New Year New Trail
Northern California has been DUMPIN’ the past three weeks or so and we are definitely not complaining. Every year our state is haunted by water shortages during the summer and we’re hoping these record storms will be adequate for the upcoming year. The storms have been so frequent that levels have dropped to record lows, making snow even more accessible for us this season. We’ve even heard reports of snow being found in the San Jose and Napa areas!
It’s the new year so why not go for a new trail? We’ve always heard about some nice spots in the Foresthill area, but haven’t had a chance to check it out for ourselves. Our group that day consisted of me (@pureaddict), Richie (black GX @r1cheer1ch), Tommy (cement GX @2_tangz), and Lance (Tacoma @laquino18). By 1 PM we were done with staging and started to head out. The storm had blessed the trail with beautiful fluffy snow and also offered 2 small water crossings. Shortly after we were greeted by a small valley with hilly snow tops that we all tried getting up on. The hills had conquered the V6’s in the group, but the 8 bangers were able to get that W. After that area we traced our steps back over the creeks, and made a right at the T. After passing some kids sledding we had to turn around due to the sheer thickness of the fresh powder. In other words, we decided not to pull an all nighter in the snow and proceeded to head back.
Heading back gave us one more challenge: the last uphill was blocked by a deeply stuck F-150 on bald city tires and our only way up was to narrowly skate between him and the trench. It took our rigs a couple attempts to line up just right while being careful not to slide into the F-150 as the uphill itself has turned icy throughout the sunny day. Alas, all our rigs made it back to staging safely with no casualties.
‘Twas a short trail day, but we were pretty occupied with all the recoveries we had to do. Snow is no joke and can be fairly unpredictable at times so we always have to make sure we have the proper recovery gear to keep us going. We even had to help free another group’s Tacoma on the way out, but situations like this are to be expected especially in these conditions. The day felt like 30% trailing and 70% recovering, yet it’s all smiles since we’re all able to gain that much more experience points in helping each other out and also the chance to feel out our own rigs in the snow. We all had a good time and are already can’t wait for the next.
