I apologize for non-Michiganders as a lot of the places here won't mean anything. With a business trip cramping the deer hunting, I headed to the UP (Upper Peninsula) a day early for some exploring. It was fall when I left home, but I found winter across the Northern half of the LP (Lower Peninsula).
As I was working on my Bluetooth link from the engine controller to the tablet I realized it was screwing up the cals in the ECU. In certain conditions the engine was totally missing and falling on it's face. I stopped to get out my old PC, get the pieces together to power it up and connect to the ECU. Fortunately it connected right up and had a good set of cals in it. Truck ran great again, so I continued.
With the trouble and all the fun of 2WD, blizzards and Swampers, it got pretty late so I got a Yooper hotel. I figured it was better to get one at 10pm than wake up in the truck and look for one at 2am (predicted 10 degrees overnight). In the morning I found a nice view of Lake Michigan:
The next adventure was a back window that wouldn't roll up. I tried driving to "shake it loose" but that rear vacuum aerodynamic combined with snow and road salt was not going to work. So I pulled into this lakeshore campground (complete with flowing Artesian well) for a full tailgate teardown. At least it wasn't snowing. Cable had ice in it and wouldn't budge. Some bending and WD-40 had it going again. If you've never torn a K5 tailgate apart with frozen fingers you're missing some real fun...
Now to head off road near Gulliver. What a lovely day to be in the woods, eh? We have a camp between Manistique and Seney, on the west branch of the Manistique. We always come in off 94, crossing the Stutts creek and the west branch on gravel before hitting the trail - Cal's Drive. My goal for the day was to look for an alternate route from the East - based on trails showing up in satellite photos.
To cross the "Big River" (Manistique), there's only 1 bridge I know of between Manistique and Germfask (half of that is inside Seney NWR, so maybe it's to be expected). It's where the "Highwater Truck Trail" meets the 436 ("Floodwoods Rd.").
The plan was to follow the Letson truck trail down along the big river, counting on a few bridges being in place - giving me 3 possible routes up into trails I already knew to the NW of that area. Some nice trails through there with cabins scattered here and there, as usual.
These woods are in a constant cycle of harvest, so you always see some big clearings like this.
A lot of these trails seem to see little use these days and since pretty much the whole county is within like 30' of lake elevation, you find water holes all over. A lot of this terrain was pretty gnarly for a solo outing, but it would also be a shame if the swampers burned hundreds of miles of pavement for nothing, right? The tracks you see are mine, from doubling back. No signs of anything else out there but side-by-sides.
The first route I tried pinched down into overgrowth - for a much greater distance than I was comfortable with clearing. It's just as well because I was depending on an old bridge across the Walsh Ditch - the next day my Grandfather told me it fell down 10 years ago. I'm still curious because it really looks like a bridge from the satellite. None of us have been in there in a decade and it may have been rebuilt. However, the there is no other way through except for the trail I was on, so the bridge would have been built for a short section of trail on the East side of the ditch. So I turned back and crossed it within 1/4-mile of the big river and kept heading West.
I pushed through mud and brush for miles and even opened up about 50' of overgrown trail to fit through. Then I came to the low section, which I feared all along, but I was within 1/4-mile of a trail I knew from the other side. The truck was eating it up - tires up over berms and down in ruts, with mud flipping off the mirrors. The high ground was just ahead when suddenly the front end dropped :evil:
I chickened out and stopped, because in that instant it looked like I could get water in the engine. This was a very small hole, almost the exact size of my truck, but over 3' deep. Where you see it stopped in the pictures, is not quite to the deepest part yet. It could actually still move forward and back a bit, but I decided to weigh my options before trying anything more. I left the engine running, with the serpentine belt spraying water all over the engine compartment. It sounded like a water pump running. I had 2 cell phones (1 Verizon, 1 AT&T), a CB radio, 2 GPS, maps, HI-lift jack, winch (submerged), tools, chainsaw, food, water, lots of blankets, almost a full tank of gas and several hours of daylight. Could be worse. If only there were some trees nearby bigger than 2".
The CB radio was worthless. Hunters don't have them and truckers aren't about to come help. Both cell phones had signal, however and I got a text through to camp. They couldn't really understand where I was (because there is no "usual" route through from the south/east), but I sent coordinates and I was only 1/10th mile from the "main road" (a brushy 2-track). So I set out with the hand saw to clear that overgrown 1/10-mile. I found 2 cabins just up the trail with a truck, but nobody home.
So how did I get out? Is my rig still sitting in the swamp? Did I frostbite my feet from stepping in the water? I will update more later.
As I was working on my Bluetooth link from the engine controller to the tablet I realized it was screwing up the cals in the ECU. In certain conditions the engine was totally missing and falling on it's face. I stopped to get out my old PC, get the pieces together to power it up and connect to the ECU. Fortunately it connected right up and had a good set of cals in it. Truck ran great again, so I continued.
With the trouble and all the fun of 2WD, blizzards and Swampers, it got pretty late so I got a Yooper hotel. I figured it was better to get one at 10pm than wake up in the truck and look for one at 2am (predicted 10 degrees overnight). In the morning I found a nice view of Lake Michigan:
The next adventure was a back window that wouldn't roll up. I tried driving to "shake it loose" but that rear vacuum aerodynamic combined with snow and road salt was not going to work. So I pulled into this lakeshore campground (complete with flowing Artesian well) for a full tailgate teardown. At least it wasn't snowing. Cable had ice in it and wouldn't budge. Some bending and WD-40 had it going again. If you've never torn a K5 tailgate apart with frozen fingers you're missing some real fun...
Now to head off road near Gulliver. What a lovely day to be in the woods, eh? We have a camp between Manistique and Seney, on the west branch of the Manistique. We always come in off 94, crossing the Stutts creek and the west branch on gravel before hitting the trail - Cal's Drive. My goal for the day was to look for an alternate route from the East - based on trails showing up in satellite photos.
To cross the "Big River" (Manistique), there's only 1 bridge I know of between Manistique and Germfask (half of that is inside Seney NWR, so maybe it's to be expected). It's where the "Highwater Truck Trail" meets the 436 ("Floodwoods Rd.").
The plan was to follow the Letson truck trail down along the big river, counting on a few bridges being in place - giving me 3 possible routes up into trails I already knew to the NW of that area. Some nice trails through there with cabins scattered here and there, as usual.
These woods are in a constant cycle of harvest, so you always see some big clearings like this.
A lot of these trails seem to see little use these days and since pretty much the whole county is within like 30' of lake elevation, you find water holes all over. A lot of this terrain was pretty gnarly for a solo outing, but it would also be a shame if the swampers burned hundreds of miles of pavement for nothing, right? The tracks you see are mine, from doubling back. No signs of anything else out there but side-by-sides.
The first route I tried pinched down into overgrowth - for a much greater distance than I was comfortable with clearing. It's just as well because I was depending on an old bridge across the Walsh Ditch - the next day my Grandfather told me it fell down 10 years ago. I'm still curious because it really looks like a bridge from the satellite. None of us have been in there in a decade and it may have been rebuilt. However, the there is no other way through except for the trail I was on, so the bridge would have been built for a short section of trail on the East side of the ditch. So I turned back and crossed it within 1/4-mile of the big river and kept heading West.
I pushed through mud and brush for miles and even opened up about 50' of overgrown trail to fit through. Then I came to the low section, which I feared all along, but I was within 1/4-mile of a trail I knew from the other side. The truck was eating it up - tires up over berms and down in ruts, with mud flipping off the mirrors. The high ground was just ahead when suddenly the front end dropped :evil:
I chickened out and stopped, because in that instant it looked like I could get water in the engine. This was a very small hole, almost the exact size of my truck, but over 3' deep. Where you see it stopped in the pictures, is not quite to the deepest part yet. It could actually still move forward and back a bit, but I decided to weigh my options before trying anything more. I left the engine running, with the serpentine belt spraying water all over the engine compartment. It sounded like a water pump running. I had 2 cell phones (1 Verizon, 1 AT&T), a CB radio, 2 GPS, maps, HI-lift jack, winch (submerged), tools, chainsaw, food, water, lots of blankets, almost a full tank of gas and several hours of daylight. Could be worse. If only there were some trees nearby bigger than 2".
The CB radio was worthless. Hunters don't have them and truckers aren't about to come help. Both cell phones had signal, however and I got a text through to camp. They couldn't really understand where I was (because there is no "usual" route through from the south/east), but I sent coordinates and I was only 1/10th mile from the "main road" (a brushy 2-track). So I set out with the hand saw to clear that overgrown 1/10-mile. I found 2 cabins just up the trail with a truck, but nobody home.
So how did I get out? Is my rig still sitting in the swamp? Did I frostbite my feet from stepping in the water? I will update more later.
