Pacific Northwest Backroad Adventures

Who would have thought that a Friday trip to the Whiskey Dick Road Management Area near Ellensburg, Washington would bring out more participants than most weekend trips.

Well Jerry (aka SoggyMountain) picked a wonderful day for a Backroad Drivers Northwest tour of the Whiskey Dick. Hands down, this was the warmest day of 2008 to date.

The meeting place that morning was the Bar 14 restaurant in Ellensburg. In attendance for the days trip was of course Jerry from Yakima driving his full size Jeep SJ Wagoneer; (and if I get the names wrong, please forgive and let me know to correct them) Phil and his son Travis from Newcastle, driving the white Ford Explorer; Paul from Tacoma driving the other Ford Explorer; Jim (stucky) driving the white Chevy Pickup (I forgot to ask where Jim was from); Trish and Tammy from Bothel driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon; John and Cindy from Monroe driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon; Sid from Renton driving his Jeep Wrangler, Peter and Don (I forgot to ask where they were from or if I did, I didn’t write it down) driving the Sportsmobile van; myself in my 80-series Toyota Land Cruiser; and Bill from Ellensburg who joined us for breakfast but had to supervise a fencing property today so he couldn’t join us.

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Originally we had planned to meet in Montesano, Washington on Friday morning, however, because of a paving project on the Wynoochee Road from Montesano to Wynoochee Lake, the location of the meet up was changed to the Taylor Towne restaurant just South of Shelton.

Attending was Ray from Edgewood (driving his Toyota 4Runner), Kevin (riding with Ray), John in his Jeep YJ Wrangler, Dick (riding with John) and Randy from Shelton (riding with me in my Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser).

Our goals for the this rainy spring day were to:

• Locate the train wreckage from the 1961 film titled “Ring of Fire”. During the filming of the movie they set an old railroad trestle and some passenger rail cars on fire and dropped them into the canyon. (See Brians site at Georgia-Pacific No. 9 and Ring of Fire Wreck Site for a great write up of the details of the movie and the wreckage site.)
• Visit the Wynoochee Dam and Lake.
• Visit the High Steel Bridge over the Skokomish River.

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I’m a little late in getting this posted. The latest ARB 4×4 Action Newsletter is available for viewing (pdf document).

Within is feature articles on new Jeep JK Wrangler rear bumper system, a sweet new portable air compressor, 10 Essentials of Outback Travel and of course, things for vehicles we can’t get in the United States.

Download HERE

Four Wheeler magazine announced that Mopar will be releasing a bolt-in Dana 60 replacement axle for the new Jeep JK Wranglers. This upgrade will be very similar to the Jeep J8 export-only diesel powered JK (see Military Version of Jeep Wrangler Unlimited and will larger truck brakes. No price for the axle upgrade has been announced.

Read more at Mopar Performance Jeep Wrangler JK Dana 60.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARB Rock Sliders Now Available For the new Jeep JK 2 Door and 4 Door Wrangler

Seattle, WA November 26, 2007. ARB 4×4 Accessories, Australian based four-wheel parts
manufacturer, is proud to announce another great product for the newly released Jeep
Wrangler JK. ARB is world renown for engineering and manufacturing near indestructible body
protection equipment for a wide variety of vehicles around the world, and the new ARB JK
Wrangler Rock Sliders are no exception.
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For the past year, I’ve had the desire to map out and drive an overland route through the Cascade Mountains of Washington state from the Columbia River near Oregon all the way to northern border with British Columbia.

Last year (August 2006), my son and I completed a portion of this route from Cle Elum to Mt. Adams (see Cascade Overland Adventure - August 2006) but did not go any further South because of time constraints. At the time, I knew little of any possible routes from I-90 North to British Columbia.

Shortly after that trip last August, I sold my Jeep YJ Wrangler and purchased my Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser with the goal in mind to make it into an overland expedition vehicle.

Winter and Spring came and finally the snow thawed in the high country. With vacation scheduled for August, I started getting serious about mapping out a route through the Washington Cascades.
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Summer in Western Washington usually doesn’t start officially (at least weather wise) until July 5 of each year. Today (06.24.07) was no exception. The forecast for the day was for rain and a snow level of 5000 feet.

Since I worked the night before and my wife’s nephew was coming over for dinner, I had to keep the day’s adventure somewhat local from my home. Flipping through the book Washington Byways, I found Tour 49 - High Rock Lookout Loop and it fit perfectly into the day’s time restraints. I loaded up the dog in the Land Cruiser and headed towards the Cascades in hopes of finding some sun above the low hanging clouds.

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Last Sunday (June 24, 2007), I ventured into the High Rock area near Mt. Rainier. The weather was overcast and rain most of the day meaning in no great views of Mt. Rainier. These are the photos I shot on this adventure. Most are taken from the inside of my Toyota Land Cruiser.

High Rock Loop Photos

The complete story of this adventure will be coming soon.

After nearly a year of lurking on the Backroad Drivers Northwest group mail list, last Saturday (June 9, 2007), I was finally able to attend one of the organized gatherings of the group.

The planned destination was the Clover Springs and Little Bald Mountain areas off SR 410, near Cliffdell, Washington. I had been to this area before, during the 2005 Pacific Northwest Four Wheel Drive Association (PNW4WDA) annual trail jamboree, but never from the direction we were coming in from. Also, this time of year, there was bound to be snow, which places a whole new twist on the adventure.

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Have you been searching for a way to mount your electronic equipment (CB radio, GPS, 2m radio, etc) in your Jeep Wrangler?

Using readily available materials, this article outlines a low cost buildup of a rack that mounts between the windshield support or roll bars on a Jeep Wrangler.

Read the article at http://www.omninerd.com/2006/03/07/articles/49