Summer 1995

When I got home from the Jamboree the first order of business was to fix my clutch cable. The old way was really hokey and the cable was starting to bind in its housing. It was also very hard to push the clutch in and took some time to get used to. The old cable went from the floor peddle into its housing which turned around 180 degrees and went back forward to the throwout fork.

What I did instead was to go to a sailboat rigging shop and had them make me up a straight length of cable with the right attachments on either end. Actually, I had them make two just in case one broke. Then I got a big pulled and put it back towards the rear wheel. Then the cable went from the peddle, back to the pulley, and forward the the throwout fork. It worked so much better and now you could actually push in the clutch without much trouble at all. At first I was thinking about going to a hydraulic clutch system but looking back now that would have been a major pain in the ass and probably would have broken some time in the future. My cable setup was very simple and easy to fix if something broke.

The next trip was another Canadian adventure. Larry Soo, another person I had meet on the Internet was planning a run up on the Whipsaw trail over the 4th of July weekend. Dale couldn't go and Tina was due around this time so Don couldn't go either. Ted was going to Montana for the week and Dana wasn't available so after getting directions from Larry, I headed up north by myself. Larry and the rest of the people were not going to meet up until the next morning but I headed up an afternoon early just so I wouldn't have to do too much driving in one day. The jeep is not the most confortable vehicle to drive a long ways. Anyway, by the time I got up to the border, through Hope, down through Manning Park to the other side where we were going to meet I was dead tired. Larry said his brother Bill was probably going to camp at the meeting spot and I could camp with him that night. Well, I never found Bill and it turns out they showed up very late that night after I had already gone to bed. Ac

The next day I found Bill and we waited around for everyone else to show up. Larry and Rob Bryce along with Dave and Pam, several other people I had meet on the Internet, and some other people I had meet at the Jamboree were there including Jen-Hsen and Jim.

The trail for the day was not actually the Whipsaw trail but another local trail that went up to a lake. The trail was pretty easy and in the beginning the only problem was that my spare tire was moving around and cracking my tire carrier. We took off my tire and Rob carried it around in his Comanchee the rest of the weekend. I'm liking that pickup more and more.

The only hard part of the whole trail came just before the lake where you had to get up this really rocky section. Larry, Rob, Dave, Pam and I made it up along with a few other people but some had to take an alternate route that went around the rocks. We continued up the trail to the lake and setup camp for the night.

The next day we headed back down the same way we came and went back into Manning park to fill up on gas before heading on to the Whipsaw trail. The first hard part we encountered was a real "butt puckering windy downhill" that nobody really had any problems with. Rob, Dave and Pam had gone ahead a little and did get to try going up this hill. I think Dave made it up as did Rob but Pam had some problems. The hill was really loose so low and slow didn't work very well. I wasn't up to trying it and just went down. At the bottom we took a break for lunch. The plan was to continue on the trail to another lake, then camp for the night and finish off the trail the next day.

The rest of the trail up to the lake was really cool. The only thing I remember vividly was that it was pretty rough and I was getting beat up pretty good. The springs I had were the original military springs which were really stiff and I was paying for it. A couple of body brakets actually broke off and the person behind me keep seeing my body move up and down. Time to do something about those spring but that would have to wait until I got home. We finally got up to the lake and set up camp again. This was a much nicer spot to camp than the day before.

When we got setup Dave started looking at Pams jeep. She said she though she was having some problems with the 4WD or something so Dave was checking it out. The next thing I know there was a bunch of stuff happening and people running around. It turns out somehow Pams jeep, which was running, had popped into reverse and drove backwards over a little tree and over Pam and Dave's tent and stopped up against a tree. Nobody was hurt but the tent poles were toast. Someone had some extra ones that worked alright. Dave then took Pam's jeep out to test out the 4WD and burried it in a mud hole to check it. Well, all the wheels spun be he was really stuck and we had to winch him out. The rest of the night was pretty much normal BS around the campfire.

The next day we packed up camp and continued on our way. The trail was pretty much the same as the day before and the scenery was pretty cool. There were little muddy parts here and there and Larry had some minor problems getting through them. We of course gave him a hard time about it and said maybe he should let Sue (his girlfriend) drive instead. At one part of the trail there was a really muddy bypass that Larry passed up, I passed up but waved Yen-Hsen on to try it. He crept along a bit then stopped and said no way. The ruts went on a bit and then dropped into a bigger hole. He started to back up but just got really stuck. I pulled out my winch and tried pulling him backwards but instead ended up turning him sideways. Pam finally got him pulled out a different way and we continued on.

The trail ended up dropping is into this town in the middle of who know where. Larry and other knew where we were and said this was a place to gas up and air up, then we would take some back roads over to the Kokahala and then down into Hope and home. We all gassed up and aired up and got a bit to eat and a local burger joint. Dave was under Pams jeep again and found out that some rear sway bar thing had broken off. Actually it had broken before and had been welded but it broke again. I was still holding together but sometimes it seemed like the whole jeep was going to fall apart into a million pieces.

We headed out of town and onto the back roads. I had aired up because there was no place to do it again until Hope and I didn't want to go down the Kokahala with 10psi in my tires at 60mph. This really hurt me because with my stiff springs and full tires I felt every single pothole and washboard on the back roads which seemed to last forever. Finally we got to the Kokahala. By this time I also discovered that all this bouncing around had damaged something else. The bottom of my radiator was rubbing on a metal brace and was starting to leak a little. Thank God we were almost home. I was able to make it back to Hope without any problems other than the temp getting a little hot at times. Then I bid my fairwells to everyone, got my spare tire back from Rob and headed back south. By the time I got back to Seattle I was about dead from all the driving but I had a great time so it was worth it.