Hunting up North. Turkeys Won Again. D'oh!

The Jeep is ready to roll up the mountain. Full of chains, Handyman Jack, ropes, snatch-blocks, shovels and axes. My plan was to get as far up the mountain as possible, in spite of mud, ruts, rocks or snow. Well...within reason. Got the knobby tires on too. Nothing gonna stop us! Even took my biggest chain saw.

Well, nothing but the road totally washed out from the spring run-off. This was at LeClerc Crick. Google it! It was bad, not even the trusty Cherokee can climb a nine-foot wall.

The cool thing is, this road continues up the mountain, and over a ridge, where snow still blocks the roads at higher elevation. Since no one has been on the road since last year, I fired up my foot-mobiles and had the rest of the mountain to myself.

LeClerc was running strong though, here it is at the same place. The mountains sure spit out a lot of water. Below is Mineral crick. Last year it was going stronger than this, at the same time. There is so much water up there right now, I felt kind of silly packing my canteen. Even late summer one isn't going to die of thirst up there. Grizz or Moose might get you, but you can always find water.


Coffee time, of course. My weapons of choice, the AirLite .22 and "Bloody Nose", Grand-dad's shotgun again. I was looking for Turk, and being grizz country I can put a round-ball shell in the right barrel, and a shot load/turk load in the left. My ball load 110 grains of Swiss under a .690" ball, and buffering compound. Grizz wouldn't like it. I had a strange experience with the AirLite, I hiked up the mountain about five or six miles, and when I turned back I decided to pop a beer can a few times that some BOZO left on the side of the road. Dang, I had five miss-fires out of eight rounds. One went off after two strikes, the others not at all. So I reloaded with fresh rounds, and they all fired fine, all 16 of them. The ones in the gun had been in the gun for six months or so. Why did they "go bad"?? I don't leave my chambers sloppy with oil.

Well, I thought I had run into Grizz, and was glad I had that ball load, but it turned out he was just printed on this sign. The sign is lucky I did not put a big giant hole in it! I expected to see some bear, but didn't see a thing, including turkey. But is is bear country. Lots of blacks, and a few Grizz.

Back at the Jeep, long hike back! But all downhill. I chowed down on the food I brought, and steeled myself for the long drive (86 miles) back home and through Spokane. Can't get up North from my house without driving all the way through Spokane. Halfway through it West on the freeway, and all the way North on city streets. Dang. Those knobby tires really sing on the highway, it was starting to bug me, although I usually like to hear aggressive tires "sing".

Yeah...I snuck through the road-block so I could park in the shade. Don't tell anyone. The AirLite, Bloody Nose, and the Jeep say: "Thanks for listening". !

 

Looks like rebounding hammers sometimes they need a good cleaning or weak hammer springs. I've seen older shotguns have trouble with modern shotgun primers. Think it's 2 things, New shells the primer seems to be Recessed more and old primers were ball primers.

I think you could have made it across lol, really miss the old international scouts my dad had when I was kid, nothing would stop those things. His gladiator was pretty good to.

 

Beautiful pics. Our spring gobbler ends this month.

 

I had a Scout way-back in the day. !!! I loved it. That 4-banger (half of a 304 V8) never ran out of power in low-range. Low range was really low, like rock crawler low, unlike more modern or recent 4-wheel drives. Of course top cruising speed in high range was about 45mph. Even low range in my 1973 Power Wagon is not near as low as the old Scouts and Jeeps. ! My 1998 Cherokee is an exceptionally capable off road rig, but again low range in it is nothing like low range in the old Jeeps and Scouts.

 

Ours ends the 31st, so I'll make it out one more time here on the State Land.

 

One of dad's had the 345 and the other was a diesel, the 345 he had the pickup roof on it. One lake we fished the only way to it on the farm was a kid washout for the farm fields, it was kinda v shaped and had large boulders form the dirt eroding away, some spots he would have me get out and the thing would be on 2 wheels most of the time. Remember liking how the axles were locked in, the ones in the air turned the same as ones on the ground. I'd think a new Rubicon would have a time going up and down that washout.

Looks like you had fun on your little trip tho.

 

The 345 was a heavy hunk of metal for sure, but a real low revving torque-monster. Had one in a ex-hy-rail 4X4 crew cab. That was a go-anywhere truck, had a crazy-low first gear. But, it had a 15 gallon tank, and got about eight miles to the gallon. ! Should have put a rack in the back for four or five five gallon cans. !!! But too young and dumb to think of that. Going up North I'd have to fill up in Spokane, fill it up again North of Spokane, and then fill it up again at about the halfway home point, and be low on gas when I got home. Dang!

 

Did you happen to rub the revolver with any penetrating oil? That kills rounds after a short time. Doesn’t take much to do it either.