Rainbow Falls/Rampart Rd.
I went to a local Overland Bound Meet Up and a few of us decided to do a "quick" run through Rainbow Falls. This trail is mostly a fire road but had some decent snowfall on Thursday night.
The Group(minus the 5 lug Taco):
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redrunner87, on Flickr
For the most part the trail was pretty easy but covered in snow. This was a good test for my new Pizza Cutter Falken Wildpeaks. They performed awesome and I had absolutely zero issues them. I aired them down to 20psi.
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redrunner87, on Flickr
Untitled by
redrunner87, on Flickr
Untitled by
redrunner87, on Flickr
Untitled by
redrunner87, on Flickr
Untitled by
redrunner87, on Flickr
Untitled by
redrunner87, on Flickr
The turn around spot was an old Query
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redrunner87, on Flickr
Untitled by
redrunner87, on Flickr
3 of us decided to continue to Rampart Road instead of taking the highway back into town. The others had to leave early for other obligations. We happened upon a pretty stuck XJ. The tires on this XJ were pretty bald, the winch barely worked and he ended up breaking the winch cable off the spool. I ended up having to get my recovery gear out and we had the guy with the 2nd Gen 4Runner pull him out.
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redrunner87, on Flickr
Untitled by
redrunner87, on Flickr
After we got him unstuck we debating going up the hill. The two XJ's tore it up pretty good and exposed a ton of ice underneath the snow. We decided to let the 2nd Gen up first to gauge how bad the hill was. We all made it up with no issues at all.
Once we got onto Rampart Road this Ford CUV got stuck in the rut on the side of the road. He also didn't have very good tires either. It took us awhile to get him up and out of the rut on the side of the road. The "quick" run ended up taking 2-2.5 hours longer because of the recoveries.
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redrunner87, on Flickr