U um tah!

[Happy Jack]

13 weeks! That's zactly 3 months.

 

[Happy Jack]

Lots of news on this:

Larry's getting a new Xterra March 10 and he will not need to ride with me.

Larry has a group really wanting to do this. His son maybe(Grand Chrokee). His brother(Grand Chrokee) (last time the brother brought a friend and they both had womin with them). His brother's daughter and her husband(Unlimited rubicon, Dodge PU). Caveman(CJ). Sundance(ZR).

Dennis is not going to make it.

Clint and I are going.

Garrett was able to get the vacation list but the 23rd and 24th were already full. He's going to put in for a cancellation but that is a long shot.

I wanted to go out a week early but that may not happen.

Green is down on coolant and I will have a party to see if we can fix that. If it is something major like a cracked head Green will have to set this out.

 

[Happy Jack]

12 weeks and a wake up!

 

[Happy Jack]

11 weeks and a wake up!

 

[Happy Jack]

10 weeks left.

 

[Happy Jack]

Rut roh! I miss'ed a week. 9 weeks from today we should be out of the difficult section and getting ready to go into Halls Crossing for supplies and showers.

 

[Happy Jack]

8 short weeks. I'm starting ta get a tingle up my leg

 

[Happy Jack]

Larry picked up a sponsor in the way of a new loaner truck. I went with him earlier this month to pick it up at the factory in TN and drove his old truck back to my place. He did some other stuff up north and sent me an e-mail from Topeka last friday night. So last saturday I threw some stuff in his old truck and headed west. We re-did a bunch of stuff we did last year and he took pics of the new truck.

While we were out in Colorado and Utah we checked out the start of the new route in. Looks like it will not be possible to get the car trailers in to the Half Track. There is a parking area at the trail head to leave the trailers. I am also going to check on Blanding for a place to park them. The trailers can also be left at Comb Ridge. We did find a campsite less than 10 miles from the trail head if folks want to pull the trailer all the way out. I'll post a map with locations as soon as I get back to KS. We will be in the HITR trail 2 night most likely. You could drive strait back out ahead of us if you want to get back to the trailer but we are going to be away from the trailer anyway. So we are retininking the base camp idea. Still could be done with a base camp at the place we found but someone else might have beat us to it come May. I'm in Denver on my way back. Should be home tomorrow and have more up this weekend.

 

[Happy Jack]

Only 7 more weeks!

 

[Happy Jack]

Yall remember the kinda sorta maybe plan we had to meet at a base camp near the Half Track Sunday evening? That was a great plan because we could carry in extra fuel and top off before heading in and we only had to make it back to the base camp for more fuel. Least ways that was my plan and I had a 12 gal auxl. tank with an electric pump for the bed of the pick up. Well that is really not going to work so well. Larry and I were out that way last week and we went in the new way and he noticed that you can't get a low car trailer in very far on that trail.



I can think of 3 options that would work. One is to stay with the original plan only parking the car trailers out near the highway. Should be able to get the tow vehicles in a ways to a campsite or a short distance to campsite 2 on the attached. Two would be to move base camp to campsite 1 on the attached map. We found that spot and a car trailer should be able to get up there. Three would be to leave the tow vehicles and trailers at Comb Ridge or near by.



Now each of those plans has good and bad. Plan one would most likely prevent some folks from carrying extra fuel in/on the 4x4 vehicle. But folks who had trailers would be away from them more and it would be the longest drive back to base camp. Two would keep folks with trailers close to them a bit more. Might need to carry extra fuel in/on the 4x4 and would be long drive back to camp on thursday and maybe friday. Three we would be free of the base camp and not have to return to that location. The trip ends at Comb Ridge near Bluff. Again some vehicles might need to carry extra fuel. And any spare parts/equipment would be back at the tow vehicle trailer.



Now this is only a problem to a few of us. Mike said he can't make it. So that just leaves me and a few others with car trailers. I may be on a short turn around and not have time to drive back to a base camp thursday night. Like as not I won't know that until the week we head that way. So I might have to leave the trailer near Comb Ridge.



I did make some calls for places with outside storage. Bluff has a place accross from a campground for $10 a day. There is a place in Blanding with outside storage and I am waiting a call back on rates. And the Marina in Halls crossing used to have secure storage for $2 a day.



Let me know what you want to do.

 

[Happy Jack]

Only 6 weeks left.

 

[Happy Jack]

Clint has saturday the 21st through monday the 30th scheduled off and no compaints so far so I made motel reservations. We plan to stay in Pagosa Springs on the way out and back. So I have rooms reserved for saturdays the 21st and 28th. That will let us do a base camp style trip. So if others come out with trailers we will try to get campsite 1 above. If we are the only one with a trailer we most likely will park it over at Comb Ridge.

Updated post #1.

 

[Happy Jack]

5 weeks to go!

 

[Happy Jack]

4 weeks left!

 

[Happy Jack]

Updated post #1.

 

[Happy Jack]

Three weeks and we're outa here.

 

[Happy Jack]

Two weeks and a wake up!

 

[Happy Jack]

One week and a wake up.

 

[Happy Jack]

T-minus 5 days an counting.

 

[Happy Jack]

T-minus 4 days and counting.