Big Bear

[Roberto Miranda]

Guys, after the weekend' storm, I can;t miss a snow run, so I did few phone calls and find another crazy guy who wants to play with the snow on Tuesday...not easy task, but not impossible...enjoy the pics...

http://www.yopo4x4.com/index.php?mod...&id=23&eid=199
Roberto

[Paul B]

Nice pics, looks like a great run.

[Troy591]

Great pictures, looks like way to much fun, i bet the report was good, to bad i can't read Spanish... haha

[Roberto Miranda]

I will write the trip report in English as well, but dude, I need to work too jejeje I need more time. I have the ideas but I need to express that stuff in English, and that is not easy task to me... but I'll do my best...wait for it...

[GrimJeeper91]

Roberto, thanks for the picture of the access road leading to our cabin. How many people get photo updates of the road conditions to their weekend retreat! Too bad I can't make it up their this weekend!!!

[Roberto Miranda]

LOL, cool that you have a personalized weather report with pictures included... that's nice LOL

[Matermomma]

Absolutely beautiful! I can't wait to go on a snow run!

[Roberto Miranda]

troy591, served...let me know any errors on my grammar

Snow Run – Tuesday 08, January 2008.

I was driving to the office Monday morning and I noticed the snow level at the mountains. Normally, just few spots at the top of the mountains are covered with snow, but that morning, it was snow all over it. The snow storm from previous weekend was huge.

As soon as I arrived to the office, I sent an email looking for a friend to join me on a one day trip in the middle of the week. Not an easy task, but not impossible.

As expected, I received the regular excuses, dude I’m working, I will be there in few weeks, are you planning to ski?, so I called Alexis, I know that he is the only one who can do crazy stuff any time, no matter what. We called the CHP toll-free voice activated phone service, 800.427.7623. This service is available free, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to get up-to-the-minute road conditions for any California State highway to be sure that we are OK to go.

We met on the 6th street of Corona at 7:30 a.m. and arrived to Big Bear few hours later.

As soon as we got the first park, there was a bumper to bumper traffic. What is going on? That’s a bummer…anyways; I took pictures of Grimjeeper91 cabin without knowing…that’s funny…

The traffic was due to CHP check point. They were asking for the snow chains, but 4x4’s with mud/snow tires are OK, so we went through with no problem…

I was really interested in the parallel business running over there. An F1 or Nascar pit crew (kidding) was installing chains for you, just $40.00, it was really convenient, but without a CHP check point, people will use it? Or even stop to install them? To really think about it…

Big tires are a pain in the rear end; no chains are available in any store for 37” tires, so we placed a special order at the hardware store, the same ones that tractors used.

From the check point, the road was a mess, mud, snow and ice all over the place… we took to the visitors center and hit the trail close to the fire station nearby.

I was looking for “Raspao” which means snowball ice cream in Venezuelan slang, the snowman that we build few weeks ago…but the snow level was over the hood in that area, so I was not able to find the trail to begin with…

At the end of the "clean" trail it was a stop sign, so we took another trail with no sign at all and the adventure begun. Just foreign guys on this trip, so we forgot the air down ritual and we pay for that later…our fault…

We drove through the hills and stopped in every clear spot to be sure that we are together and to study wherever is next. With both hands in the sterling wheel, it was hard to chat via CB, but we used it a lot anyways…

I was on a clear spot, waiting for Alexis, but he had no traction at all, his yellow Jeep was stuck. I took the command; Alexis want to do a video of the problem to study later…I was not able to move the Jeep either, so we used the winch.

We talked about continuing, air down or abort the trip, so we continue without air down…just for fun, until we were stuck again…this time, close to the top of the mountains…we turn around and descend with no issues, we did more video taping.

We had lunch in a local place in Downtown, it was really good.

Instead of working on Tuesday, I took a day off and enjoy the day playing in the snow the way I liked…driving my rig over unusual terrain…


Roberto L. Miranda.

[Troy591]

Good stuff man, thanks.

Next time though you really don't need to translate it. I'm more then happy with pictures!!!

[dr.dirty]

man i hope theres that much snow tommorow