Lost Corner Exploration

You don't have to buy her anything because she will be there with you. Just don't forget little Lucy.

Your truck would be parked at my house most likely. My understanding of what Ben and Mike are looking for in terms of trail rigs are trucks with winch, lift, offroad tires like MT not AT, armor. Part of the fun is exploring trails that haven't really been documented before, so nobody really knows what condition they are in and what we will find. It would really suck to find a spot where 4wd isn't enough to get through so somebody has to winch, then once through it, have no way to turn around to pull somebody else through who doesn't have a winch. I am with you though. I would like to take my truck out, but I am too stock still for my truck to be considered for being a trail rig.

I would hope that Sean is able to make it in his 4runner.

 

I'm trying to leave final planning to Ben simply because he came up with the whole idea and I don't want to steal it away from him, but he hasn't been active much with this project as of late (probably working on his truck logistics).

My personal thoughts:

1. From what I recall, the longest trail was maybe 15 miles or so (we didn't write it down ). If you look at the links from Ben, they are situated more or less in a loop. I would say that we would do a few trails in a day, get off trails, then camp somewhere in the area.
2. As previously stated, the goal is to have a small set of well prepared vehicles. Since we don't know what we are getting in to, we need to make vehicle extraction easy. It would also be good to cover ground efficiently. If you are a passenger, there will be roles we need you to fill as well (which I will start thinking of below). My hope is also that the drivers are experienced enough to be safe with vehicles and gear.
3. Zach, so far I'm on board with everything you've been talking about so far. Please reference the links from Ben on the previous page. My suggestion for you would be: (1) Find the trailheads. Some may be off the main road, so be careful. Make sure they aren't closed off or washed out. I would not advise pre-running them simply because I don't want to encourage anyone getting stuck alone. (2) While scouting, keep an eye out for camping locations (3) find places for supplies, such as gas and food, which are near the trailheads. Note approximate distance and if they are 24 hour.
4. Those driving need to expect passengers. Expect dirty feet. If you have a really dirty vehicle, or your dog has been living inside it for a few months and it smells like a Frenchman's armpit... maybe you should opt for passenger.

Roles for non-drivers:
Since these are trails that have scarce documentation, one of our hopes was to help fill the void. Drivers will be focusing on their duties, so we need passengers to supplement tasks.

• Mileage Tracker: Need to keep track of how long each trail is. Work with the Recorder of Trailhead Directions to note distances
• Photographer: Need pictures that can document what the trail looks like in terms of terrain and difficulty, etc. We aren't concerned as much for glam shots.
• Trip Recorder: Need to write down overall difficulty, note any obstacles, trail condition (mud, gravel, off camber, rock garden, vehicle requirements)
• Recorder of trailhead directions: Work with the Mileage tracker to record an accurate description of directions from the nearest town, all the way to the trailhead. Record GPS coordinate of trailhead
• Spotter: be a spotter for the driver. You are preferably sitting in the front seat so you can watch the passenger side for clearance at a moment's notice. You are also in charge of recovery gear for the vehicle (this does not mean you need to supply it. You just need to know what is in it, where it's at, how to use it). You may enlist other people as needed to help with rigging recoveries, additional spotting, so on. The driver can help, but I want them near their vehicles instead of wandering off. There's too many times a driver from the middle of the pack will wander off to the front of the pack to assist with spotting, which leaves the guys in the back waiting for that person to return... this creates a big time waste.

While I'm at it, three notes on spotting/recovering:

• If you see a problem about to happen, get the driver's attention about it. Yell your head off until people are aware. Better to be annoying than to have something break.
• Only the lead spotter should be giving the driver audible directions. It can be very confusing to drive and listen to more than one person telling you what to do and where to go. If you are a secondary spotter, your goal is to give the main spotter info as needed, or yell if there's imminent danger
• When we use straps or winch lines, we haven't been doing a good job of keeping a safe distance. A safe distance is 1.5x the length of the line in use IN A RADIUS FROM ANY POINT IN THE LINE. I want to start having us pay attention to that, there's some really big forces at play that we haven't been respecting like we should.

 

All good points! Granted we dont need to have military discipline, it would be awesome if we were a more coherent team during this trip. A big part of that is having minimum requirements for rig builds and drivers.

I always have 2 different gps loggers running in my truck, so that would be perfect for mapping the trails and loading the kml files back into google maps later.

You know I will bring the quadcopter and be ready to film as well, though having more people documenting and filming is always better.

I know there are tons of things/logistics to work out, but my biggest one right now is fuel, so knowing if we will need to pack more jerry cans or not would be good to know.

anyways, I am so excited about this trip!

 

I didn't realize it was some sort of bushwhacking expedition. Sounds like a cluster to me, I'm out.

 

FYI I'm not suggesting any goose stepping discipline. I'm just throwing out ideas of what people can step up and do in case there's people thinking they will be bored as a passenger.

If you were expecting well-laid out trails with a map and quick guaranteed gratification, then yeah, this isn't for you.

This is heavy on the exploration and is a gamble as to what we will find. Expect to turn around, stare at maps, or go on boring access roads. We need people with plenty of patience.
However, you might be part of the first group in a long time to go on some really epic trails.

 

Just as a start to preplanning this adventure, lets start this out with some basics.

1. Are you interested in going? If no, then unsub from this thread and don't come back until pics and videos show up. Kidding of course
2. Are you thinking to be a passenger or driver? I will help out now and make this an executive decision: drivers must have double cab trucks or SUV with full back seat. We will probably be clocking a lot of seat time, so any passengers won't want to be crammed in the back seats of an access cab, and it's not really fair to have only 1 passenger when everybody else is carrying 3 passengers.
3. What will you be bringing for recovery gear? While we are calling out to have better equipped trucks, having extra recovery gear isn't a bad thing. I seem to recall a trip to Liberty that we were strapping a winch line to a few tow straps to get enough length.

I think that having about 4-6 drivers would probably be about the right number. Figure that works out to 16-24 people at 4 per rig. That still makes for a pretty good size camping group while not crowding trucks too much. I will go over trails more when I am back at home and looking at a computer instead of tablet to check out trails, then over this summer try to get out to look at some of these runs a bit more. Remember that we may end up packing all the recovery gear and camp gear in the trucks, so don't pack everything to go.

 

You were saying something about forces mike?

This just happened to a fellow Toyota up in BC, near miss!

As for the trip, I think I would be in as a driver jus as long as it doesn't interfere w my hunting trips

 

Damn, I need to sub this thread

I've been neglecting it

MIKE: Well said, I agree with everything you posted. There's still a lot to be done as far as logistics go, but that can be wrapped-up pretty quickly.

I think right now we need to:

1) Choose our dates: Mid-to-Late-August seems to be ideal for most interested parties.
2) Choose our Drivers: 5-6 Capable rigs & drivers. Maybe 1-2 more if there's enough interest and demand for it, but I think 6 is the magic number.
3) Itinerary: Start planning our day-to-day goals/plans and camping arrangements.

After that, we can focus on figuring out who is meeting at Zach's, who is bringing what, who can haul what gear, and getting maps together for everyone who will be attending.

 

DAMN! That picture is scary as hell, would like to know more about what happened.

Do you guys have any tentative hunting date planned?

I want to make this coincide with y'alls schedule so we don't potentially exclude anyone. It's still early enough to set a date and stick to it, so others can get time off work, or plan their other vacations/trips around that date.

 

This sounds like a lot of fun, but I'm probably out.

 

I have family all over that side of wa, we also have 300 acres jus outside of the town "hunters"

 

Nice! That's just south of where we will be exploring (Colville area).

 

It's an option to make it camp site for the night!?

 

Its a little out of the way, but I'm not opposed to camping there on the way back. Could be optional for those who want/need to get back home. I could get an extra day off and would love to camp there.

 

Was jus a thought not a necessity.. I didn't look at the map, I don't have a clue where this is lol

 

No worries, it is good to have options and keep them open. Most of the trails are just West of Kettle Falls area, which is about an hour North of Hunters.

 

Every time I read this thread and think about this trip

 

Sounds interesting. Years and years ago I spent a lot of time hunting on what we knew as Bisbee Mtn which looks to be between those trails and the river. Maybe even spent time on some or all of those trails. Its nice country. If my new tires and sliders are on by that time I may try to meet you all there.

 

Remember how I joked about having to buy my wife something so I could go on this trip. Turns out she wasn't joking. We have always rented and now I just bought her a house. This is one expensive trip heh heh though getting a house isn't bad either heh heh

 

Congrats to you. It only gets more expensive from here. You get to pay for fixing the roof when it leaks, the hot water heater when it goes out, the mouse/rat infestation, and property taxes.