2012 February Snow Patrol
From Gold Hills Posse 4x4 Club
IRON MOUNTAIN ROAD SNOW PATROL – 2/4/2012
Where: Iron Mountain Road in the El Dorado National Forest Attendees: George: Gold TJ Brad, Kathleen & Fam Kathleen: Black JKU Fred & Teddi Silver TJ Carl: White Dodge Pick Up Jeff & Jolie: Green Dodge Pick Up Josh: JK Jason, Liz & Fam Black JKU Don: Blue LJ Bill: Silver LJ Joe: White TJ Sue: Green TJ Greg: Red LJ
We met at the Subway in Pollock Pines around 8:30am (ish), then headed out and stopped at the Department of Forestry Information Kiosk at 9:30am to grab cones and a tally sheet for counting the number of vehicles on the road that day.
We hit some snow at about 7 miles in.
At around 11 miles (6,000 feet) most of us aired down because the snow covering the road had melted and froze into ice.
Brad and Fred went on ahead without airing down to find the perfect place to set up our day camp. We set up the day camp at the intersection of Iron Mountain Road and Silver Fork. After setting cones out, Don quickly got in position to begin counting vehicles. Carl setup an awesome foodservice station and began preparing lunch. Everyone else brought out their potluck items, GREAT food! We had cheese & cracker platters, Veggie platters, BBQ’d beef sandwiches, BBQ’d chicken, cookies, and plenty of drinks to go around. (I hope I haven’t forgotten anything, I was pretty much in a food coma by the end)
A 1 ton Ford Dually drove by, which seemed a bit odd. About 5 minutes later, two guys from the dually came over the hill into our camp and said they were stuck. Jeff, Carl, Joe, & Sue promptly jumped into their vehicles to help recover the dually. When it was all said and done, there are rumors that the dually had to recover Jeff soon after…. We broke camp around 4pm(ish) and began heading back down the hill. At the top we had only counted 4-6 vehicles, but by the time I had reached the kiosk I was up to 15 vehicles (not counting our 12), 2 snowmobiles, and 2 quads. It was a stunningly beautiful day! The ladies talked about jewelry and the guys talked about future mods to their rigs. AWESOME