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Keeping it Beautiful (2)
Ken Hildebrant (right), Becky Huhtalo (Center) and Bruce Horvath (Left) await precision cutting by Branden Jones before taking pieces away
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Keeping It Beautiful With Trail Maintenance
Story & Photos submitted by Chris Muir, Director OF4WD, and Edited by Brian Sibbles, Exec. Dir. OF4WD
Early, Saturday June first 2013, Members of the Sheep Shaggers Offroad club, and the Canadian Nissan Truck club met at the head of the Minden hydro line trail. The mission was to remove a classic GM chassis, complete with vintage straight six, and a trailer that time forgot.
The group left from the staging area around 8:45, and traversed the entire trail stopping to grab random bits and bobs of trash like empty bottles and forgotten scraps passing the trailer which was to be recovered later.
The group left the trailer as they were headed in deeper. A water crossing was unusually deep - beavers had decided to take up residence just downstream. The dam was cleared and the group moved on.
The truck was located deep into the hydro line trail, just a few moments from Snake Lake. It was pulled to a working area and the clubs descended on it tearing it to pieces in a flurry of Sawzalls and sweat. After a brief couple of hours the freshly dismantled truck was then tossed into the OF4WD maintenance trailer for the journey back to the road.
The return trip was going splendidly until the approach into beaver territory. He was back and had rebuilt, such industrious creatures really. The dam was removed to drain the water once again and the group proceeded to the scrap trailer.
The remains of the scrap trailer were loaded on top of the old GMC carcass and taken back to civilization.
On Day Two Rob Rea and his grizzled cleanup veterans for perhaps their most perilous recovery joined them. Deep in the Norland trail a lowly late 70‘s Aspen had been abandoned upside down and was partly submerged in a pond.
The trip to the car was uneventful with the crew, and two trailers in tow. Once there the reinforced crew tore into the old Dodge rationing its scrap between the two trailers. With surgical precision the doors were torn from the rotting hulk. The engine and transmission with the front clip were liberated from the rotting corpse and loaded onto a trailer. Then the rear axle was pulled from the pond bringing the rest of the car with it. Several dedicated swipes with the trusty Sawzalls saw the Aspen in pieces and on her way to the scrap yard.
Like any good wheeling adventure there was some drama on the way out, but a little shade tree mechanic, and a quick pull with a winch or two saw the very tired group on the road. The metal was dropped off at a local recycler in the Minden hills, and they headed for home for some much needed rest after a weekend of trail maintenance.