- it saved my BACON LAST NIGHT 3 TIMES....YES 3 TIMESI have never been to this lake here in the Yukon, but I heard you can't get in with a regular 4 wheel drive.....are you crazy to even mention that to a PINZ owner
. So we planned a trip in with 3 guys that had been there before (but on quads) and one guy that was visiting the yukon from Ontario. 
One of my buddies Ted Sandor is looking at buying a 6x6 so he was interested to see how my 710K performed. He caught up with us on his quad after his street bike ride about half way to the lake (cigar in his mouth) and just the biggest smile you have ever seen. Talk about a guy who enjoys life. You gotta meet this guy he is so much fun to be around. He is timeless and a big fan of having FUN
.The road: creek bed - goat path - you name it as long as it signifies ROUGH it will describe this road
. I had my buddy Chip visiting from Calgary Alberta (land of the blue eyed arabs) and he brought his brother Chris and brother inlaw Bruce (who looks like Bruce Willis btw). We head up the road and all you can here in the Pinz are things like - WOW - wholly crap this thing is a beast. Can't believe how well this thing takes the bumps without alot of jarring etc.It's slow going in most places because of the washouts and big boulders everwhere, but after about an hour we reached the top of the road and by that I mean we are outta tree line and in the tundra. The view is spectacular as always in the Yukon. Fall will be coming soon to the high country and the colours will be changing to the bright oranges and reds from the green and yellows now...it truely is a beautiful place I live in.
So a few minor creek xings and we get to the first challenge.
I will get pics and videos soon and add them into the thread ok
We follow up to a lookout that Ted loves and we look down on the tundra and see a moose feeding below us in a small swamp.
Then he points out our route. The road - trail - goat path that we have to follow. Why do things look so peaceful from a distance. Even the buck brush (which is 5 feet high) in the distance appears to be just a green field of grass...yeah right - look out paint - bring it on.
I have let 2 of my passengers drive her now and they are very impressed so far and no bruised thumbs either from the wheel. I take over the helm and off we go with Ted ahead of us leading the way in a cloud of dust...his little gigar tucked in the side of his mouth close to bearning his beard
.HERE'S WHAT YOU SEE FROM 5 MILES AWAY
- Look closely on the hill just in front of the lake to the right - you will see a dark line that is our trail
We arrive at the first WATERING HOLE.......my god. This is not a xing it's a swamp. It's a festering pile of swamp donkey (moose) and caribou dung mixed with swamp and muskeg. Ted goes first and gets through on the quad but it looked pretty bad just watching that. Then it's my turn (gulp). Well everyone gets out accept me to take pics and video. I ease into the swamp and she just drops into the muck
.
I back up and take a new line. Some guys in the past had put pallets in the hole but there aren't enough of them so I can't get on them. So I thought to my self - self "lord hates a coward" so I locked her up and hit her in second gear (low range) and bouncing and flinging mud I bounced and jarred and then................................stopped in the middle....sh_t BURIED
They are all clapping and cheering and now it's time for the winch and my PULL PAL. Hey what's that old saying - you should practice this stuff ahead of time before you actually need it...wouldn't be a man or a Yukoner if you did that I reckon.
So I get outta the truck and ease into the mud the first steps are always the hardest when you are dry aren't they. I grabbed the PPAL and then we tried to figure out how it worked...nice time for that btw. We fashioned it as best we could (no directions), but it's fairly simple, but will it work.....dunno. So then it's time to get the cable outta the winch. Well I am travelling with 3 rookie 4x4 er's. I have done lots of it, but it's been awhile. So I unlock the winch and tell Bruce to pull it out - well he can't so I power spool it and get him started. Now I told him to keep tension on it and he tried while he was slipping around in the muskeg. So the winch cable wrapped up all tangled so we had to deal with that.
We eventually got it hooked onto the PPAL. to say this thing works is and understatement - well I am back writing this letter, but it takes a bit of doing getting her to stay in the permafrost here. I ease on the winch and run the clutch and slowly we get up on some of the palletts and then the winch pulls free so we had to reset it and try again but it holds the second time (OH did I mention that you should take the shovel out of the holder before you head into the MUCK....well if I didn't YOU SHOULD, TRUST ME).
HERE"S SOME VIDEO OF THE PULL PAL IN ACTION:
So I get through and we are all smiles and laughing and now FISHING is foremost on our mind. We wrap up the PPAL in it's case and off we go. The trail is real rough and at one point we did a wheely...yes a wheely.
I looked to see Ted trying to go by us....what was he thinking...I was bouncing sideways at him like the video on the youtube site with the french dudes. His eyes were as big as saucers and then he pulled to get outta the way and he climbs this bush and almost went over backwards....NOW WERE HAVING FUN...NO WONDER WOMAN THINK WERE CRAZY...BUT WHO CARES RIGHT....RIGHT
Now we crest the hill for the decline into the valley of Coal lake......Pretty would be an understatement. The lake was glass calm accept for the ripples of rising grayling and lakers sipping the emerging aquatic insects...KNOWN TO US AS FRIGGIN MOSQUITOES THE BASTAGES...OH sorry about that.....those lovely blood suck pieces of sh_t...oops sorry again.
The hill down is STEEP to say the least and I don't know if the pics will show this, but I am sure most of you know what I mean. I have had ppl video me and it looks like a cake walk on video or pics, but the reality is quite different. Rocks and boulders and roots...my god I didn't think you could purposely make it any rougher. The boulder and large rocks make it the hardest cause the roll with you and coming back up is going to be a NIGHTMARE. I can just pictue my truck stopped on the hill with a for sale sign on it saying something like " If you have the balls to get in this and try to drive it the rest of the way up we will talk about cutting you a deal on her"
There is one real bad patch to go and it's is a wash out with a quad track on the extreme left and my track can't follow it so we go in the washout. The back end starts to come up like a brake stand on a bike...whew the boyz in the back are just laughing and I'm thinking "you guys don't really have a clue what just happened do you". I just let the engine take us down in first and used the brakes sparingly and we got through it, but my heart was in my throat.
We hit the bottom and they are just in awe. The fun of the ride so far and the beauty of the lake - that's alot to swallow for a bunch of city folk. We get the gear out. You should have seen Ted's eye's bug out. I don't think he has ever seen flyfisherman and their gear before. It was just funny to watch him as boats were being pumped up and rods going together and all the foreign talk "hey what are you going to use - wet or dry - are you going to use an egg sucking leech or a mosquito pattern". He must have thought we had lost our minds.
So I thought it was best if he built us a smudge fire to keep the blood suckers away while we got ready. He did. Now Ted didn't bring his fishing gear, but he kept asking us if we had a mepps spinner and that 's what he uses when he come here. I showed him my fly and he just shook his head and muttered something like' why would a fish eat something that ugly"...I just laughed.
After relieving ourselves - you need to do that if you bellyboat at all...we were off to the water. Must have been a real sght for Ted cause he had tears of laughter coming from the side of his cheeks from laughing so much watching us trying to get our flippers on and getting down the 2 foot drop into the lake.
Must have look like the three stooges to him or a marx bros skit. Anyway it didn't take long and I yelled out "got one" and a nice grayling was tightening up the line. Now if you have never seen an arctic grayling up close you are really missing something. They are so gorgeous and that large fin with the sun glistening of it WOW. Now they aren't the best fighters, but they are great to catch and release or to teach kids to learn to fish cause they are abundant and easy to catch.
Then I hear" got one" and Bruce has one on and then "got one" and Chris has one on" and then sh_t...oops Chip missed a good hit.
Then I got my first laker and nice 2-1/2 pounder - not huge - but real scrappy. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz goes the reel - LOVE THAT SOUND - and it takes a deep run and then another and another. On a four weight they are soooooooo much fun. That's me on the right.
All the time Ted is talking to us from shore and making funny comments and keeping the fire going and eating smokies. He is a GREAT GUY. We fish for quite awhile and then I need to get to shore for a wiz - it's real hard to get a bellyboat up on step, but I knew I only had a few minutes to get to shore or I was going to fill my waders...not pretty.
We fished a while longer and then a 10:30 we decided to shut er down and get ready to head back (yes it was still light enough to fish). By the time we got all the boats deflated and back in the pinz and listening to many jokes of Ted's it was time to have a few smokies and head for home. After pouring water on the fire and getting the last of the gear away it was cooling off which was nice cause the blood suckers go to bed then.
So now I am thinking "how the heck are we going to get outta here"...we have this mountain that we will be above the goats when we get up there and then the SWAMP - OH NO THE SWAMP - IN THE DARK.
Ted leads the way and I told him to get ahead cauise I won't be able to stop once I get going unless I can't go
I tell the boys that this is going to be a tough ride up and if I say BAIL don't even think about it just get OUT. They looked alittle concerned now.....funny I have been concerned all night since we came down. These Pinz'z are great trucks but I haven't ever tried to go anywhere like this with it yet so........to say the least I was a bit concerned.
The first part is relatively easy and then we started the steep incline. I was already locked up. There is no way to get a head of steam up because of the huge roots - I mean huge some of them are 10" to 12" high. Not real easy to go over fast. so taking the last corner and then it's the washout and the steep part of the road. I stop and ask if anybody wanted to get and and walk up...party out of coutesy and partly because I really wasn't sure how this was all going to work out (I have seen the videos of the roll overs and they aren't purty.
Well they decided to stay in, but I reminded them that they could bail anytime. So I put her in gear and away we went. Now I should have taken some air outta the tires but I just got caught uo the whole trip. As we neared th washout she started to veer all over the place in diff lock and it was hard to keep her pointed where I wanted to go.
I tried to get up on the quad track and thought I could run her in the brush beside the track if I had too, but I didn't want to get sucked into the washout. So I pulled her to the right and she started to spin and that sucked us into the washout and all the rocks and NO FIGGIN TRACTION and we dug down and stalled. MY HEART was pounding like a locomotive now. I pulled the emergency brake cause it's held me before and I was hoping it would do it again.
Can somebody tell me the mechanics that the emergency brake the Pinz uses because in my old units it wouldn't have helped us there, but I am glad it did.
So here we are stuck on the hill a real STEEP HILL. Now what to do. I tried to back down so I tried to put it in reverse, but that can be difficult in the pinz sometimes. So I let off the brake and it backed up a bit, but I still couldn't get it in reverse. So we decided to try the PPAL again. They gotter out while I sat there (blood draining from my legs) and they try to get her dug in (they are pro's now). They send Chris for the cable and we hook up. Slowly I ease on the winch trying to let the PPAL dig in. Right about now you need 3 hands and arms.
One for the winch controls and one for the hand brake and two for the steering wheel...oh crap that's 4 hands. I am two short. So I let the brake go slowly and I rev'd the engine slowly and ran the winch "will it hold"
Then it let go and on with the brake and the emergency. So they reattached the winch and we tried again and this time it held and up I went. Chris ran ahead me with the cable...he was amazing trying to keep the winch cable outta the way. My heart was pounding so loud I think they could hear ti outside.
We loaded up the PPAL and headed off to the SWAMP....more tomorrow....sorry
Jer Bear
SO now we are heaing out - SORRY NO PICS OR VIDEO - TOO DARK maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn
We start up the rest of the hill - we left the pullpal out of the case just incase we needed it...well we needed it. We came to the slough bottom again and even Ted had a bit of trouble getting through (boy I wish I had the video). Anyway i hit it in third gear and then she screammed bolted off the pallettes and into 4 feet of bog. She was leaning to her left and up to the bottom of the window with MUD.
We tried to winch but the angle wasn't very good....well try to pick a spot in the tundra that you can actually get hooked up on and then finally get her into some stuff and then have it all wrong.
I started winching and we almost went over. So we repositioned the pull pal but in doing so the shovel part came off (I have since modified it so that won't happen again). So now the shovel is dug 2 feet into the tundra..
Sorry gotta go - somebodies stuck
I will finish tomorrow promise
Jer Bear
...now wouldn't cha know the shovel is buried on the drivers side in the mud. Now a smart guy would have taken it out way before this, but hey I haven't been known to be the sharpest tool in the shed 