Road Bull
Senior Member
Empty Pocket Crawlers tail ride & camping at Surprise Lake, WA. 07-27-18.
I have been trying to have as much fun asmy work schedule will allow this summer. Those opportunities are few and far between so I have been trying to make them count.
I linked up with a cross- pollinated Empty Pocket Crawlers FB group that I first met through a previous 4Runners of Washington trail ride.
When we started rolling to the trail, we had two 3rd gens, one 4th gen, two DCLB Tacos, (3rd gen/ 2nd gen) and four FJ Cruisers, one towering a trailer.
Hahaha... It started off like most other rail rides that I had done thus far. But, it quickly turned into the most challenging and technical trail rides that I had seen in the 4Runner. Every switchback seemed to raise the bar a bit. We also had the long wheelbases of the Tacos and the challenges of a trailered vehicle to consider.
The trail had a fair amount of elevation gain and while sections were made up of rocks from the size of grapefruit to watermelons, to large coolers.
The first real obstacle was a steep ditch, maybe 4 and a half feet deep with a short transition. Straight down and up with little room to allow for much of an angle. My license plate backing plate and license managed to take a bit of damage catching an innocent looking rock on the way down. Both Tacos killed their stock bumpers here.
One section had a 3 foot wide stump snack in the middle of a narrow section with a steep off camber rock climb leaning into the tree trunk. The bypass was not a sure thing either as it was off camber leaning down the cliff. As we were working everyone through and conquering our trailer puzzle my mind was moving gears and locker up on my priorities list. LOL.
By the time it was my turn it was dark. I gave the rock climb a few tries before connecting that the sloped bypass was the way to go as I didn't want to risk destroying a CV at the time. Even that was not easy and required good spring and some two footed driving to make it through. I didn't need to be pulled up as others had though. The Tacos longer wheelbase made the thick climb the easier option as they couldn't really make it around the trunk on the bypass.
After that it mellowed a bit, but last of that we later discovered was just due to the fact that you couldn't see how precarious some of the terrain was at night in the dark. The last 30 minutes was a paint scraping, pin striping of a journey.
We pulled into camp at the lake around 1030 pm. The situation was comical because we were leaning on taking the larger of the two camp sites. The larger secondary site as accessible only by driving through the lake along the edge. But it wasn't too be... There was a single JK camped in that location. I am pretty sure they weren't expecting NINE vehicles showing up at 1030 playing vehicle Tetris. It was right quarters, but we made it work.
The moon was super bright. It looked like a dinner version of the sun. Also, Mars was VERY bright, both hanging in the night sky above the conditions and lake below. Unbelievable. We had a good time drinking some cold ones, coming food, and telling stories till we turned it around 3 am.
I opened my tent at about 730 to find a clear blue day with Mt. Rainier on the horizon just across the lake.
I have been trying to have as much fun asmy work schedule will allow this summer. Those opportunities are few and far between so I have been trying to make them count.
I linked up with a cross- pollinated Empty Pocket Crawlers FB group that I first met through a previous 4Runners of Washington trail ride.
When we started rolling to the trail, we had two 3rd gens, one 4th gen, two DCLB Tacos, (3rd gen/ 2nd gen) and four FJ Cruisers, one towering a trailer.
Hahaha... It started off like most other rail rides that I had done thus far. But, it quickly turned into the most challenging and technical trail rides that I had seen in the 4Runner. Every switchback seemed to raise the bar a bit. We also had the long wheelbases of the Tacos and the challenges of a trailered vehicle to consider.
The trail had a fair amount of elevation gain and while sections were made up of rocks from the size of grapefruit to watermelons, to large coolers.
The first real obstacle was a steep ditch, maybe 4 and a half feet deep with a short transition. Straight down and up with little room to allow for much of an angle. My license plate backing plate and license managed to take a bit of damage catching an innocent looking rock on the way down. Both Tacos killed their stock bumpers here.
One section had a 3 foot wide stump snack in the middle of a narrow section with a steep off camber rock climb leaning into the tree trunk. The bypass was not a sure thing either as it was off camber leaning down the cliff. As we were working everyone through and conquering our trailer puzzle my mind was moving gears and locker up on my priorities list. LOL.
By the time it was my turn it was dark. I gave the rock climb a few tries before connecting that the sloped bypass was the way to go as I didn't want to risk destroying a CV at the time. Even that was not easy and required good spring and some two footed driving to make it through. I didn't need to be pulled up as others had though. The Tacos longer wheelbase made the thick climb the easier option as they couldn't really make it around the trunk on the bypass.
After that it mellowed a bit, but last of that we later discovered was just due to the fact that you couldn't see how precarious some of the terrain was at night in the dark. The last 30 minutes was a paint scraping, pin striping of a journey.
We pulled into camp at the lake around 1030 pm. The situation was comical because we were leaning on taking the larger of the two camp sites. The larger secondary site as accessible only by driving through the lake along the edge. But it wasn't too be... There was a single JK camped in that location. I am pretty sure they weren't expecting NINE vehicles showing up at 1030 playing vehicle Tetris. It was right quarters, but we made it work.
The moon was super bright. It looked like a dinner version of the sun. Also, Mars was VERY bright, both hanging in the night sky above the conditions and lake below. Unbelievable. We had a good time drinking some cold ones, coming food, and telling stories till we turned it around 3 am.
I opened my tent at about 730 to find a clear blue day with Mt. Rainier on the horizon just across the lake.
