2007 Iron Mountain Road Snow Run

January 14, 2007

Written By Keane

 

We had a great turnout for the Iron Mountain run. I don’t have pictures of everyone, but, best I can remember we had:

The trip began at 8:30 at Starbucks and the word for the day was cold! We met Pat at Pollock Pines and spent quite a while looking for snow. We got well past North-South Road and almost to Silver Fork Road before Keane and Travis had some trouble with a hill and had to lock in their hubs. We decided to take a quick break and the girls spent some time sliding into a ditch on their stomachs.

Almost every time we stopped we were passed by some poorly prepared stock SUV and we all know what that means. We found our first stranded driver around noon. It was a pretty nice Lexus that had found its way into the ditch.

We made short work of pulling him out, but, he had sent his wife ahead in another car to get help. Rob, Sue, Keane, and Kelly decided to try and catch her and let her know that everything was ok while the rest of the group would help get him through. About 1/2 mile around the corner the chase team caught up to a full size truck that was pretty well buried. We let him know help was on the way and continued after the wife.

Not much after that we caught up to a newer pathfinder that was stuck. Rob and Sue continued on and Keane and Kelly pulled out the pathfinder. By the time Keane and Kelly got them out a few others had caught up.

We got the pathfinder moving again and offered to make sure they got through. At the last real hill climb before Highway 88 Rob and Sue were helping a Highlander get unstuck with a few members of Search and Rescue who were on snowshoes. I’m not sure what the Highlander folks were thinking, but one of them had on slippers! We finally got them and the pathfinder to Highway 88 and waited for the back half of the group with the Lexus. We never caught the vehicle with the guy’s wife, but we were able to reach her by phone and she was waiting for him and Kirkwood.

It was about 1:30 at this point and we decided we hadn’t gotten our fill yet and that we would try and come down through Strawberry. We made our way to the maintenance station and found a five or so foot snow berm piled in our way. Brad, Travis, Kathy, Lee, and Pam aired down and went for it. Travis made short work of the pile in his ultra light Samurai but it took the Jeeps a bit longer.

Somewhere in the process we woke up some sleeping CalTrans workers and they called the police. A Deputy with the Sheriff’s came and told us to get everyone back on the pavement side of the snow berm while he checked it out. Not more than a few minutes later two CHP cars showed up. Needless to say, we caused quite a stir.

In the end, they decided that we had every right to be there, but asked us to move through quickly and quietly. They also indicated that there was a gate buried somewhere below the snow. We decided that it wasn’t worth causing anymore trouble and headed back to Iron Mountain to find some snow.

We met up with a Forest Service Ranger that was waiting for some CalTrans help to close the gate. She said that the Forest Service’s official stance is that Iron Mountain Road is closed from Silver Fork to 88 and that signs to that effect were on order and would be posted soon. She did however let us go through since we had come through that way, had a trailer on the other side, and promised to pull out anyone we saw.

On the way back through the front half of the group pulled out a stuck vehicle and Fred pulled out 4Runner towing a snow mobile. We got to Silver Fork Road and decided to give it a shot. Brad went down about 200 yards and got stuck nearly immediately. The snow had softened up some and we weren’t going to make it far. It was around 4:30 and getting really cold so we decided it was probably best to get everyone turned around and headed home.

Rob and Sue continued to show that they are one with the snow as they aired waaaaay down and drove past Brad, turned around and drove past him again. Brad was able to turn himself around with some shoveling and winching, but in the process of getting out, Bob had gotten himself stuck. We used Pat’s winch and were able to pull him out.

It was really cold by that point and time to go home. Most folks felt that with the wind chill the temperatures were probably in the single digits and the road was a solid sheet of ice which made for some interesting driving on the way out. We got everyone aired up and most of us headed to Colina De Oro for some Mexican food to end the day.

All of my pictures are here: http://posse4x4.org/gallery/Iron_Mtn_Keane

There are some neat drive-by shots of some of the frozen lakes in there.