Waipourous Trail Run A Success? Not Really, But Damn Close!

[twinmill28]

We just got back from our Waipourous Trail run and camping adventure--wow, what a weekend!

We ended up with 9 HUMMER's--two H1's, five H2's, one 3, and an H3T who showed up after the run to hang out at the camp site.

The carnage included Dave's 08 H2 that seemingly dropped one of it's front diff carrier bolts which entailed tearing up the CV and part of the diff assembly. I didn't get a good look at it, but it wasn't pretty. This was about half-way thru the run in the middle of absolutely nowhere and we couldn't get it to the point of towing it out, so we had to leave it for the day.

The only other carnage was a broken tie rod on Carl's lone H2 SUT, he was hell bent on driving the wheels off of the thing! He actually made it out of the hard trail and back onto Waipourous Valley Road when he was playing Evil Kenevil and hit a rock hard enough to take out the outer tie rod. Easy enough fix, but it turns out Canadians aren't prone to snapping tie rods like we're used to in the States! (nobody was carrying a spare--seems they just don't break them here in the mud), so we left that one on the side of the trail and fixed it this morning in ten minutes with new parts.

Dave, on the other hand, made the hard decision to pull out his checkbook (ouch--no costs yet) and bring in an available wrecker to pull his truck out---no easy feat considering the location and amount of times we ended up winching most of the trucks out of the only way thru the trail.

Overall, an awesome day with beautiful scenery, but I think the trail was a little too challenging as we started the day out using straps and only continued to use them all day. Ok, I used the strap more than everyone else, but they were sympathetic to my lack of tread. All of the 2's but mine were running 37's and lifts, so no lack of grip, just brutal mud holes.

The 1's ran really well, is that even a question? They hung out in their own arena thru the day and wondered why the 2's were having so much drama!

Brian in his H2 brought out a small crew on quads and side-by sides who pre-ran the trail the day before and ran with us as trail guides. These guys were outstanding and helped out alot thru-out the run and even helped this city boy back at camp! Awesome, thanks for the work and great attitudes--no worries!

We enjoyed some great campfire chat (Ok, I mostly made jokes about Carl because he wasn't there to defend himself!) at the base of the Canadian Rockies, so the scenery couldn't get any better, and the weather was just perfect over the weekend.

Other than Dave's seriously broken 2, this was an awesome run and great weekend. Especially enjoyed meeting Guy and his wife, who came out in their 96 H1 towing their travel trailer, and also Jarod and his girly showing up in his 3 on 35's. Also awesome to see Nick and his wife show up in the T, and hang out to show off his Road Armor goldmine!

The rest of you guys, Steve, Harold, Brian Carl, Dave--it was awesome getting to run with you again this year; I'm thinking one more year of a camping trip/trail run like this and we can actually call it an annual event!

Here's some pics--you gotta dig Brian's "party wagon", he carried most of the women in it thru the whole trail---crazy!

Also, I'm still trying to figure out what Carl was thinking when he pointed his 2 at the stream and stuck it there!

Enjoy!!

[twinmill28]

Here's a few more pics of the run--can't wait to see everybody else's pics!

[twinmill28]

Some more pics of the weekend's events!

[twinmill28]

One other thing--meeting the guys again a year later was a heck of a reunion---it turns out that in the past year, three of us that ran Waipourous last year in our H3's have since traded them up to H2's! Needless to say, the 3's, which were the majority last year, fell to the minority this year!

[duncanpa]

WOW, sounds like it was a great, but nasty run.....good thing about Hummmers, they always come out of the trail, not always in one piece, but they always come out because Hummer people take care of one another....Would love for this to become an Annual Event as I might plan for it one year and drive out to take part...wife has yet to see the mountains...what better way than right up close....Nice pictures too..

[dwaxman1]

Awesome photos, looks great, sorry to hear about Dave's broken H2...how did he end up getting it extracted??<br>

[JL]

Long story about Dave, and a long day on Sunday getting him out (plus Karl's H2 started having problems again, drove OK just noise but not sure what it was...) so we drove the trails nice and slow, left the tow truck behind since he couldn't run the quad trails.. got to Dave's truck and thankfully no sh*t heads got to it so it was just fine. CV came out relatively easy and got the carrier back into place.. Karl was definitely a big help and still hit the trails with us, risking his truck with an unknown problem so that was awesome of him.



Karl was with the tow driver for a bit when he couldn't go any farther so me and Dave were soloing the friggin quad trails getting to the H2. A little sketchy to say the least but the H3 served me very well and with Dave spotting, we were getting through places I was pulled out of the day before (proof that smart wheeling beats the brute force approach!).



Slow drive back of course but at the end of the day we all made it back safely, and that's what really counts!!





And my favorite part about Brian's party trailer... it had 37" mudders on it!! So awesome...

[Khamul]

I didn't see this post so I posted my summary and my extreme thanks in the Waiprpus run.... so go read that and come back to this one!

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I'll wait...

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done?

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OK - so the idea of maiking this an annual event actually gets me excited! I think there is no better idea that that and I can't think of a better location than at the base of the Great Canadian Rockies!!! We'll stick to the trucks trails and not the quads and I think we would have a total blast and try and get as many people from across the country as possible!



Cheers!

[dwaxman1]

[quote name='JL' date='19 July 2010 - 11:38 AM' timestamp='1279553939' post='19477']

Long story about Dave, and a long day on Sunday getting him out (plus Karl's H2 started having problems again, drove OK just noise but not sure what it was...) so we drove the trails nice and slow, left the tow truck behind since he couldn't run the quad trails.. got to Dave's truck and thankfully no sh*t heads got to it so it was just fine. CV came out relatively easy and got the carrier back into place.. Karl was definitely a big help and still hit the trails with us, risking his truck with an unknown problem so that was awesome of him.



Karl was with the tow driver for a bit when he couldn't go any farther so me and Dave were soloing the friggin quad trails getting to the H2. A little sketchy to say the least but the H3 served me very well and with Dave spotting, we were getting through places I was pulled out of the day before (proof that smart wheeling beats the brute force approach!).



Slow drive back of course but at the end of the day we all made it back safely, and that's what really counts!!





And my favorite part about Brian's party trailer... it had 37" mudders on it!! So awesome...

[/quote]



I missed the photos of the trailer...