Tahuya 2004

Broncoii.org Tahuya State Forest July 16th-18th

Living in Victoria, BC, Canada, I had been looking at the Olympic Mountains for 8 years and had never been there.  They had been taunting me for ever.  Well, I finally got the chance to go.  Broncoii.org, a group I belong to, had decided to have their first official group run at Tahuya State Forest just outside Bellingham.  Obviously I jumped at the opportunity to go.  I booked the time off work and started doing the necessary repairs and upgrades to my rig and trailer.

After a horrendous day at work and leaving 6 hours later than I wanted to, I squeaked onto the Coho ferry out of Victoria on my way to Port Angeles.  An uneventful ferry ride and some raised eyebrows at customs, (my rig is a little battle scarred and so is the tent trailer), I was on my way.  It was 1100 at night.  I had been given directions to Belfair, a little burg outside Tahuya, but they were a little sketchy.  And the 2 hour wait to cross the Hood Canal Bridge wasn’t fun.  I eventually rolled into Camp Spillman at around 200 am.  But at least I was there.

I was woken up by a stranger banging on the side of my trailer at 0730.  It was “Snowthrower”, Josh who I had camped next to.  Good thing we “know” each other’s trucks from pictures!  He told me that the rest of them except the Duff crew, were heading to Belfair McDonald’s to rally with the rest of the crew.  I dragged myself out of bed and made breakfast and then wandered over to the Duff campsite.  Suzy Duff and Scott from James Duff had brought “Hi Ho” and James’ personal B2.  Unfortunately, James could not attend as he had prior commitments.  I was able to peruse some of the toys and stuff that they had brought along as a display.

A little later a small herd of B2s rolled into camp and we were off!  We stopped at the staging area to air down and take pics.  Shortly we pulled into the trail head.  A long line of 11 trucks wormed their way thru the trails, stopping to play on a rock pile.  Only a few made an attempt but all but one squirmed their way across.  A quote from one of the drivers, “Skid plates are there for a reason, right?”  Okay it was me.

A little while later after a nasty little hill on loose dirt, the dreaded clicking sound started coming from the driver’s side axle.  Then BANG.  So everyone took a lunch break while I pulled apart my left side to replace the axle ujoint.  Upon disassembly we found out that it was more, much, much more.  The axle had sheared at the ujoint and wrapped itself around the stub shaft.  So we put it back together, realizing that the spindle was now fubared after being accidentally hit during disassembly, and limped back to camp.  My ride was parked and I jumped in with “Totalled”, Pat.  We met up with the rest of the group and continued on doing the South Loop.  Beautiful trails, lots of gentle obstacles, nothing to extreme.  Very hot!!!  At one point two groups got separated, so we stopped for a break.  It was noticed that “Nightkrawler” was stumbling and looking not very good.  Our resident medic, “PatchRichard”, took his blood pressure and immediately sat him down in the shade and started pumping him full of water.  Everyone was told to stop and start drinking water.  The statement of the day was, “If you have to think about when you last went pee, drink more water!”  While we were sitting, “SnowExploder”, Katie, pulled out her thermometer from the truck.  It read 95 deg Fahrenheit or 35 deg Celsius.  No wonder we were all suffering!

Once we all met up we continued on to the “moguls”.  Everyone had a blast putting one or two wheels in the air.  At that point we decided to head back to camp for the evening.  “Totalled” and I left and met with “PatchRichard” at his house.  Richard was so generous to donate a spindle, rotor and bearings along with both axle shafts out of his parts truck so I had the parts to wheel the next day.  Kudos to him and Pat, (“Totalled”) for taking the time and energy to help out a “foreigner” from Canada.  I could not have driven home if not for their generosity.  We got back to camp around midnight and decided we had had enough for the night.  We sat down at the campfire after a bite to eat, and a good Canadian beer!

Morning came early as I had to rebuild my front axle assembly to go out that day.  As everyone else was eating breakfast, I was frantically doing repairs.  On the trail by 1000 am.  We did the South loop in reverse, just cuz.  My truck performed flawlessly and many pics were taken.  We got back to camp around 400 pm and everyone started to pack up.  Suzy Duff did a quick demonstration of the Power tank for airing up.  Everyone was milling around talking, not wanting to leave, but later rather than sooner we all went our separate ways.  I did the long drive back to Port Angeles and boarded the 1000 pm boat back to Victoria.  Finally home around 100 am.  Crawled into bed happy that I had had such a good time.  I drifted off dreaming of gears and trees and moguls and rocks and…

Many thanx to Broncoii.org and all the wonderful people I met.  Extreme gratefulness to Richard and Pat for all their help and donations of parts.  Their generosity was extremely appreciated and will be remembered.

The next runs are in The Elbe Hills in September and on Vancouver Island in October.  For more information, check out Broncoii.org in the forums sections, Events and Trail Runs.

Aidan Coles

“bbybrnk”

Right Click and save target as on image above to view slideshow