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the Argentine run, June 26 2021

nakman

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north side
big thank you to everyone who made it out today and last night, and hopefully a few of you are still up there tonight. I made it home at 3:30, promptly took a shower and a nap. Back at it.

I jetted out of town as fast as I could, to be greeted by a ton of traffic on I-70 headed west. I guess that's just how things are now. Absolutely no one was up there... every site was vacant, no trail traffic, could have camped anywhere. So I took the spot we talked about, and was able to take my time getting my RTT set up.. have had this one for a few years now and this is my first night in it. Beautiful afternoon.

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More campers....
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And you can see by the clouds that some weather is probably going to happen. Later that evening, we were literally inside a cloud. Looked more like this:

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Not much else to report tbh.. I think we had 6 trucks total at camp, everyone pretty much went to bed by 10:30 as it was cold, and wet, and raining, and getting worse. It pretty much rained all night, at times sounded like it was coming down pretty hard. I bet it snowed up higher.
 

nakman

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north side
So we met the Forest Service as planned on Saturday morning, and everything went as planned. Ended up splitting into 3 groups- one up Leavenworth Creek, a second to go straight to Waldorf to repair the fence, and a 3rd from camp to also run Leavenworth creek. With only 5-6 trucks per group, the pace was nice and smooth all day, and for the most part easy to navigate around other users.

After checking in with the camp group #3, I brought up the rear on the high road. our adopt-a-road signs are a little faded, but still doing their job.

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Up at the Waldorf townsite, you could see new snow from last night on the hills, completely covering the top of Argentine pass.

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And then we fixed a fence.

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nakman

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After the fence was fixed a few of us went up to check out the Santiago mine. There are a lot of new fences up there, and few routes from years' past have been closed, but after only 1 wrong turn we did ultimately find it. We also found a small puddle to drive through.

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After the mine we went back down to Waldorf to hook up with group #1 who was just finishing lunch. Then it started raining pretty hard, so we decided to head back down the hill. @FireMike got wet once in a puddle...

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And you can all rest easy tonight knowing the Subzali junction is still active and in great shape

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Almost to the bottom, I wanted to go check out the chimney as I had heard it was now closed, FireMike agreed to cruise back there with me. I was happy to see you can still drive back there, but alas there's a sign now that says it's for day use only. Because fires are best during the day.

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And that's what I remember.
 

subzali

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Aug 22, 2005
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Denver CO
Interesting changes up there. So they redirect you a bit with the fence at Waldorf it looks like. And I assume the steep hill climb above is closed?
 

KC Masterpiece

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A couple not so great photos I grabbed over the weekend.

Got one good video of @ontherx making a splash. Not sure the best way to post.
 

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Fisher67

Rising Sun Member
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Nov 5, 2015
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219
Location
Denver
Nice to be able to show environmental awareness from the 4 wheeling community and fun to meet some more club members. Would have been happy to help with more tasks, but the lack of charged battery packs for the cordless drill shortened our ability to build and repair fence. Fun to check out the Santiago mill and tried to take my wife to see the view from the saddle just north of McClellan, but as we were taking the shelf road to the notch, the ceiling dropped and we got caught in a cloud with frozen rain, causing us to cancel the plan.

Big thanks to Tim for organizing and look forward to more off-road adventures this summer!

a few pics from the trip.
 

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Shuksan

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Messages
906
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Denver
Thanks again Tim for organizing and that hot coffee yesterday.

I traveled with the camp group (@KC Masterpiece, @On the RX , and @MonPetiteShoe ), which of course was the last to get on trail Saturday morning. Getting a 4 YO moving takes a bit of time. We followed up on the lower trail and cleaned up some camp sites on some forks I hadn't explored before. We also vastly improved one site IMHO including moving a boulder, which required a winch and a snatch. Also just because it is fun to use this stuff. Harry definitely won most trash found at the camp sites and he said that was his favorite part of the trip.

Great job upper crews on fixing those fences, it's much better than a few years back when everyone would drive up those tailings. Would've been nice to attempt Argentine, but we got reports of a pretty large snow drift up there.

I also have some videos of fun water crossings. I'll have to figure out how to upload.

@KC Masterpiece did you check you dif fluid yet?
 

KC Masterpiece

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May 4, 2019
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Thanks again Tim for organizing and that hot coffee yesterday.

I traveled with the camp group (@KC Masterpiece, @On the RX , and @MonPetiteShoe ), which of course was the last to get on trail Saturday morning. Getting a 4 YO moving takes a bit of time. We followed up on the lower trail and cleaned up some camp sites on some forks I hadn't explored before. We also vastly improved one site IMHO including moving a boulder, which required a winch and a snatch. Also just because it is fun to use this stuff. Harry definitely won most trash found at the camp sites and he said that was his favorite part of the trip.

Great job upper crews on fixing those fences, it's much better than a few years back when everyone would drive up those tailings. Would've been nice to attempt Argentine, but we got reports of a pretty large snow drift up there.

I also have some videos of fun water crossings. I'll have to figure out how to upload.

@KC Masterpiece did you check you dif fluid yet?

I have not but thanks for the reminder. I'm about to dry out the tent so I'll give it a look. Thanks again for the fuel hose.

The 5 min breather extension worked well for the rest of the day.

Edit. Looks like minor contamination. No milk but some bubbles. Gear oil is cheap and I have gaskets so I am just going to do the diffs today.
 

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KC Masterpiece

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Diff oil done. After draining there was little to no water but it was nasty so glad I did it anyways. It's been 2 years and who knows the history before that.

The 10mm hex head drain and fill plugs are the truth.
 

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Shuksan

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Diff oil done. After draining there was little to no water but it was nasty so glad I did it anyways. It's been 2 years and who knows the history before that.

The 10mm hex head drain and fill plugs are the truth.
Now you just got to flush your drain pan with some motor oil to dilute that lovely gear oil smell
 

KC Masterpiece

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Now you just got to flush your drain pan with some motor oil to dilute that lovely gear oil smell

Guess what I just did?

It's oil day. 2 diffs and then the engine oil from the 80 and pathfinder.

I have a couple gallons of oil and coolant to take to the dump this week. Thankfully they take both for free up here.
 

tallmike

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Jul 13, 2019
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Lakewood, CO
It was a great time! @nakman do you have the photo of the fence crew in hardhats?
 

bassguyry

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Awesome day on the trail! I was with the lower trail group that ran Leavenworth up to the mine, led by @MountainGoat. @joltman was with the group, and his wife also tried her hand at wheeling for the first time, and did an awesome job! Thanks again for organizing, @nakman!

@Shuksan - am I weird for secretly loving the smell of gear oil? ;)

Some pics:

The rangers giving us the low down on the day:
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@MountainGoat showing us how water crossings are done:
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My buddies Mary Louise and Nate crushing another water crossing:
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@joltman and his awesome 200 at the last water crossing on Leavenworth:
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Columbines were all over the place and looked amazing:
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Nate and Jolene on trash duty:
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Bessie, in her natural habitat:
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MonPetiteShoe

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Aurora
Friday, I cut out of work as soon as possible and we headed up around 3:15pm. Traffic on I-70 was slow going because.. reasons. Per usual, it opened up about a mile before Georgetown. We found @nakman holding down the spot, and hung around while a few others @Shuksan, @KC Masterpiece, @DomOfTheDead, @On the RX, trickled in. To the east, the clouds hung heavy over Alpine peak and Independence Mountain, before displacing around Leavenworth Mountain and beyond. We found ourselves in the middle of the clouds. The rain was on and off through the night. We woke up to a clear-ish sky, made breakfast, and Tim headed down to link up with the rest of the group.
We took FSR 248.1B/Leavenworth Creek road and bumped down a few "side roads," to pick up trash and get after a few creek crossings.
Cleaned up a few camping spots and tiddied up some unwarranted fire rings. It was an absolute necessity that we snatch a boulder out of the way for a certain wayward campsite.
We had planned to stay a second night but decided against it as the rain came pouring in around 4:30/5pm. I also had lame adult stuff to do, so we made our way back down the hills.

(1st night: Camping group)
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Rare picture of the Boulder that Boulder was named after.
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Obligatory After Picture
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Mountains + Clouds
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On the RX

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Superior
It was an amazingly rainy night. I was awoken multiple times by massive drops bouncing off the roof of my hard sided tent (aka 4runner). I was quickly serenaded back to sleep by the white noise. Woke up in the clouds!
Saturday morning views of the camp site.
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