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Off-roading
Off-roading Saturday
01Jul
A Bout of Bad Luck
July 1, 2006 at 02:46PM With all the off-roading I have done in the Yukon, I had never had a flat tire. I had also never not made it to where I wanted to go. That’s all changed now, since I recently got three flat tires in one trip. Since I keep only one spare, this meant that I didn’t make it to my destination—Michie Lake. The order of events goes something like this:
We punctured our first tire and replaced it, which wasn’t that big of a deal.
Then, I mentioned something about wishing I had some hand cream. That’s when things went from bad to worse. We got horribly stuck.
After much ado, we were able to get out, only to find that we had two more flat tires.
This was our own fault, since we tried to maneuver this trail in wet conditions, and didn’t scout the trail out thoroughly enough. If we had, we would have found the tame detour around the entire nasty section that caused us all this trouble. We might even have some fish in our bellies. I think I’ll call this an extremely expensive learning experience. The worst part is that I performed the rescue mission in my friend’s Jeep, which must have been a humiliating experience for my Landcruiser.
A parting word of advice that I address mostly to Yukoners, since every trail I drive in the Yukon seems to have this problem: laying down a huge pile of wood parallel to the trail does not make it easier to get through. When your tires slip off the wood, and they will slip off the wood, it is hard on the sidewalls of your tires (as I know all too well), and it makes trails almost impossible to navigate. Moreover, winching gets very dangerous when you are pulling a few tonnes of wet and muddy wood. I know this is done to try to help things, but it should really be illegal, because it makes trails dangerous for everybody from hikers to off-roaders. Muddy sections can sometimes be improved by laying down large numbers of small diameter logs (without nails) perpendicular to the trial, with none being heavier than can be easily moved by hand. Please don’t wreck trails by recklessly throwing your old building materials onto the swampy sections. I’m sorry for the rant, but ruining trails is just plain stupid.
When I get new tires, I’ll give Michie Lake another go (this time taking the detour). On the way, I think I’ll clean up the trail a little so this doesn’t happen again. And this time I won’t mention hand cream.
Technorati Tags: off-roading, landcruiser, 4x4ing
Update: Tony has some better photos from the trip here, here, and here.
We punctured our first tire and replaced it, which wasn’t that big of a deal.
Then, I mentioned something about wishing I had some hand cream. That’s when things went from bad to worse. We got horribly stuck.
After much ado, we were able to get out, only to find that we had two more flat tires.
This was our own fault, since we tried to maneuver this trail in wet conditions, and didn’t scout the trail out thoroughly enough. If we had, we would have found the tame detour around the entire nasty section that caused us all this trouble. We might even have some fish in our bellies. I think I’ll call this an extremely expensive learning experience. The worst part is that I performed the rescue mission in my friend’s Jeep, which must have been a humiliating experience for my Landcruiser.
A parting word of advice that I address mostly to Yukoners, since every trail I drive in the Yukon seems to have this problem: laying down a huge pile of wood parallel to the trail does not make it easier to get through. When your tires slip off the wood, and they will slip off the wood, it is hard on the sidewalls of your tires (as I know all too well), and it makes trails almost impossible to navigate. Moreover, winching gets very dangerous when you are pulling a few tonnes of wet and muddy wood. I know this is done to try to help things, but it should really be illegal, because it makes trails dangerous for everybody from hikers to off-roaders. Muddy sections can sometimes be improved by laying down large numbers of small diameter logs (without nails) perpendicular to the trial, with none being heavier than can be easily moved by hand. Please don’t wreck trails by recklessly throwing your old building materials onto the swampy sections. I’m sorry for the rant, but ruining trails is just plain stupid.
When I get new tires, I’ll give Michie Lake another go (this time taking the detour). On the way, I think I’ll clean up the trail a little so this doesn’t happen again. And this time I won’t mention hand cream.
Technorati Tags: off-roading, landcruiser, 4x4ing
Update: Tony has some better photos from the trip here, here, and here.
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Reader Comments (2)
But re: The worst part is that I performed the rescue mission in my friend's Jeep, which must have been a humiliating experience for my Landcruiser. Ha! All tough trucks need to be humbled sometime.
It is such a shame that your whole trip was thwarted by a simple tube of hand cream. I, too, have had journeys utterly ruined by, not so much the mere mention, but the absence of hand cream. Now, I make sure I have little stashes of it everywhere: in the glove box, in my bag, on the parcel shelf...Actually I don't recommend having moisturiser on the parcel shelf, especially if the moisturiser is in a round tub as it tends to roll around on every corner. I recently had a perfectly beautiful maple leaf destroyed by such a rollicking tub. Of course my advice is utterly useless, and quite dangerous, for 4x4ing adventures as loose hand cream could easily become a projectile inside the cabin. There really are so many dangers associated with moisturising! I hadn't thought of nearly so many before your unfortunate incident.
I hope you have much better luck next time, end up catching a bountiful fill of fish, get some awesome photographs, and return with all 4 tyres inflated as they should be.
Happy Canada Day.