mix of unexpected issues. From the point we entered the trail we saw only one other side-by-side with a couple - and they were gone. A quiet day on the trail. With yellow running, but with a low battery, he went back to black to pick up his passenger and to keep moving as long as its battery holds out. If they make it to the trailhead - great - if not, we'll see them on the side of the trail for another jump-charge event. Yellow was headed out and black's axle was sufficiently strapped to the chassis, black u-turned to head out. I rolled ahead of black but black didn't quickly show up in my mirror. I went back - no trans fluid - no motion, forward or rearward. Time to connect a strap and pull black to the trailhead. On our way out we passed five full size vehicles headed into the trail - unexpected as it's later on a Saturday with not-so-great weather. Shortly later we came upon yellow - dead. We gave it another 5-minute charge which would be enough for it to get out and onto their trailer. While I was connected to pull black to the trailhead we were at the portion of trail where it's 99% downhill. I mainly stayed in neutral, riding the brakes, and watched my mirror trying to keep the strap tight enough to not get drug under a tire (it was a nicer kinetic strap [more $$$]). Only a time or two did black need a pull to make the next downslope. Back at the trailhead it was pulled onto the trailer. They were set to get rolling home. Good easy-going folks. In the end, they could have self-recovered by using the black's charging system to charge yellow's battery and yellow could be used to pull black to the trailhead - with one important factor - engine coolant for yellow. The water I had made the easy difference. Without coolant for yellow, both would need to be pulled to the trailhead. If it were more severe - coolant could have been moved between the two vehicles as only one engine would be running at a time - but that would have been a significant hassle. They also could have placed black's coolant and fully charged battery into yellow and hope yellow would have enough battery to pull black to the trailhead (quite likely). If nothing else, my guest, Carol (good natured through the events), had a rather complete taste of what jeeping on mountain trails can be. |
| Back on the trailer - good ending for the day. |
