Progress

The days are getting shorter and it's nearly dark when we get started on the ski tow in the morning lately.  We've had an awesome stretch of sunny warm weather.  The fog clouds usuallly stick to the valleys below in the mornings.  It creates a surreal sea of clouds with mtn islands rising above.  Here's a good example during a sunrise from the top of the gap.

 

Jay spent the morning working on the return wheel brackets.  The return rope needs to be kept up high and out of the way of skiers headed up the hill.  By installing several wheel hubs (car wheels without the tire) the rope stays in the air and out of the way.  Jay went over to Mikes shop and welded an arm brackect for the wheel hubs.

It came out good.  I was impressed.  The metal box will slide onto a 4x4 pressure treated board hanging from a tree.  The ability to slide it along a 4x4 will allow us to adjust it easily.  This will help make the line straight as possible.

I spent the morning moving the truck into place.  This involved driving the truck down our deiveway, over the gap and down the VAST/VASA trail to the bottom of the tow.  The truck stalled (turns out it ran out of gas) on my way down the hill.  With no power brakes I almost couldn't get the truck to stop.  After filling the truck up with some gas I managed to almost fly off the trail. The gears popped into drive unexpectedly.  Given the track record of the truck so far I drove the rest of the way down the hill very carefully and with the door slightly open.  Just in case I needed to bail.  Yeah.. it was touch and go for a moment there.

Here is the truck headed down the VAST/VASA trail before the steep secrion (where I ran out of gas).

Here is where I turned off the trail and into the woods.

 I had to clear a path for the truck to drive 50 yards from the trail to the tow site.

I had to pop it into 4 wheel drive for this section.  It was tricky getting it into 4 given the truck's age I guess.  I was psyched when I finally got the truck into place.

Jay and I also stopped over at a good friend and neighbor of ours, Robert Frank's, to see his chicken coop.  His coop wasnt any old ordinary coop.. This coop had a few old building supplies and scraps that he had collected.  We found lags screws and some scrap metal that we'll use for the return wheels.  Here is Jay snd Robert shopping at the coop depot.