in the cascades

[echomike]

these are a couple of photos from todays solo outing . . . since i missed out on going with ylodisco (damn!) it was beautiful out today, and i thoroughly enjoyed my first day in the mountains. I am very new to the snow and was stuck briefly in the photo below when the rear end slid a couple feet out of the ruts. a locker is definitely in the works after this, but for now my $6 shovel worked fine and i was out in 5 minutes. Here i drove out to ranger creek airstrip and at the end of this road were several trucks and some guys camping, i started having a hard time on the trail getting past them and decided to turn back, one of them came out smiling and said they had been pulling people out of that spot all weekend and thanked me for turning back . . . they had pulled the park ranger out that morning. it looked like somebody had drug their differential the whole way in and had i had any shorter tires mine may have also. and the video below was the end of the trail for me at crystal creek ranch . . . i kept going up and eventually near the area in the video came across a rutted up spot in the road where someone either got stuck, or turned back and i thought about it and decided to do the same a couple hundred meters further. after about a 14 point turn i saw a white rubicon down the mountain below me and it turns out the spot that was rutted up was where he was stuck for 4 hours that morning, they were camping nearby. "that things a beast man! i can't believe you made it that far!" ego +5!!! anyways it was a fun day.