August 12-14, 2016 Coyote Flats

Sunday was our last day and we were to make our way out and head home. Before Sean left we had looked at the map and I had told him we were going to take the same route out as we had taken in, via Bishop. Well that didn’t exactly happen. During dinner on Saturday we had talked about leaving via the Big Pine route. This route looked shorter and was an area the remaining four hadn’t covered yet. Plans be damned, we headed toward Big Pine.

Not far into the trail we came across a sign. While not a large sign its job was to convey a message. To hell what it said, take it’s picture and continue on to Big Pine.

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Most Difficult? Heck this route is pretty.

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After this obstacle things pretty much stopped for close to two hours. We encountered an obstacle and decided to turn around. The words of such a task were much easier than the action itself. I was lead runner and got hung up on a mess of rocks, off cambered, in the sand and over a nice canyon (a canyon I didn’t want to make my final resting place). I didn’t get any pictures but it required lots of spotting, game planning, a winch rope, some Tred Pros and lots of nerves. In the back of my head I could see Sean shaking his head. He wasn’t laughing but he wasn’t pleased. After we got me off of the mess I had to get straightened out then we all had to reverse about 100 yards to a spot we could turn around. At this point we had some distance to cover to pass our last camp enroute to Bishop. While not breakneck speed we hauled butt making minimal stops back to the start.

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This was our track for the day

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In all it was a great trip with great company. I really enjoyed myself and was thankful for everyone as well as the parts they played in a successful outing.

I had a 5 watt APRS setup going for most of my trip and this is what it captured. It shows me from start to end, for the most part. 5 watts isn’t much and there were also lots of “dead spots” due to the terrain, even on the highways.

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While I didn’t keep great mileage or fuel info we covered about 87 miles off road. This travel was a mix of 2H, 4H and 4lo. It was warm enough that I had the AC running more than half the time and I also had the truck idling for things like pictures. I packed fuel but did not use it.

This is my Ultra Gauge at the end of the trail, which included the drive from home. I should have zero’d it at the trail head.

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This is when I got home. So roundtrip. Not bad.

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Great pics! Looks like a great trip for sure! Too bad that unplanned route didn't pan out.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

Mike,

Looking at the pictures Rob has up, that is the exact spot that got me! Glad you made it out. If you had gone through, the rest wasn't bad. Or at least it wasn't last year. Who knows what the rains have done to the road.

Yeah, it was really sandy. In the 9th picture here: http://www.ultimateyota.com/showthre...l=1#post115131

JD looks to making short work of it. Actually in the picture with JD it looks like cake compared to what it looked like to me. I think most of those little rocks are gone or in a different place. I got my front passenger tire up on the larger rock but couldn't get past it without sliding downhill. Even if I got over the rock it was a big hole and the edge of the trail.

That was my problem, I got the front passenger tire caught on a big pointy rock and the back fell in a hole and was only pushing me over and down. I ended up winching forward because going back was only going to tip me further. Seems like if you hit it right, it's easy. If you hit it wrong, it will ruin your day.

To me it looked very different this year (from the pictures), that pointy rock was all by itself and the off camber from the soft sand was much worse. Could just be that the severity never really shows up in pictures. I'm pretty sure that if I stopped while attempting it I would have wound up rolling down the hill.

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This is the best picture that I have, was too concerned about the situation to take mane pictures.

Only 400 edits to go and I will post up my pics, sometime later tonight.

how the hell did 100 stacked rocks get pushed out of there? thats wild

Rob, the boulder on the left is what I winched from first, and all I did was move it. My truck was just behind where you took that picture from.

Always wished I got more pictures of that spot, but it was seriously bad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seanz0rz

My truck was just behind where you took that picture from.

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Just behind Rob is where I was in the picture of me with the winch rope attached. Going forward on that section was easy, backing over it to get out was nerve racking.

The forward pile is what I couldn't get over without fear of ending up at the bottom of the canyon. For size reference Lou is a big dog.