Sierra Lakes Run -Red Lake, Coyote Lake, Strawberry Lake 8-4-26 Thru 8-8-26

[Felix808]

Sierra Lakes Run :
Red Lake, Coyote Lake, Strawberry Lake 8-4-26 Thru 8-8-26

Attendees:
Felix808
@Brian_B
@El Diablo
@Snacktime

Day 1:
Heading up the mountain we hit 108. Thankfully when I hit Shaver Lake it dropped to mid 90’s. Weather could not have been better for the entire trip and we were in luck that we could have open fires so the fire pit I made went unused, which I prefer a real fire. well until I become the smoke magnet but even then .

We met @Snacktime and @Brian_B at the 168 turn off who beat me by 15 minutes or so while @El Diablo was still in the Bay Area . We all aired down for the ride into camp at the trailhead. Temperature had dropped into the mid 80’s. So much better than the previous 108.

When traveling down the trail to camp we saw a doe and fawn about a 1/3 into the trail.
We found our camp and broke out the chairs drinks and stories while we waited for @El Diablo.
Started setting up sleeping arrangements and heard @El Diablo call on the radio. Guided him into camp.

Once he arrived, we broke out the Carne Asada and got to cooking up some street tacos. Consensus said they turned out alright which beats all wrong any day of the week. There was plenty to go around and no one went hungry. We continued to set up camp & jaw Jack.

Day 2:
Woke up to a beautiful morning. Took a shower and then started breaking out the bacon egg and cheese McMuffins. After breakfast, we broke down the camp and had wheels rolling by 8:50.

It was not long before I found myself off trial and had to make a route correction. Not long after, I found a big hole and needed to pull some cable. Shortly after we were at Red Lake.
It was here where I discovered some mentally challenged individual put the snap ring on the inner cv backwards

. It ended up popping the inside of the boot off. A quick crawl under to fix the situation and we were on our way. Due to cognitive issues we decided a change of leadership was needed and @Snacktime was leading us out. The altitude had really hit me on this trip at 9100+ft.

@El Diablo was finding himself hung up a good bit as we made our way through the forest.
@Brian_B lost a mud flap and the other one was hanging on by a single bolt. Later he would realize it was the only thing holding his plastic bumper on at the driver side.

Later we would come across a shark fin of a rock in the middle of the trail. There were already countless rocks stacked but the shark fin was too tall and a huge boulder on the driver side that was too big and tall to ride. and a tree on the passenger side that forced you to straddle the shark fin. Nope, everyone ended up with a winch tug. We continued our way through the rocks and made it into camp at 3:50. @Snacktime threw out a line but only ended up feeding the fish.

@El Diablo made awesome Kalbi 3 bone BBQ and Kimchi rice and a type of rice noodles.

We sat around the beautiful lake talking and enjoying the evening.
A Doe visited us in our camp as @Snacktime was watering the flora.

Day 3:
It would be our longest day so we Left camp at 7:45 after some great tasting ham and cheese croissants.
Stacked a few rocks at the shark fin and guided everyone through. Drove it clean. Shortly after @Brian_B got hung up good. Ended up pulling cable while @Snacktime gave a class on proper winching.
And sure enough I dropped into the same big hole and ended up pulling cable. To our defense you needed to snake through a v notch to line up on 2 of 3 rocks, but we both slid off the line.

We stopped by the lake by Coyote Lake trail head and took a nice snack break. We found a hat and sunglasses that were left behind along with a jacketed lead core 45 ACP round. Unfortunately, some Fidiots were shooting the trees facing the lake.

Not long & it was time to get rolling but it wasn’t long into the Strawberry Lake trail and progress was stopped due to a rather large rotted tree blocking the trail some 36 inches round. it was broken into 3 sections. One about 3-4 feet the other about 6 feet and one about 8-10 feet. Wish I would have gotten a picture but was trying to solve a problem first. We all ganged up on it and rolled it out of the way. We were lucky it needed to roll down hill. We Hit camp at 2:10.
We saw Toyota and a Jeep heading out, who we guess made the bypass around the tree. No one else were seen. we each grabbed a spot and setup camp.

@Snacktime found half a case of Corona Premier left behind.

After cleaning off the beer find, @Snacktime grabbed his pole and cast a line while @Brian_B slipped of a log into the water and decided to take a swim. We a saw a few fish jumping but @Snacktime would be denied again. Too much food out on the water. The bugs weren’t bad at all at any of our camps. Fortunately the meat bees stayed away as well.

For dinner @Snacktime made some great pork ribs and Mac and cheese.

Day 4:
Woke up to another fabulous morning. @Brian_B made a great egg, ham, potato, peppers and onion breakfast.
After breaking down camp, we rolled out at 9:30 and we were back to the highway and aired up at 11:30, for which time it was off to the Hungry hut for some great shakes, burgers and onion rings.

We convoyed down the mountain until it was time to go our separate ways.

What another amazing trip! Thank you all for coming. Looking forward for the next trip together!

Damage report:

@Brian_B Jettisoned a mud flap almost went 2 for 2 but that last bolt hung on for its life knowing it was also keeping the plastic bumper on at the drivers side.

At some point Brian exploded a rock into the driver door. Sounded like a gun shot.

@El Diablo, Bent his rear bumper at the license plate area. He had removed the plate previously to avoid losing it so a simple deployment of a pry bar & it was good enough.

For me, well do to shoddy mechanic work

I had the inside drivers boot pop off. a quick crawl under the truck to flip the snap ring in the axle and clamp the boot back down & It was fixed. Now my boot eating problem that has plagued me for a bit looks to be over .

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[Snacktime]

Saving my picture spot.

 

[crenca]

Great report! Ford should be honest about those stock plastic rear bumpers being good for only at most a 4….

 

[Oldhippie]

Looks like a great trip! Would love to join you kids sometime but not a spring chicken anymore…

 

[Brian_B]

This was a fun run - not afraid to admit this was the most challenging thing I had tried to drive. I learned a ton - some by great instruction, some by school of hard knocks (semi-literally most of the time). Nothing serious broke though.

Thankful for good weather, good spotters and good food.

 

[Built2Wild]

Great write-up, last year when I went. I climbed the shark fin going high on the driver side going in and climbing high on the passenger side going out.

 

[Felix808]

Great write-up, last year when I went. I climbed the shark fin going high on the driver side going in and climbing high on the passenger side going out.

And that is the difference 16 inches makes. Tried that line but couldn't safely continue enough to get the extra 16 inches clear

 

[Built2Wild]

And that is the difference 16 inches makes. Tried that line but couldn't safely continue enough to get the extra 16 inches clear

I figured the wheel base was probably the issue.

 

[Brian_B]

I forgot all about the Start-In-Gear thing on this run, and situations where it would have been useful were where I was having the most issues.

Brake Hold was acting inconsistently - not sure if it just engages on incline or not, that may be why sometimes it would hold and no problem, and other times it would laugh at me as I rolled back down off the obstacle and stupidly mashed the accelerator trying to get forward momentum back up. For the crowd that says "Just put it in C and idle over it"... yeah. C is great, but it's still not an Automatic.

Nitto Ridge Grapplers - the skinny 38x11.5 tire loved to slide off things sideways (not a width issue, with the locker on they want to push sideways when they get a bit hung up). They did ok, but not nearly as well as the 37x12.5 Patagonias or Geolanders that were also represented on the run. I was running about 12 psi. Not sure the extra half inch of clearance made much of a difference. There was a set of KO2's on the run.. I'll just say they got through but I wouldn't consider them over the Nittos. Although, I have to admit, I also can't speak as to how much of that was the Nitto tire and how much of it was just an inexperienced driver.

Also curious - by the time we reached the first camp, I was sitting at about 3/4 tank on gas. By the time I hit the gas station on the way out, I was slightly over 1/4. I was getting a bit worried about fuel (at one point the DTE was saying 14 miles - gotta love 4Lo). But when I filled back up, it was only 11 gallons - which put my right on par with what the guys with Auto transmissions were saying (they were mostly just under half tank). One of these days I'll have to check out the float and see if it's getting hung up or what.

For those that were worried - I was able to rescue the mudflaps and repair my awesome "super weight saving made-for-high-speed Wildtrak special" OEM bumper. So no new rear bumper for me, yet.

One of the biggest lessons for me on this run was just in packout - making sure things are accessible and not burying them with the camping gear. I'll end up re-doing my storage after this run. It's common sense, but I was more worried about making sure I had the camping gear (my first camping trip in a really really long time) than I was about the accessibility of things I already carry around routinely.

I picked up a Gazelle tent. It was amazingly nice tent, but it's large when folded up. It won't fit width-wise in the Bronco (have to fold back seat down in a 4Dr), and you have to pack around it.

The camp food from everyone was amazing. I ate better at this camp than I do at home.

 

[crenca]

For the crowd that says "Just put it in C and idle over it"... yeah. C is great, but it's still not an Automatic.

Yea, that works up to a moderate-reaching-towards-hard obstacle, but is not a thing on genuinely difficult ones.

For those that were worried - I was able to rescue the mudflaps and repair my awesome "super weight saving made-for-high-speed Wildtrak special" OEM bumper. So no new rear bumper for me, yet.

I'm still worried

I thought mine would hold but those brass sleeves in the plastic were just to loose/separated from the plastic itself and the bumper would work itself loose just driving the kids to school

 

[TruckCamper]

Nitto Ridge Grapplers - the skinny 38x11.5 tire loved to slide off things sideways (not a width issue, with the locker on they want to push sideways when they get a bit hung up). They did ok, but not nearly as well as the 37x12.5 Patagonias or Geolanders that were also represented on the run. I was running about 12 psi. Not sure the extra half inch of clearance made much of a difference. There was a set of KO2's on the run.. I'll just say they got through but I wouldn't consider them over the Nittos. Although, I have to admit, I also can't speak as to how much of that was the Nitto tire and how much of it was just an inexperienced driver.

We've been running the Nitto 37x11.5R17 for just over 2 years and 30k miles. My experience has been the narrower profile does slide laterally off obstacles more readily than wider tires (regardless of tread pattern or air pressure). However, narrower profile tires have noticeable better climbing traction (forward) than wider tire and can run much higher air pressure (for similar traction).

Key to take advantage of the skinny tires in the Sierras:

Run at higher air pressure (we found 19psi worked well based on Raptor loaded weight) - this allows a nice bump in ground clearance which is extremely helpful on granite rocks that move about. We would get similar traction to guys running 12-14psi with wider 12.5" tires. You're loosing the biggest advantage of your skinny 38s by running them too low of pressure. On terrain like Moab / Sand Hollow where terrain is not moving you can drop much lower without risk of getting hung up (10-11psi).

You need to drive differently knowing narrow tires will have the tendency to "fall sideways" off rocks and plan for it and/or take a slightly different line. Once again lots of benefits in other situations so worth the trade off in may ways.

Tread pattern is less important is dry conditions than tire carcass construction and proper pressure based on tire/rig... and obviously driving skill is #1. Too many people focus on gear and not the operator. Flat tires only go so far and can start working against you. There is a sweet spot for every terrain. I'd always default to the highest pressure and lower as needed.

 

[Brian_B]

I'm still worried

I thought mine would hold but those brass sleeves in the plastic were just to loose/separated from the plastic itself and the bumper would work itself loose just driving the kids to school

I had 1 still in securely enough that I could unthread the bolt... 5 that had pulled completely out, and 2 that were still in but spun freely (the little mud flap that could).

We'll see if some epoxy won't hold them all in... if not, then I won't exactly cry over having to buy an upgrade.

 

[Brian_B]

which is extremely helpful on granite rocks that move about.

Now this is the first I've heard of this advice - we did have a lot of those little buggers that would wander around the trail.

I had always heard lower pressure for wider contact patch and malleability.

I'll have to give it a try next time. Thanks!

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