Report: EWA Snow Wheeling at ASF - Feb 24 2013

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Snow Wheeling at the Ahtanum State Forest
Report by Clay Graham / Eastern Washington Adventures


Ahtanum State Forest - Photo by Clay Graham / Eastern Washington Adventures

On Sunday February 24th, 2013 Eastern Washington Adventures Club members met up at Highland Quick Stop in Cowiche Washington for the Ahtanum 4?4 Snow Wheeling Run. We had five rigs on this run, TJ40 ? TJ, Craigen ? TJ, Rangerat ? YJ, The Middle Kid ? Dakota and Ceg ? JK. Guido rode with TJ40 and MudSlinger93 rode with me. We convoyed to Cowiche Mill Road and aired down.

Once aired down, we headed up Cowiche Mill Road and then up C-1300 onto Hatton road. Not much snow on the way up. Up on Hatton the snow drifts were deep and soft. Craigen and I both got stuck right off the bat. TJ40 also got stuck trying to go around to pull me out of my second stuck. The Middle Kid parked his rig after getting stuck a few times in the same area too. He rode shotgun with Rangerat most of the rest of the day.

We moved on up the ridge trying to stay on top of the harder snow. Of coarse we fell through a lot since the crust wasn?t very thick. We turned around once the snow got to soft to move forward. The last part I got stuck many times. On the way back through that last area, I used momentum to fly over the soft spots. That worked well. The next area I tried to blow through a snow drift where no one had drove and got stuck good. TJ40 got stuck next to me. Craigen got stuck trying to pull me through. Rangerat was trying to pull us back and that did not work well since we were stuck good. With some winching and pulling we made it through that area.

The last drift where we had went around on the way up earlier, was the area we got all the Jeeps stuck at once. A little more winching and we were back on our way.

Just down from there we picked up The Middle Kid?s truck and head on out. We aired back up once at the pavement of Cowiche Mill Road.

Most of the group went to the Pastime in Selah for dinner. They were closing by the time everyone met back up so we finish off a pitcher of Widmer Hefeweizen and moved over to the T&T for dinner.

See full report with 100 photos at: EWA Ahtanum Snow Wheeling ? Feb 24 2013