Day 2

The next morning, after a whole four hours of sleep, we were headed back to Squamish with the parts. With us were Greg Sue and Ryan Comber in Greg's Toyota pickup and Jonathan Yim in his Jeep TJ. I had also dragged my friend, Kenny, along with us. Remember how I mentioned that every good story has some irony in it. Well, the other bit of irony is that Jonathan's TJ was now participating in a rescue mission to save another Jeep that had suffered the same (almost) damage at the same obstacle on the same trail as his did three years ago.

He had just finished swapping a full-size Ford's D44 and Ford 9" into his TJ and it had never been tested off-road. This trip down memory lane would, in effect, be a shake-down run for those modifications he made to avoid the cause of this rescue mission. Did you get the delicious irony in this? Or did I just confuse you?

It's a Jonathan thing, you wouldn't understand.

Speaking of confusion, Jonathan had gotten his front driveshaft shortened to fit the new axle but didn't have time to install it so it was sitting in the back of his Jeep. When he met us at the McDonald's in Burnaby, he realized he had left the u-bolt straps at home. Doh! So while we headed off to Squamish, he made a quick dash for home to get the straps. When he caught up to us at the Squamish McDonald's he informed us that he only had one strap!! Fortunately, the local Lordco store was open so he bought a new set of straps and we quickly installed the front shaft at McDonald's.

On the way up, I let my friend, Kenny, drive the easier sections of the trail. He had never done any serious rockcrawling before so he had quite a bit of fun driving my Jeep. Unfortunately, he was also going quite slowly (didn't want to incur my anger, I guess) so after a while, I took back the wheel so we could get to Jason's Jeep sooner. On the way, we made the requisite stop at the challenge rock beside Lower Hut Lake. The obstacles on the way to the Trench were easily overcome and Jonathan was grinning ear to ear. The addition of front and rear lockers and 35" tires gave his Jeep a huge performance leap from when he was here last. It was, in the parlance of fourwheelers, a "big dog."

When we reached the YJ, we were relieved to see that it hadn't been vandalized or stripped for parts. Since I had done this kind of work before, I started re-installing the carrier and the side and spider gears. Things were going well until I was trying to walk the spider gears into the carrier. For some reason, I couldn't get the spider into one side of the carrier. After a lot of messing around, I suddenly realized what had happened. When the cross-shaft snapped, it must have gotten wedged against some of the other parts and deformed its hole in that side of the carrier. There was a noticable ridge that was high enough to prevent the insertion of the spider gear. We would not be able to install the gear. So, I left out the spider gears and installed everything else. This would eliminate his rear wheel drive but at least the axle shafts would stay in the housing. He could drive most of the way out in front wheel drive and we could tow him over the hard stuff.

I'm wearing my 4Offroad jacket so I can feel like a professional mechanic.

Here's one of the chewed up spider gears.

Stuffing everything back into the diff.

I let Jason install the diff cover and re-fill it while the rest of us went to play on the Trench. Just like yesterday, I climbed into the Trench very easily. Climbing out of the Trench, however, was quite different. In fact, I sucked very, very badly. My first attempt resulted in the front ended slipping to the right and losing traction. So then I opted for the left side and got my front passenger side tire high in the air. Hmm...it felt like it might just work if I went a little further so I tried it again. When the tire lifted into the air again, I inched forward to see if it would start to settle back down. Sure enough, I could feel the wheel starting to lower. And just when I thought I had it in the bag, the Jeep suddenly lurched sideways and we landed in the huge gutter on the left side. Branches and grass from the left back were sticking in my side window. We were at a sickening angle and I thought for sure I had mangled my driver side fender. A brief attempt to back up only caused the Jeep to slide a bit further sideways so I decided to winch myself sideways, out of the gutter. Greg and Ryan spooled out my winch while I gave myself a leg cramp holding onto the brakes for all I was worth. After ensuring that they had a sufficient quantity of high resolution digital photos of my predicament, they began winching me out. Amazing as it seems, my Jeep suffered no body damage.

The key to getting into the Trench is to stay to the right but not so much that you drop your driver's side into the hole.	Here am I doing it absolutely perfect.
And now, with my head swollen with pride, I mistakenly believe that I can drive out of this situation...	...and then I slip sideways into the hole.

What a fine mess!

My elbow is resting on the bank.

Is that close or what?!

Greg came up next. He also had quite a bit of trouble but he seemed to stay away from the line I attempted. I'm not sure why (yes, even more sarcasm). The tell-tale smell of burning clutch began wafting in the air. I was expecting him to give up rather than kill his clutch when he suddenly found the right line and climbed out, briefly running on only three wheels.

Finally, Jonathan approached in his wide TJ. His first and last time on this trail saw him blow a rear axle shaft at the entrance to this obstacle, the Trench. Since then, his Jeep had been spending a lot of time at the gym and it was determined to kick sand in this bully's face. And that's exactly what it did. It took a couple of attempts to find the perfect line but fortunately, Greg and I both had excellent ideas for him -- and to maximize our efficiency, we were giving him our instructions simultaneously. Jonathan had finally conquered the Trench!

Hmm...this isn't working too well. Once Greg found the right line, he made it up just fine.

Jonathan walked up the wall after a bit of spotting help from Greg and I.

Now it was time to head back down to the trailhead. I cautioned Jason that the front end would not handle the stress of running off-road very well, so he should be very, very light on the gas pedal. If there were any difficult hills, he would have to be pulled up. Greg and Ryan left first, followed by Jason. Jonathan and Kenny and I left last.

Before we left, we decided to play on this burnt-out wreck.

Jonathan took this opportunity to check his brake line length.

They had a bit of a head start on us so we didn't see Jason until we reached the first clearing with the exposed downhill on the right hand side. Jason was spinning the front tires, unable to climb over some loose rocks at the base of an uphill section. I honked my horn to let him know that I could pull him up so he began to backup to the side to let me pass. His view must have been somewhat obscured because he just about backed off the edge of the road. Half of the rear passenger tire's width was over the edge. He was going slowly enough that he wouldn't have gone down the embankment but he definitely would have ended up sitting on his axle housing with one wheel dangling over the edge. I managed to squeeze around him and hooked him to my tow strap. I know this is going to sound like a blatant plug but the Tera Low 4:1 transfer case made it very easy to pull him up the hill. My Jeep's speed varied only a little bit, even when I was pulling him over some difficult sections.

At long last, we arrived at the trail head. From here, Jason would have no problems driving home. I had to get Kenny back to the city so we said our good-byes and left.

It'll be a long time before I go on the Hut Lakes trail again.

...lars

ps: As usual, I was impressed by the offers of help that came in when other fourwheelers learned of Jason's troubles. In particular, I'd like to publicly thank these guys for going out of their way to help out (in no particular order):

• Chris Siebert and Nicole (sorry, didn't get your last name)
• Larry (Jason's passenger)
• Ryan Gates
• Todd, Jim Brown and Fred Hinchliffe of Squamish
• Phil Gough
• Andrew Walters
• Ryan Egger
• Jonathan Yim
• Greg Sue
• Ryan Comber
• Greg Wcislo
• Wil Girindra

 
 
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