Mobile Antenna Farm Goes Mobile

[Lars]

On Sunday May 22, 2016 I will be embarking on my first solo road trip in a while. I'm starting out with a pretty non-exciting run from Bastrop, Texas (Near Austin) up to Littleton, Colorado. I'll be working in Littleton on the 23 through the 27th of May.

(If you're in the area and want to meet up one night shoot me a message and I'll get you my phone number.)

Friday evening (the 27th) after work I'm following one or more (I think there's 5 of us total) folks from Tacomaworld out to Montrose County Colorado. We'll camp somewhere in the area, and the Saturday morning we're taking the brand new Rimrocker Trail out to Moab, Utah.

We expect the trail to take 2.5 days to complete. I'm really looking forward to this part. Once we get to Moab we'll be camping in Area BFE. June 1 - 5 is T.a.CO (Tacomas And Company) Rock Therapy

I believe I'll be heading back toward Austin on June 4th taking a detour to go through the Four Corners.

I'll have my APRS transmitter running, so as long as there's an APRS-IS station that can hear me you'll be able to follow my progress at http://aprs.fi (Just search W9ZEB-9)

Cheers, and Hopefully one or more of you will be at Rock Therapy as well :)

 

[Lars]

I leave in just over one day for Littleton, CO and just packed up the bed of the truck. I've got four 20L nato cans stashed in there, in addition to the three cases, a bunch of tools and radio supplies, tent, camp toilet, etc.

Tomorrow I need to pack the "Work Clothes" bag for my week at our Littleton office, and the "in truck" cooler and then I think I'll be set to head out early Sunday.

 

[Lars]

Some photos from the first leg of my trip which was Sunday:

at Ben Lednicky Park in Brown County Texas.

Crossing into New Mexico after more than 10 hours of driving in Texas.

I stopped at Capulin Volcano National Monument, but the park was closed by the time I got there.

Finally in Colorado, It wasn't safe to stop at the "Welcome to Colorado" sign though, so I did the best I could when I stopped for fuel

And finally the view Monday morning from my Hotel room. As someone who's living in Texas seeing snow at the end of May is strange :)

 

[Lars]

There was also a bit of a disaster that occurred, and with it an amazing community was discovered at the same time. Rather than copy/paste the whole story I'll provide A Link to "
Disaster Strikes & One Amazing Community Responds"

 

[Lars]

I think after the Raffle Saturday I'm going to have to start heading back toward Austin, TX (Work on June 6)
and I'm starting to think I'm going to do the first 5 hours Saturday night with a target of the Ojito Wildernes in New Mexico outside Albuquerque.

Do any of you have experience with this site? @stringtwelve?

 

[Lifestyle Overland]

@Lars Sorry, not familiar with it ourselves. Northern New Mexico is high on our list for long weekend trips this year.

 

[Lars]

@Lars Sorry, not familiar with it ourselves. Northern New Mexico is high on our list for long weekend trips this year.

I'll take photos, and provide a brief trip report then. :)

 

[Lars]

On Friday May 27, I had to run down to Colorado Springs to pick up another Wheel Bearing & Hub Assembly from another Tacomaworld Member who wanted to make sure I had a safe trip. When I realized I was meeting him only about 12 miles from the entrance to Pikes Peak, I couldn't resist driving up the mountain!

Above 9,000 Feet Colorado got snow the day and night before, so the toll road was only open for 12 of the 19 miles which was unfortunate as I didn't get to drive all the way to the very top, however I did get to drive to 10,500 feet which was plenty high. There was almost a foot of fresh snow on the ground where the road closed.

The drive up the mountain was amazing! There were several places you could pull off and take photos, or just take in the scenery.

I hope one day to return to Pikes Peak a little bit later in the summer so I can drive all the way to 13,000 feet. Unfortunately I don't think my wife will enjoy the drive up or down the mountain one bit.

That's all for now. Tomorrow I head out to the Rimrocker Trail.

 

[Lars]

Day one on the Rimrocker trail started at the trail head like this.

The trail is fairly well marked with green posts, and reflective Rimrocker Trail stickers

The first 10 or 20 miles of the trail is on a very well improved dirt road that leads into a national forest. It takes you over 9,000 feet and so even at the end of may there was quite a bit of snow on the sides of the road. (GoPro time lapse to come after I have time to edit footage.) When we got started we though we might knock the whole 168 miles out in one day. However once we left the forest, things got more interesting.

The trail has you driving on a lot of very small county and ranch roads on the sides of mountains. This leads to breathtaking views, and some nail biting driving if you're not used to being less than three feet from a cliff.

If you picked a good line, I think the entire trail could be accomplished with any 4x4 that has All Terrain tires. I don't think a Subaru would make it over the rocky terrain without sustaining some bumps and bruises to the under carriage.

The 84 Toyota in the picture above was playing around with the washed out rut, and managed to grenade his front driver's side birfield joint, so we got to do a little bit of on-trail repairs.

We continued for a while, and found an amazing clearing at about 7,700 feet not far from Paradox, CO
We set up camp, and relaxed with a breathtaking view to go to sleep, and wake up to.