Friday I put in that new starter, it now cranks over with a passion!
Well on a wild whim I decided to hit the trail yesterday. I decided to run "white mountain" as it seemed what I wanted to do, chill and cruse in the fresh air and pine trees. Looks can be deceiving. The official trail # was 3N14 a docile wide fire road. What I didn't know was it transituoned to 4N16 then turned rifht to 3N17 before it started to head east. 3N14 is a nice easy trail, that I use to reset and get vibes.
Now 3N17 is marked as as most difficult (black diamond) according to the big bear trail rating. I double checked on onx, rated as a blue 4 (why can't we standardize these trail raitings). Ok read the trail reports, all side was easy fire road. One review said it was a moderately difficult trail, who said it was truly 3N17 (more on this later). Well I took the risk and headed up the trail. A large washout continued by large loose rocks, some bed rock, steep loose rocky climbs. I was not expecting that. Trail wide enough for the 4runner, not wide enough to turn around. So I pressed on. Lots of loose rock climbs, holes up to and over my axle. Quite difficult with no spotter.
I did finish the trail, it was the wildest trail I have ever did so far (got to start somewhere). I did go solo, I know I should go with people. But people don't want to use their 4x4's or always decline. Anyways, about the confusion on the trail. Onx labels this as white mountain, which it does take you to and the view is beautiful! It lumps (onx) into one trail and gives it what I call a average trail rating. Doesn't mention your covering a black diamond rated trail, just mentions that the trail is easier east to west, of course I went west to east.
This was my mistake as I should have done more research, lesson learned. I will drive that trail again. Some day. I had a blast, it was fun, hit my rear diff and scratched a rim, nothing bad. Until I got home. I noticed my rear swaybar was looking a bit funky. Checked it out and I broke/bent the sway bar riser and damaged the oem mount. I think the countersunk bolt loosened and snapped the weld nut, then bent the oem bracket and snapped the lower bolt. Easy fix, some hammering, locktite, a new bolt and rechecked the adapters.
Cleaned up one of the shooting ranges, got about 10 pounds of brass (YES! Score, what I reload) picked up some trash and about 100 or 2 shotgun shells. Not many pics as I was focused on driving. Sirius xm worked perfectly, in heavy trees and deep valleys. No signal loss.
