"On the Road" with Bill Burke (day 1 & 2)

This past weekend Frank and I headed up the Naches Valley outside of Yakima for a three day class with Mr. Bill Burke, the off road driving instructor extraordinaire. It was SO cool to be able to take a class from him--I can't even begin to recount everything we learned, and how much fun it was to be out on the trail with such an amazing group of people, and such great leadership. I will have Bill's voice in my head EVERY TIME I hit the trail from here on out... it was a pleasure to take this class, and learn from the master. It was a three day class--we took 470 pictures. I am going to do this blog post in 2 parts, because I just can't seem to narrow it down to less than 35 photos. So, here goes!


Airing down the tires at the beginning of the Naches Trail, day one.
This trail had a crazy amount of rickety, curved bridges that looked to be rotting... I was expecting them to crash to smithereens each time we pulled onto them. They never did, but it's only a matter of time, I tell you. Some of the boards we're completely missing, some were split through, it was rickety awesomeness.

Diving into a hole... one of 40 bajillion for the weekend...

We all had to have our headlights on through this trail, because it was SO dark, rainy, overcast, foggy the whole day--true Pacific NW style. We got rained (or misted) on for two days and nights straight. This picture was taken early afternoon.

Why we drive these trails--for moments of serenity, scenery and peace like this...

Why we consider ourselves wimps, even though we go wheelin' in places that most people will never go. :-)

The Naches Trail was amazing. Frank drove it... and did an awesome job... it was such a cool experience, and we can't wait to go back. It was pouring so hard through most of it, so I didn't take a lot of pictures on that trail, because I love my camera so very much... but we made up for it the next day. :-)

Sunday morning we got up, and headed for the Bald Mountain/Mud Springs trail... I drove this day, and Frank photog'd. The Tamarack Pines are changing colors--Tamarack pines are one of my very favorite things on Planet Earth. Nature's glow sticks, I call them.

Stopping on a Ridge--the Vehicle Lineup... Toyota Land Cruiser, Jeep Cherokee, our Land Rover Discovery II, Another Land Rover Discovery II, Land Rover Defender 90, Toyota Tacoma, Range Rover Classic, Toyota 4Runner. Bill also had a Defender 90 he let us all drool over, but he rode in the vehicles with "students" all the days except the last day.

Puddle. :-) I got my wheels off the ground in this one... but the stupid camera was too slow.

Tamaracks!!!!!!!

Sometimes I get SO annoyed with the incapability of photos to show how truly steep something is... This hill was awesome. Steep, slippery sideways slanted hill alongside an impressive cliff with a view... wow.

At this particular moment I glanced out my side window, and was face to face with a washout in this cliffside I was driving on, with my vehicle tilted approximately 15 degrees towards said washout, and therefore I was staring down into the valley floor hundreds of feet below, where the tiny little giant trees were poking back up at me... it was a really cool spot. Then Bill's voice said in my head, "Look at where you want to go" and I did so. :-)

Views like this are why we drive in places like this...

This trail was FULL of obstacles... this last one was pretty insane. This picture was the best one I had that showed how steep this hill was. I took the slightly easier route up the hill, because the Discovery is a PAIN. IN. THE. BOOTY. to back down a hill for various technical reasons that completely escape me 2.3 seconds after I am told them... but, it feels really trippy to back down the hill in it, and I did not want to have to do it on a super steep, muddy, rocky hillside, so with that in mind, I made it up that hill the first time. I was NOT backing down it for a second run. :-) It started snowing while we were doing this section of the run, which was so beautiful.

And, that is all for the first two days... day 3, coming soon. :-)