The weather Saturday was actually quite nice and wolud have been ideal, at least weather-wise, for a trip to the Beta Site. But, dang it, I just didnt have all my ducks in a row in terms of having my gear together and ready for the trip. The biggest thing is that I have no idea what the conditions up there are like because, man, they can change fast. For example, this was Thursday:
And this was yesterday:

Which seems to support that the conditions up there can change and change fast. So, I’ll get my gear lined up and ready for next weekend, and if the weather is as nice during the week I am hoping that the conditions will be better.

I welcome the bit of extra time because on the next trip, in addition to the long-delayed deployment of additional cameras, I’ll be laying out the first of what will probably at least two or three stashes of gear and supplies.

Getting stuck up there last week and having to spend the night up there wouldn’t have been the end of the world since I made sure to bring a certain amount of gear with me ‘just in case’. However, one of the whole points of the Beta Site was to have enough gear up there to allow me to show up with basically just the clothes on my back, in virtually any weather condition, and be able to be safe and secure. Turns out, thats not an inconsequential amount of gear. And, most importantly, packaging it for long-term hiding in a container that is impervious to the environment….well, thats some work.

Naturally, there’s an argument that “Well, you don’t need to store away all that stuff…you won’t be coming up there empty handed.” Really? You know that for a fact? If I ever have to run for my life and my salvation is my hideyhole, I will, of course, try to bring as much gear as I can but ‘best case scenarios’ are not part of my planning. I mean, yeah, it would be awesome if I was able to have the luxury of loading up all my gear at my leisure and hit the road. But I can’t be certain of that…no one can. So…prepare for the worst case.

In this particular scenario, I work off the ‘worst case’ situation which is me showing up with just the clothes on my back in the middle of the night in the worst weather conditions possible. And in that circumstance I want to be able to open up my bomb-proof storage container,  pull out a change of clothes, a tent to shelter in, a coldweather sleepingbag to crawl into, and a stash of food to get myself back to an even keel. After that, its addressing all the other little issues…medical, communications, weapons, fuel, water, tools, navigation, and all the other little details.

Is there a high likelihood that will ever happen…that such a desperate and hopeless circumstance will befall me? Nope. But is there a more-than-zero-percent chance it might? Well..yes. And, if there’s that possibility, then clearly its to my advantage to prepare against it.

So, I’ll use this coming week to get everything together for next weekend. So, next trip’s agenda:

• Install additional cameras
• Add solar panel for one camera as a test platform
• Stash some gear
• Walk the property a bit and take pictures of winter(ish) conditions

To sum up – not this weekend, unfortunately. But if the weather is as good next weekend as it was this weekend, then yes.

Waiting on the weather to see if I’m gonna head up to the Beta Site this weekend. There’s plenty of things for me to do if I wind up staying in town, but I really really wanna get out there and set up the other gamecams.

As I was strolling the internet, I came across this:

There’s more than a little truth in there. I’d say my circle of friends, not acquaintances, is probably halfway between ’40s’ and ‘now’. On the bright side, though, those friends are closer than any of the friends from my younger days.

I suppose, for me, one of my litmus tests is whom I take up to the Beta Site. At the moment, the number of people I’ve taken up there can be counted on one hand of a high school woodshop teacher…and I don’t really plan on that changing. Might have a family member or two come out, but thats about it. I didn’t buy it for other people, I didnt buy it for entertaining, and I didn’t buy it for investment purposes…I bought it for me.

I’m hoping the weather is cooperative this weekend, but we’ll see. Gamecam pic from yesterday showed a buncha snow had fallen but maybe not enough to dissuade me. If it is, I will, of course, let you guys know and post pictures.

Well, the plan was to head up to the Beta Site in the side by side this weekend and change the camera batteries, add more cameras, and set up the game feeders. That was the plan.What happened was a cavalcade of fail. Lessons to be learned, yeah. But I’d really rather not have the fail.

So, starting at the top……

First thing was to rent a trailer to haul the side by side to a starting point for the journey. Okay, lets get that taken care of.

That part seemed to work okay. Gassed the thing up, loaded my gear into the truck, loaded the side by side on the trailer, and hit the highway. That part seemed to go okay. Got to my exit, pulled off, and onto the dirt road leading to the Beta Site.

Now, the road to the Beta Site covers a distance of between ten and twenty miles. (Obviously I need to be a tad vague. You understand.) Getting off the interstate, I had no idea of the road conditions ahead. Coulda been solid and dry. Coulda been muddy and rutted. Since I didnt want to go out there with a rented trailer and have a bad experience, I figured I’d just drop the truck and trailer at the exit and continue on with the side by side (now abbreviated to SxS). So it gets unloaded, gear is transfered into it from the truck, and we’re off. The road starts out as dry but rutted, and as altitude gains it becomes wet, muddy, and rutted. So far the SxS handles it like a champ. Im pleased. On the way up, we pass, of all things, this poor bastard:

Its a dead baby moose. Don’t ask me, I have no idea. I wasn’t about to stop and play Quincy M.E. on it. It hadn’t been picked apart by predators yet, but it was also clearly soaked through which makes me wonder if it had just been revealed under melting snow. Regardless, moving on.

So as elevation increases, there’s more snow. I made it to the switchback that has foiled my last several attempts to get up there and made it through just fine. At this point, though, while the switchback would have been doable in my truck the rest of the road definitely would not have worked out. But…the SxS continued on.

Finally, I get to the ‘driveway’ from the ‘main road’ that goes onto the property. It is, of course, under snow and has no signs of activity.

And this is when things become…frustrating. The SxS did a marvelous job on the rutted snowy roads. Shouldnt have a problem with this, right?

Well, not so much. And here’s where the whole adventure flew off the rails. See, the carrying capacity of the SxS is smaller than that of my truck, As a result, I left a few things behind…like my Hi-Lift jack and full size shovel. I still had my tow straps, rope, shackles, pulleys, and everything I’d need to whip up a z-rig to try to pull things out but it was high centered on the snow. Didnt have a shovel, but did have a Glock e-tool. Guess that’ll have to do. But it didn’t. Spent about three hours trying all sorts of machinations but the simple fact was the tires were not even touching the ground. It was high centered.

Now, there was a winch on the front of the SxS but the direction that was needed was backwards, not forwards. But, perhaps I could pull forward and then dig out the space behind me. Here’s where SuperMegaFail #1 comes into play. There is, indeed, a winch on the front of the SxS. The cabled remote for it is in the glovebox. Had I ever used it before? Nope. Did I even know if it worked? Nope. And most importantly, did I know where the heck the frakkin’ socket for the remote was? Nope.

So without a winch to offer assistance, it was shovel, throw branches under the wheels, hook up pulleys and try pulling, etc. This went on for about three hours. I was starting to think spending the night out there might be in order. I had gear for that, but wasnt looking forward to it. And, by the way, no cell phone out there.

As I was sweating to death and getting soaked in snow trying to dig out the SxS, my brain started turning. I had examined the winch closely and saw no socket for the remote, therefore the remote had to be somewhere in the SxS. Looking everywhere, found nothing. But…the socket would be somewhere close to the driver since if one person was using it, they’d want to be near the steeering controls as they use the winch, right? So I really got into the details and, surprise, found the socket tucked into the side of one of the console compartments on the dashboard. Hard to find, indeed.

So, would it work? Turns out, yes. Now we were getting somewhere. Put a tow strap around a tree about thrity feet in front of the SxS hooked  the cable to the winch and started pulling. The SxS heaved forward and up, clearing the spot it had previously been in. Having given my self some room, I could do a little back-n-forth until the thing was back on the tracks it had made coming in.

By the way, the distance from where I was stuck and the cleared ‘main road’? Maybe fifty yards.

So,, now that Im unstuck things are great, right? Nope. It’s now mid afternoon and all my time is gone. I had no time left to do anything and I was way annoyed. I was going to salvage at least one thing outta this trip and that was changing out the battery in the game cam. SuperMegaFail#2 came into play at this point. I had been so busy getting all my gear together, and so excited to go up to the Beta Site, that I forgot to change my shoes. So, there I am, post-holing though snow that, at time, was up to my crotch and I’m doing it in tennis shoes. My level of irritation was off the charts at this point.

So, I get the battery changed and head back to the SxS. The trip down and back to the trailer was uneventful but I was furious with myself for the failure that could have been completely avoided with better planning. The SxS did well, although by the end of the adventure there was mud and dirt everywhere.

Got back to town, dropped the SxS at the storage unit, returned the trailer, unloaded the truck, got something to eat, and then passed out from exhaustion. Today I am sore and achy from all that exertion.

When I returned the trailer I told them Id need it again next weekend. Having Learned My Lesson, I fully intend on making next weekend what this weekend should have been. And I will be doing a lot of things differently….which will be the subject of the next post. Sort of a ‘lessons learned’ thing.

Fate really does not want me getting up to the Beta Site.

It dumped a couple feet of snow up there the other day. Today? Darn near 60 degrees up there and the snow is melting fast. The forecast is to be almost 70 degrees this weekend. And this would, normally, suggest that this weekend might be a good one to head up there. And I was absolutely willing to do that. RIght up until my truck decided to let me know that some attention to the brakes was definitely in order.

My original plan was to go rent a 6×12 trailer at Uhaul, throw the sidebyside in the back, head to the Beta Site, park the truck/trailer at the bottom of the mountain, and take the sidebyside to the property. Unfortunately I’m not hauling a trailer full of ATV on the highway with a truck that is having brake issues.

So, truck goes in Monday for work. I am hopeful that the next weekend will have similar weather.

There are a buncha things I need to do up there when I finally get there. Most importantly, I need to replace the batteries in the trailcam. After that I need to install the other three trailcams, put in the game feeders, take some pictures and GPS coords, and look at some possible cache sites. A full day. Just….gotta get up there.

And I’ll use the weekend to wargame the things I’d like to pre-position up there for those ‘just in case’ moments. The summer promises to be very interesting and busy. I foresee spending pretty much every weekend up there. But, for now, i’d really like to get up there if circumstances would just line the heck up.