Two Flats and a Fire | InterVANtion #4

It rained on and off regularly during our night at Pear Lake, with gusty winds buffeting the tent and making me glad that I'd tied down the ladder to keep the entire contraption from folding up on me while I slept. With earplugs in and knowing that the tent would have plenty of time to dry out in the morning, I slept well, the patter of rain on the roof a soothing - rather than worrying - sound.

There were still a few clouds in the sky when I awoke for the first time, about 40 minutes before sunrise.

When I woke up a second time - just more than an hour later - the clouds were already clearing.

Enjoying the view from up high, I putzed around for a while with the drone. As I did, a rumble - which I initially attributed to thunder, then - as it continued for more than 30 seconds - to a very large approaching vehicle, but eventually to something I couldn't identify - reverberated through the valley.

Later that morning, Monte would ask, "Did you catch it on the drone?"

"Catch what?" I replied. Feeling a little bad that I hadn't been as careful with the drone noise as I thought I had.

"The mountain calving. Or the rockslide. Or whatever?"

Of course, not knowing what it was that I was hearing - and being the worst drone pilot I know - I'd had no chance of catching it in my frame, much less on video. Bummer, because it sounded like a big one!

From above I could see Anchor Lake, a place we never visited.

Sun playing across Pear Lake and the surrounding mountains. And a tiny Tacoma.

With the drone back on the ground and everyone else still asleep, I packed up my handheld radio and camera gear to follow Ben's footsteps around the lake. I knew there was essentially zero chance of seeing the Bald Eagle, but I could always hope.

This little guy was the closest I got to a Bald Eagle. "Bald Eagle Breakfast."

With no major wildlife sightings - and not wanting to hold anyone up - I made it around the lake in record time. Well, probably normal time. Whatever it was, folks were awake-but-only-just as I returned to camp and set about putting the tent away while everyone else did the same.

Knowing that we had quite a few miles to cover, Monte had suggested an early start, so naturally I suggested that we delay a bit and pull our trucks out onto the earthen dam for a group photo.

How could we pass up a backdrop like this?

Photos captured, we sent Ben down the trail first, figuring that we could hang around and enjoy what was turning into a beautiful morning at the lake, rather than waiting at several less-spectacular spots along the trail.

Found this Hera Buckmoth (Hemileuca hera). Unfortunately, it wasn't doing too well.

Yellow Lupine (left). | Some sort of Aster (right).

Hey guys, if you're going to be out and about, can we play too?

After 15 minutes or so, we decided that we'd given the beast a long enough head start, and we hoped that if he made it to Dinner Station Campground - where we'd stopped the previous morning - that he'd hold up so that we could all caravan out to the highway together.

Down the mountain.

I really liked how this ridge seemed to loom in front of the trail as we drove through the tall pine.

Turns out, we vastly overestimated the speed of the big gray van, and we easily caught up well before the campground. From there - rather than heading east to I-15 - we stuck to dirt as we pointed our trucks south toward MT-278. This would take us up and over a couple more ridges before dropping us down through grassy foothills where we'd air up for a 40-mile stretch of pavement and the trailhead for our next lake attempt.

It was as we crested the first ridge that Monte piped up over the radio that he was going to take a spur to the top, where we might as well eat lunch. It was only 11:15am, but given that most of us had skipped breakfast that morning, there were only calls of confirmation in reply.

Perched on the top of Tower Mountain (can you find the Tacoma in the foreground?), the views were nothing short of spectacular.

Unfortunately, flat spots to prep and eat lunch were non-existent, so as soon as Ben showed up - and had a chance to check out the view - we piled back into the trucks and got ourselves turned around so we could get back underway.

After dropping down the south side of Tower Mountain, we found ourselves racing - literally - along a well-graded road next to French Creek.

In other circumstances, this might have been an interesting place to stop and poke around.

Slowest truck first, fastest truck last. I guess it wasn't really a race.

As we aired up, some of us - me - tried to scarf down a bit of food. As I recall, it was only a bit of trail mix and some homegrown blueberries, but I might have squeezed in a bowl of Wheat Chex as well. Whatever it was, it hit the spot and with my ARB compressor putzing along at speeds* that Ben's van would put to shame, I was finally ready to go 20 minutes after I began.

* I'm not sure why my compressor is so slow, or if it even really is. All I know is that Ben was able to air up the 33" tires on his van - from 35-70psi - in significantly less time that it took me - also on 33s - to go from 18-40psi. I'd think that pushing air at the higher pressures required by the van would be more difficult for the compressor, but for some reason, his setup significantly outperformed mine!

Determined to keep up after falling way behind when we'd previously pounded the pavement, I pushed my revs to 4,000rpm. As I pulled out into the oncoming lane to snap this shot, Zane keyed his mic and joked, "We going to slow for you grandpa?"

After 90 minutes, we were back on dirt.

And a few minutes later, we were a caravan.
(Ben - really missing his green truck - opted out of this photo. )

Having left camp with lots of ground to cover for the day, we'd been pushing hard to reach the trail that would ultimately deliver us to Darkhorse Lake. Now, only the road through Skinner Meadow stood in our way, and to our delight - mostly - it turned out to be well-graded, dusty, and through some beautiful terrain. All of us kept our speeds high in this section, and it was 2:30pm when we stacked up at the turn that would have us climbing into the forest.

Climbing into the forest, towards trouble.

A magical meadow.

This way to the lake.

The trail up to Darkhorse started out simply enough. As with many of the trails we'd encountered, a sign at the beginning warned that it was "not maintained," a good sign as far as we were concerned. Plus, while the trail was a bit rough, and portions of it were a little wet, it was easily wide enough for the big grey machine, and that gave us hope that we'd all be able to make it to the top, where we planned to camp.

Zane's trucks are always so well built that it's easy for him to stick right behind whoever he's following, no matter the speed.

Just wandering through a little water.

Lumbering along.

I don't know where it happened exactly, but as I was climbing through a steep-and-rocky - but not all that difficult - section of trail, I decided to hop out for a quick photo. And, though the rocks always look smaller and the incline more gradual, I could see Monte, Mike and Zane through the windshield, which mean that I had a few minutes before Ben would be starting up this section of trail.

Scampering down the grade was easy, but as I huffed and puffed after jogging 300 feet uphill, I noticed the first problem of our afternoon. I immediately got on the radio to let the crew know that I'd picked up a flat!

Looks level. Is not.

What really caught my attention here - as Monte and I surveyed the situation - was that we appear to be twins.

Flats aren't an uncommon occurrence when you've got five guys who do as much adventuring as we do, and every one of us is prepared to deal with the situation on our own. From hi-lift jacks to breaker bars and full-size spares, we've all changed our fair share of tires. A 20-minute ordeal, if that.

We'd communicated over the radio that I had everything I needed, but that didn't keep Monte and Zane from wandering a quarter mile back down the trail to give moral support, and Ben from working his way up from the bottom to do the same. We set about stabilizing the truck, and soon, Monte was loosening the lug nuts while I pulled the spare off the rear bumper.

Technically, this was the easiest tire I ever changed, since Monte did most of the work. As twins though, I feel it's only right that I get most of the credit.

With two of us working, we were back under way in less than 15 minutes. Definitely not pit crew material, but not too shabby for a couple car campers.

Less than a half mile from our destination, where things started to go sideways.

We were at 8,800 feet - only a couple hundred feet below Darkhorse Lake - when ash began to fall from the sky. I'd mentioned the orange hue of the sunlight as we wrapped up my tire change, but at the time we'd simply chalked it up to the smoke that'd been prevalent for most of the trip. Suddenly, things seemed quite a bit more serious, the trucks a quarter mile up the trail from me reporting that the westerly wind had picked up dramatically, and that the air was suddenly thick with smoke.

And then, over the radio, we heard, "The van's got a flat tire. I've broken a valve stem."

Working his way through the same section of trail where I'd discovered my flat, Ben had sheared the valve stem off his rear passenger wheel. Normally - as was the case with my flat - this would have been a non-issue, but the thickening smoke and ash added an entirely new dimension to the problem. If the fire was in the process of cresting the ridge behind us, we might have mere minutes to get ourselves turned around and on our way down the hill.

Hoping to get a better sense of our situation, the drone screamed into the sky, climbing 1,600 feet above our current location.

To our relief, the source of the smoke appeared to be at least two ridgelines to our west. While the 45mph winds were making it too smoky to camp, at least we knew that we'd have plenty of time to get Ben's tire situation sorted, without concern of fire chasing us out of the woods.

It only took a few minutes to retrace the mile-or-so to Ben's position, where I proudly presented him with the Colby valves that promised an easy fix to his valve stem snafu. I'd picked up the valves after breaking my first stem on the Plumas National Forest Discovery Trail, and we were all curious to see if they lived up to their hype.

Step 1a: Miss the shot of Ben punching the old, broken valve stem into the tire.
Step 1b: Reenact said punch-through, with exactly the same facial expression.

Step 2: Insert Colby valve from the outside of the wheel, and tighten it up.

Step 3: While commenting how awesome it was to not have to remove the wheel and tire from the vehicle to affect the repair, reinflate the tire to trail pressures.

The Colby valve was magic. Changing a tire isn't difficult as we'd demonstrated on my Tacoma just a few minutes earlier, but the ease with which Ben's van was recovered was fantastic. The entire process took less than 8 minutes, and level ground wasn't an issue. "Send me a link to those," echoed through the group, as we got turned around and set out for a more pleasant location to spend the evening.

The skies were not clearing as we headed back the way we'd come.

Down we go.

Heading east, the smoke was moving faster than we were, though the thick forest helped to filter much of the falling ash out of the air before it reached our breathing holes. Still, as we popped out of the woods and onto the edge of Skinner Meadow, we still found ourselves wondering both if we really wanted to camp in the soupy surroundings, and whether we'd have to abort the final day of our adventure, if the places we wanted to visit were completely socked in.

Luckily, only the first of those issues was a "today" problem, and by the time we'd worked our way a few miles north, we decided that it was clear enough next to the river that we'd be fine camping there for the night.

Fire break.

We'd admired this spot on the way up, so it was nice to call it home for the evening.

Circle the wagons.

It was shortly after 7:00pm when out tents were deployed and our chairs were arranged around the cold fire ring for an evening of conversation. There'd be no flames to watch as we whittled away the hours - as if the fire rageing to our west wasn't enough, we'd seen USFS employees posting Stage 1 Fire Restrictions on various sign boards throughout the day - but that didn't slow us down one bit. Chips, salsa, and guacamole were consumed; a myriad of plans - pending the weather - for the following day were discussed.

In the end, while there were several possibilities as to where we would end up the following evening, one thing was constant: we were all looking forward to a group breakfast feast.

 

 

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