Graham Family Farm NW

Top Member Challenge
Hosted by Eastern Washington Off Road

Report by Clay Graham. Photos by Clay Graham / CegPics.com

On January 17th, 2009 we had our All Wheelers Off Road Club’s yearly challenge for Top Member on Cowiche Ridge in the Ahtanum State Forest. The challenge was to get up the mountain through the snow drifts and get the marker before other members.

This year we had five members competing which drew straws to get their place at the starting line on C-1000 near South Fork Cowiche Creek.

Here is the order of the challengers at the starting line:
1st BlindPilot – TJ
2nd Nevada – Toyota truck
3rd Havo – Toyota truck
4th Waycrazy – CJ5
5th Colemancooler – Toyota truck

The Judges:
JayW – CJ2A
Black-in-black – Toyota truck

The rules state they must stay on the Green Dot trail and only pass in areas where no damage would happen to the land. The first part of the trail did not have places to pass.

BlindPilot way out in front.

Up on top we had some local wheelers sabotage the challenge by getting in our pack.

Waycrazy broke a u-joint and had to drop out of the challenge.

The challengers and judges got spread out since the other group would not let them pass.

I got stuck behind this Toyota from the other group so I did not get many more challenge pictures.

Here is the finish line.

The 2009 All Wheelers Top Member Challenge winner was BlindPilot.

Fatboy presenting the TMC trophy to BlindPilot.

The prizes BlindPilot got were a set of Rough Country Roll bar Grab handles donated from Ron the Parts Guy and a Club t-shirt donated from Ceg.

The challenge was over and time to play.

A view of the fog in the valleys.

Ceg stuck again! Colemancooler and Jeepscum helping out. Thanks guys!

I was stuck good. Black-in-black winched me up the hill. Thanks!

Colemancooler working it.

Waycrazy got a u-joint from Roller bear and was back on the trail.

The next part was hard to get through with all the deep ruts.

Roller Bear stopped to air down more.

This climb took out another u-joint on Waycrazy’s CJ.

We all worked our way up as Waycrazy worked on his rig.

And the kids played.

Some decided to head home since the snow sucked. It was deep and would not pack.
I am not sure why they wanted to leave the sun to drive down into that fog.

We played a little on top and decide to head back down.
Some of us want to play on another ridge and some wanted to go home.

Yeah that fog sucked.

Down on Cowiche Mill road, we parted ways.
We had four rigs that headed up toward Jumpoff to play in the snow.

The ice on Cowiche Mill road was thick and slick.

We made it out of the fog to find a big drift we could not cross.

We turned around here to go back down.

We took up a different Green Dot road to get up onto Hatton road.

We found more deep snow for me to get stuck in.

Thanks guys for pulling my low rider around!

This was a very fun time thanks to all the members, judges and guest that came.

Sedge Ridge 4×4 Snow Wheeling
Hosted by Eastern Washington Off Road

Report and photos by Clay Graham / CegPics.com

On Saturday January 3rd, 2009 we met up at the Tampico church.

After airing down we took the South Fork Ahtanum Road into the mountains.

We turned up the Boulder Trail.

The first climb was very challenging. It was icy under the snow and my rig wanted to crab walk off the side of the mountain.

Here is the first open area.

Here we all are after the first climb.

On up the trail to the next open area.

Blind-Pilot having fun.

The drifts across the open area were deep.

Here’s what ahead.

Up the hill and around the corner was even deeper.

Blind-Pilot took the lead breaking trail.

Here Blind-Pilot backed up for a big run at the powder snow.

Guido checking out the view as Blind-Pilot plows the trail ahead.

At the next switch-back I took the lead again. The drifts were getting bigger.

Here is a big drift up the trail a ways.

It took me a long time to get through this one.

Up the trail I find another big one. I start cutting into it to keep off the edge.

We back down a little ways so Blind-Pilot could take the lead again.

A nice view over looking Tampico and the Yakima Valley.

On up the trail I hear someone call me on the CB that wasn’t in the group.
It was Jerry. He was at home all the way across the Yakima Valley.
He sounded clear as if he was right there with us on the mountain.

Blind-Pilot doing a great job breaking trail for us.

I took over the lead for awhile.
The snow was not working for us. I was pushing way too much to get but a few inches farther at a time.
I was starting to run to low on fuel to keep pushing ahead. We turned around to go back down.

Another great view of the Yakima Valley.

Heading back down toward the South Fork Ahtanum road.

Down on the South Fork Ahtanum road we stopped so Scuba could get his XJ out of low range. He has to do it from below the rig.

Here we are back in Tampico airing up.

The snow conditions were a lot better then the run we did two day before on the next ridge over.
No one got stuck. This was a nice day and a great run thanks to all who came.