#NWAdventureTruck – Page 2 – The Northwest Adventure Truck

January 29, 2018

Skifari 2018 – The Ultimate Ski Bum Road Trip

Skifari is a trip lead by a good friend of mine each year. We camp in a ski area parking lot, ski there during the day, then drive to the next one. Repeat for a week. It’s a great time and we had amazing snow all trip this year! We had 10 people in 6 rigs. We started at Mt Baker, then headed to Sasquatch BC, followed by two days at Whistler.

Heading up to Baker after work for the first night got very interesting. It was dumping snow, and they had not run the upper area at all that day. 6-8″ of snow were on the road. Once we were ~1/2 a mile from the upper lot, we came across a small slide that was covering the road to a ski area. I stopped to see how deep and packed it was to see if we could cross. As soon as I got back in the car and touched the gas the truck followed the crown of the road sliding right into the snow bank. We were stuck, right in an avalanche Chute. I dug the side of the truck out and used the maxtrax under one front and one rear wheel. I was able to pull forward a bit, but it still was sliding along the snow bank. Luckily we were traveling with friends who were able to winch us back to the center of the road. But we were still slipping all over trying to move. I started to put on chains and a second slide released and hit the truck. Luckily we had a lookout watching the hill and took off running when it let go. Scary as hell bit we made it out ok minus a few buried tools…. We got very lucky that it was a small slide.

Feverishly working to get out of the slide area

That’s all we got for pictures, we were working as fast as possible, and once the second slide let go I just hit the gas back down the hill, one chain halfway on…

But we made it back down to the main lot and parked, it was almost midnight at that point. We had a tiny fire, a couple beers and crashed.

Baker had good snow, 10-12 ish inches overnight, pretty damn light, but not compared to the upcoming days.

After skiing Baker we headed North, crossing the border up into BC and parking at Sasquatch mountain. Its a little 3 chair place, but there was no one there and the snow was the lightest fluffy pow you can imagine. It was great for the kid, she usually has trouble in pow, as shes ~55lbs, she just gets stopped, but it was so light she could keep moving relatively easily!

The whole Skifari gang parked at Sasquatch

Next we headed to Whistler. Long drive day, but not too bad. There are always a couple on skifari. We stayed at the Riverside RV park. Whistler is VERY anti camping in their lots, so this was the next best thing. Close to the upper village and parking at blackcomb mid station worked awesome. We would roll out at 7 and have breakfast up there.

Some fun trees at whistler.

A normal Skifari evening, a nice little fire, a few beers and great friends to chat with. Such a great time.

Great friends great snow, great trip.

January 22, 2018

New front shocks!

Time to replace the front shocks to match the rear. Over big whoops in the road the front end would bounce a little so they are getting tired. I went with Bilstien 5100’s just like the rear end.

Getting them out wasn’t too bad, getting the new ones in was harder…. Trying to collapse them enough to fit and hold them with zip ties.

No its not rusty, its red grit that Oregon DOT spreads everywhere in the winter. it works well and is very grippy, but man it makes a red mess.

Not enough miles on it to report how they work yet, but I will update it after a few thousand miles.

January 18, 2018January 18, 2018

Mt Bachelor

Let me start with Mt Bachelor is awesome for ski bumming! They park you right in front of the parking lot, close to the lifts, have a 24 hour bathroom, and showers! You have to pay for the showers, but still they are nice. Its $20 a night to stay there.

Ski conditions weren’t great, but we made the best of our time. Went to town, did some climbing and a day of tubing too. Bend is great for visiting lots of breweries!

Freezing rain made for short evenings outside, and icy days of skiing, but its still better than working!

The drive down and back was uneventful, I try to keep the truck at 68 or less. It will go faster, but 68 is ~2250 RPM’s, which is getting up there, and it sucks down more gas the faster you go. Two passes past Mt Hood had some snow, but nothing terrible and we made the drive in a day.

December 8, 2017

Mt Baker Pow weekend!

What a weekend! 28″ in 48 hours, light and fluffy and everything!

We headed up Friday night, there was a storm rolling through that was dumping snow up north. So naturally we chased it!

Heading up at night the LED driving lights are a life saver. Missed a family of deer…. glad I could see them. It was absolutely dumping snow.

We made it in time to get up to white salmon before the gates closed. Its nice to be able to be so much closer to the lift. We backed into the snowbank and settled in for some dinner.

It was really coming down Friday night, we walked around outside for a bit, but went to bed pretty early. The morning brought lots of fresh snow. About 8″ overnight.

It was a good day for big sticks! Soft and deep everywhere and just continued to come down all day. A great day of skiing. We all crashed early.

The weather cleared up after a few more inches over night. Woke up to clearing sky’s. The snow was so good we decided to ski Sunday too.

Dug out the plow berm that was in front of the truck, and headed for home Sunday afternoon. It was a great weekend of skiing and the truck worked awesome.

November 30, 2017

Little Projects

A couple little things have been done. I ordered some cushions online, they finally came in! They look great! They are 3″ thick, and Sunbrella outdoor fabric, made to my sizes. Glad I just had them made.

Also put new marker light bulbs in the truck. One was out, and they always seem to follow each other so the others were probably close behind. I used some LED ones.

Also stopped by my local Air Harbor to pick up some Jet A, I am going to try running the furnace on it, it should be nearly the same kerosense. Much much cheaper, and you get to see the cool planes when they are filling you.

November 26, 2017

Snow! Quick trip for some fun in the snow.

Took a quick overnight to play in the snow. Truck did great! 4×4 worked great, just had to manually lock in the hubs, which meant I couldn’t drive in mu slippers….. Life is hard.

We headed up Smithbrook road near Stevens pass again, lots more snow this time!

But first a quick stop at Stevens Pass ski area, they were letting people sled! Not kicking people out, which is unheard of in my experience. So we stopped and had lunch and did some sledding.

After lunch and some fun we headed up Smithbrook road. We had to push a couple cars up the road to a wide spot to get turned around and headed back down so we could sneak past them.

Snow was pretty deep where we stopped to camp. Pretty spot and fluffy, but polished really slick from traffic up the road.

Nice little trip, it got cold, we had a nice fire, and enjoyed a lot of sledding!

November 7, 2017March 11, 2019

Camp puddle lights

I don’t generally like to leave the big bright porch light on, I know a lot of RV people do, but in the middle of nowhere when its really damn dark, that is too bright.

I wanted just a little light to help find the stairs, or just see a little light around the truck. So I came up with a plan. I bought some trailer marker lights, they are small LED’s 60 lumens ish, and mount in a 3/4″ hole. This was important, the flange around the bottom on the box is ~1 1/4″. My idea is to mount them to just shine on the ground around the bottom edge of the box. They are cheap and waterproof, can be found here.

So the first step is to drill a hole, A step bit was used to do this.

The lights work by removing the rubber, slipping that into the hole, then slipping the light into that. Its pretty secure in there actually.

Then the wiring. I had run a circuit to the passenger side tool box area when I was wiring the truck. I figured it would be handy for something in the future to have power out there. I used a light up push button switch, and an old antenna mount to hold it. It had to be spaced away from the corner a bit to clear the door for the propane access.

And the final result! Its awesome! Just a nice little bit of light around the truck. The camera makes it look a little brighter than it is, its just a subtle bit of light.

November 2, 2017

Insulating the Cab

After our last snow trip I noticed the carpet under the dog bed was a bit wet from condensation. Need to do something about that. I had planed to insulate the back wall of the cab anyway, it was bare metal panels where the window used to be, so I had planned to do that for noise if nothing else.

So I ordered a roll of thin foam insulation (I ended up with EZ Cool) and got to work.

Pull all the plastic trims out, pulled the back seat, and rolled the carpet up onto the front seats. I am only doing the rear section at the moment, I don’t have time to pull all the front stuff out too. It takes forever….. Not much insulation from the factory.

Cut a piece bigger than you think you need. All the bends and curves make it shrink!

Then start at one end and work across forming, cutting taping. Don’t forget the holes for seats, seat belts etc! I stuffed it as far forward as I could then made sure it was kind of square and started working towards the back. It bends and shapes ok, not sure easy. But making cuts and taping it seems to get it to hold its shape.

Once the floor was done I flopped the carpet back down and started to work on the back walls. much harder, curves, small pieces, slots for the trim panels. But it got done. Spray glue worked great to hold in on the larger flat panels.

I also wrapped around the gasket between the box and the cab. Its not a lot of insulation, but any little bit helps. You can see the seats and trims are back in here too. Eventually I will probably carpet the back wall to match the trucks interior, but for now its shiny!

October 31, 2017October 31, 2017

Fix and install Backup lights

So the backup lights have never worked, no idea why. So it was finally dark enough to warrant fixing them. Backing up twisty FS roads in the dusk the previous weekend reminded me….

I had checked the fuses but its a complicated mess. Three fuses, two inside, one under the hood, one relay, the transmission selector switch and the added wring of the box, and tow harness… So I started at the junction box where all the lights connect in the back under the box, everything looked good. Traced the wiring all the way back to the transmission, all looked good. Range switch seemed fine and adjusted correctly. So I went back to fuses again….. There it was, one fuse turned sideways, I was checking the wring one. But new fuse in pace and all better!

But I had decided to add more reverse light. A cheap 20″ light bar should work well. I tied it to the trailer wiring so as not to overload the factory reverse circuit.

A couple of rivnuts in the aluminum plates above the back bumper and I have a spot to mount a light. This was my first use of rivnuts, super handy! They work like a rivet but leave a threaded inset.

A couple of stainless 1/4-20 bolts and the bar is installed.

All done!

October 23, 2017

First Snow Trip of the Year!

The weather called for a good sized winter storm to hit the local mountains, so what do we do? Pack up and head out to try to find snow!

Snow level was still pretty high, higher than the ski area, but we found the highest spot we could pretty easily get to up a forest service road. We had been up there before, but never that high, there are a couple of steep switch backs that had always held us back. So I grabbed a new pair of tire chains on my way home from work and we headed out for an adventure.

Turning off the highway onto dirt it was still raining. We need to get higher!

Not long after it started snowing, not hard, but not sticking yet. After getting through the switch backs we made it to 4600′. Not much higher we could easily go, so we found a flat ish wide spot and called it good for the night. IT was snowing and sticking at this point.

We played in the snow until it got dark and headed inside for dinner. Made a little fire and went to bed for the night. In the morning I could hear the snow hitting the roof vents, good sign! But I had not checked the fuel for the heater before we left….. It was empty. I had extra, but it took a good 45 minutes to get the lines primed again.

It had snowed bout 3″ over night and was still coming down hard. After a quick breakfast we did some sledding and whatnot. Kid and dog had a great time throwing snow around.

We decided we should probably head down the hill before it got too much more snow. Only one car had come by in the morning, and it was a little slick.

Road looked a little different on the way down! Lots more snow. No issues going down the hill, just idled down in first gear. As it turns out in 2WD the whole time…. The front axle is not engaging, one more thing to be fixed. But overall a great trip and fun to play in the snow!