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1948-1998 50 years of Land Rover
Tread Lightly !
Green Laning: Rock Crawling in the Sierras
This is the first visit I recall where fog was the norm. Saturday, after
lunch at the Town's End Cafe with Robin, then we headed to S.F.MoMA to for
the Keith Harring show there (I missed it last summer at the Whitney), and
also to see the "Paul Strand - 1916" exhibit, both were awesome.
Sunday, Bruce picked me up at 8am and we headed East through the valley,
to Route 88 which carried us up into the Sierras - past Silver Lake and
Caples Lake, to Carson Pass, where we waited for Doug, who left a bit
later than we did. From before Caples lake, we were above 6000 feet, and
would remain in the high sierras for the rest of the day.
Blue Lakes
We manged to raise Doug though the repeater on Mt. Diablo some 80 miles
distant and figured out he was still before the end of civilization,
so we asked him to pick up a couple sandwiches.
After reading all the plaques, markers, monuments, and
displays at the Carson Pass ranger station, and then hanging out some, we
manged to raise Doug again and he was close enough that we decended Eastward
from Carson Pass and headed for the Blue Lakes. Stopping at the PG&E wildlife
management area we had lunch and got to talk to the ranger a bit. They've had
a few problems with bears there, one of the cubs left his paw print in the
PG&E 'zuki's rubber fender flare. (The 'zuki had the plates 'Jeep Jr'.)
Bruce's Discovery decided not to go into 4-low. He said it had been similarly
disagreeable when he was back East at Greek Peak, but he persuaded it into
gear there. After some book work, we figured out that it was
probably an electrical interlock that was malfunctioning, but decided
not to do a field-fix as we'd lost a lot fo time already, and I was
supposed to be back in the city for dinner.
We eventually found a parking place that was ok with the PG&E man and piled
into Doug's Discovery with the Safari Gard
extreme lift kit. Having left Bruce's vehicle behind, we wouldn't be able
to take the Deer Creek trail to Route 4, but we did go about a third of
the way, to the first creek crossing (N38 35.587 W119 55.156), but the serious
rock ledges were toward the end of the trail, and we'd not see those today.
On the way back is where we started to have a bit of fun checking out what Doug's new suspension could really do - we took the rockier path. There is a gully
down the middle of the path. Doug walks the trail, as you do, to check it out.
Attempting to go through the gully will most certainly result in panel damage,
as there are significant boulders on both sides, so it looks like the
way to go is over it.
At this point Doug is stopped just behind the rock, waiting for Bruce and I
to take some photos and give some advice - to continue forward, or not, as
the steering damper (yellow) is very close to the top of the rock and the
right hand wheel is clear of the ground by a few inches. A rather stock
Jeep comes down the trail, a man and his young son get out. The boy asks
"What are you doing ?" Bruce and I respond, in unison, "We're just having
some FUN !", the Jeep owner says to his son "They're torturing their $60,000
vehicle", and Bruce replies, "Nah, he's only got about forty into it." I say
to the Jeep owner, so "What do you think, should he go forward or back ?",
"Back !" was the reply.
Bruce and I looked at each other and Bruce directed Doug to go forward as we watched the case of the steering damper roll over the rock, and the Disco return
all four paws to the ground.
We finish our fun, take some photos of the creek exiting Blue Lake
and head back up to Carson Pass, down through the valley to the Bay Area.
(Left: city shrouded in fog, from the Bay Bridge)
For me the next two days were spent at corporate meetings down town. We barely
got to see daylight, but I suspect that sales speaker for the first day blew
enought hot air to power these windmills to the East for the day.
At the end of the conference Peter from the London office was headed back and
still had not seen the Golden Gate Bridge. Steve had volunteered to drive him
over, I and a salesman from the Boston office joined them for the trip. So
here is what we saw, 'round midnight through the fog:
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