A month or two back I found a deal on silt fencing at a contractors warehouse that was going out of business. After a quick phone call to Greg I bought 1500’ of silt fence that I donated to the Adopt A Trail program. On Sunday, Sonia (my wife) and I delivered the fence to the AAT work shed at the Big Bear Ranger Station. When I talked to Greg on Saturday he mentioned that there were no tracks on 2N01 or 2N04 (our AAT). At first I was going to drive my stock 97 Jeep Cherokee but I called my brother Tony, he has a full-size Bronco, and he wanted to come along. I decided to drive my modified 92 Cherokee. We were going to break the trail or as much of the trail as we could. So Sunday morning Sonia and I met Tony and Karen at the Walmart at Highland and headed up the hill. I towed my Bantam trailer loaded with the silt fence. We dropped off the fencing at the ranger station then headed over to Rick's cabin to leave my trailer while we tackled the trail.
We first tried coming in on 2N01. We got about 400’ off the highway and started struggling. The snow was still pretty deep and my differentials kept me from going much further.
We decided to turn around and try coming in off the west end of 2N04 at Highway 38.
The snow was not as deep and even though there were not any recent tracks, you could tell that someone had driven down the trail prior to the latest snowfalls. We headed down the trail and it wasn’t too bad. A few spots had melted all the way to bare earth.
The snow was still pretty firm so that keep us from sinking. We easily made it to the PCT crossing and that’s where things got a little more interesting. In the tracks of the road were some recently cut saplings that looked like they had been used for traction.
We also found a few sage bushes that had also been used for traction. As we got closer to the spring near Arrastre Creek the willows were pretty over grown and some of them were bent down because of the snow load and were frozen into the snow on the ground.
We made it through that stretch and came to Arrastre Creek and were blocked by a top of a downed Coulter pine.
We were able to winch the majority of the branches out of the way to get along further.
The first real difficulty was had at the switchback just past the creek. I was in the lead and it did not take long for me to not make any further progress. Tony took the lead in his Bronco. The snow drift was pretty deep and without a straight approach to get up some speed it took us about 30-45 minutes to make it around the switchback. After that the trail was pretty clear through the rest of the switchbacks with only a few minor drifts of snow. We made quick progress through the first part of the shelf section of the road. We finally had to stop and turn around though when we reached a deep, long, off-camber drift. The downhill side had too much exposure to risk going any further.
We backed down the trail to a turn around spot. I was back in the lead again.
We made it down to the creek and started back up the hill to Highway 38. At the springs I had a real difficult time because the snow had been washed away on the right side of the trail and the Jeep kept sliding down and getting high centered on the snow bank. We were able to break down the snow bank with our shovels and one final go with plenty of skinny pedal got me through. By this time it was later in the afternoon and the snow had softened up quit a bit. We made decent progress up the hill but in one spot the front tire caught in a snow bank and the Jeep got crossed up on the trail. After a few attempts at backing up and making a run without getting any where I finally spooled out the winch and winched myself forward. One more winching episode further up the trail and we were back to the highway.
We aired up and Tony and Karin headed for home on Highway 38. We went back to pick up my trailer and then stopped at Maggio’s for pizza.
We first tried coming in on 2N01. We got about 400’ off the highway and started struggling. The snow was still pretty deep and my differentials kept me from going much further.
We decided to turn around and try coming in off the west end of 2N04 at Highway 38.
The snow was not as deep and even though there were not any recent tracks, you could tell that someone had driven down the trail prior to the latest snowfalls. We headed down the trail and it wasn’t too bad. A few spots had melted all the way to bare earth.
The snow was still pretty firm so that keep us from sinking. We easily made it to the PCT crossing and that’s where things got a little more interesting. In the tracks of the road were some recently cut saplings that looked like they had been used for traction.
We also found a few sage bushes that had also been used for traction. As we got closer to the spring near Arrastre Creek the willows were pretty over grown and some of them were bent down because of the snow load and were frozen into the snow on the ground.
We made it through that stretch and came to Arrastre Creek and were blocked by a top of a downed Coulter pine.
We were able to winch the majority of the branches out of the way to get along further.
The first real difficulty was had at the switchback just past the creek. I was in the lead and it did not take long for me to not make any further progress. Tony took the lead in his Bronco. The snow drift was pretty deep and without a straight approach to get up some speed it took us about 30-45 minutes to make it around the switchback. After that the trail was pretty clear through the rest of the switchbacks with only a few minor drifts of snow. We made quick progress through the first part of the shelf section of the road. We finally had to stop and turn around though when we reached a deep, long, off-camber drift. The downhill side had too much exposure to risk going any further.
We backed down the trail to a turn around spot. I was back in the lead again.
We made it down to the creek and started back up the hill to Highway 38. At the springs I had a real difficult time because the snow had been washed away on the right side of the trail and the Jeep kept sliding down and getting high centered on the snow bank. We were able to break down the snow bank with our shovels and one final go with plenty of skinny pedal got me through. By this time it was later in the afternoon and the snow had softened up quit a bit. We made decent progress up the hill but in one spot the front tire caught in a snow bank and the Jeep got crossed up on the trail. After a few attempts at backing up and making a run without getting any where I finally spooled out the winch and winched myself forward. One more winching episode further up the trail and we were back to the highway.
We aired up and Tony and Karin headed for home on Highway 38. We went back to pick up my trailer and then stopped at Maggio’s for pizza.
