Currently planning for the second weekend in August, (12-13) but the date is subject to revision
This will be a two day meet with an overnight camping stop. The current plan is to start somewhere in Granite Falls and drive the mountain loop over to Darrington. in Darrington we can pick up perishable supplies, ice, beer, w/e for the overnight stay.
Camping will be in the Sauk river valley, which is considered a primitive camping area. this means we will need to carry in either enough water or adequate water filtration for the second half of the day/following morning. the area could be quite hot and sunny, so bring pop up shades, umbrellas, sunscreen, etc, to help you keep cool. this is also an area of fairly high insect activity, so bring your favorite bug spray.
there is a shooting pit in the camp area, so feel free to bring something to plink with. please be smart with your firearm usage/storage
Day 2 will consist of following highway 530 up to highway 20, and then looping along the back side of the cascades back toward Monroe.
As of the last meet, it was decided that everyone needs to have a radio for communication. it helps a lot with general coordination as well as locating people in areas with no cell phone service. We recommend snagging a Baofeng UV-5R from amazon. they're dirt cheap, and surprisingly solid.
Are there dirt roads with potholes and gravel roads?
Liam Stewart
Looks like the july 22 meet is cancelled?
Tyler Cruz
Yes, you will drive on dusty dirt roads and gravel.
Samuel Rivera
yeah too long for most people
Gavin Campbell
Watch some people still show up in Olympia because they didn't see a thread cancelling it.
Owen Rodriguez
well hopefully they see this one
Ian Adams
This year has certainly been less "communication" than last year. The opportunities were mostly the same, yet problems. Last year's Rainier trip went counter-clockwise, but this year's meet posting instructions said clockwise and so did the route map that was posted. No wonder that various people got lost if they followed the posted map and posted instructions.
James Gray
I don't see how that's relevant to meets being cancelled or not
William Lopez
lrn2read
Lincoln Nelson
no one who's in the Kik chat gets lost. it's just the people who are sticklers for retaining zero direct communication
Christopher Lewis
if you want to help out with communication your services would be appreciated
Isaac Barnes
So you're saying the Veeky Forums threads are not official since it is the KIK Chat that is official. So those people who followed the wrong directions in the Veeky Forums thread are the ones at fault. They didn't use KIK and thus by your words are sticklers for retaining zero direct communication.
Jackson Clark
>if you want to help out with communication your services would be appreciated It's not appreciated in KIK and they wouldn't appreciate my efforts taking things out of KIK and reposting updates in Veeky Forums either. They'd hate that even more. Look at how previous threads had complainers from KIK post saying to stop bumping the Veeky Forums threads. By getting rid of info in Veeky Forums they want to force things to KIK.
Chase Powell
>no one who's in the Kik chat gets lost. False. Lots of people in KIK got separated from others during the Rainier meet.
Andrew Gonzalez
It would be more of a real adventure if we were allowed to fish and then cook the fish. Is a fishing license required to get fish to eat when camping?
Jeremiah Peterson
You can talk about that in KIK
Carson Adams
You're just making stuff up now
Kevin Thomas
trips of truth
Jose Mitchell
Yes, a fishing license is required, other than that, there's no reason you couldn't fish.
Kevin Wood
>it's just the people who are sticklers for retaining zero direct communication Pack members don't watch out for those behind them. Racing ahead and putting other cars between them and other pack members caused split ups. Despite KIK and radios.
William Perry
Can I come with my Prius bros?
Austin Diaz
It's good on the roads
Anthony Taylor
you can take whatever shitbox you want
Oliver Baker
That happened literally one time, and we all managed to link back up shortly after. The other split ups were caused by someone taking a wrong turn, and other people following thinking the car up front knew what they were doing.
Reorganizing in an area where cell phones dont work reliably, and the terrain makes for short radio range is fairly difficult. We arent a proffesional driving outfit, mistakes happen. All we can do is try to get better each time
Ethan Foster
>The other split ups were caused by someone taking a wrong turn Any why did those turns happen? They were unable to follow the car ahead of them in the pack?
William Thomas
Yes, unable because traffic in the little one horse town we picked for the starting point was about 10x worse than usual. We had no idea there was some kind of festival happening.
Part of the group missed a left turn, and by the time they realized they were in the wrong lane, traffic had made it impossible for them to correct the issue.
And unfortunately for the group who made the turn, there wasnt anywhere to pull out and wait that was within radio range.
Jayden Thompson
bump
Lincoln Long
I will post for those not on KIK
That meeting at the crowded Wally's Drive In & Restaurant was worsened by having it at 11AM to 11:30AM. That is the lunchtime crowd part of the day which is Wally's busiest time and there was the festival traffic too.
KIK decided to move to Boise Park so stragglers could continue to gather. Go KIK go. But this placed turned out to be crowded as well. It was also inside a residential area with multi-way stop signs. It became a rough place to leave as other cars and trucks interleaved themselves between pack members using multi-way stop signs. Pack members already in the lead didn't slow down to allow visual sight of them by other following pack members. This is the main problem of 2017 which 2016 didn't have. The MR2 of Rainier 2016 had problems but was not abandoned. But the Rainier 2017 MR2 could have been.
In 2016, Pack members actually tried to be a pack and the lead members immediately chose to go at the speed limit or slower while others caught up in pack formation. The growing use of Baofeng radios allows pack members to not need to watch pack members behind them as they should have a radio or it's too bad for them.
Next time, a gathering spot should be along the major highway and not behind multiple stop signs like Boise Park. Just down the major highway from Boise was various shopping areas including Grocery Outlet. Everyone could have staged a takeoff point from the various parking lots of those shops. It would avoid the interleaving multi-way stop sign problem.
Some KIK comments I don't agree with, but I miss 2016 for its easy-going nature and no need for radios. This year, the higher speed is more exciting, but now there is a demand for radios and KIK. I miss the 2016 times when watching the packmates behind you was also part of the skill set. I feel watching pack mates and preserving the pack is a gradually discarded skill by those who champion that everyone needs to get a Baofeng.
Nathaniel Collins
Well, now is a great time for suggestions. The upcoming meet doesnt have an official meeting point yet. Granite falls is as much as we have it narrowed down to.
Also, the upcoming meet will require that more attention be paid to your fellow packmates. we will be traversing mountain loop highway, which will require care on the part of most drivers. Following that, there will be another short unpaved stint up to the proposed camp spot. All cars should be more than capable of dealing with the conditions, but we'll need to keep an eye on each other in case someone bottoms out, or has an unforseen mechanical issue.
Also, both days will be almost exclusively highway driving, so there will be fewer opportunities for wrong turns. There are also plenty of large shoulders and turnouts for us to make use of, which wasnt true of the beginning of the last route
Asher Brown
Some time ago, a WA thread had people joking and sharing tips on how to lose pack members. Just read that again and do the opposite of those suggestions if convenient.
Jackson Wilson
it was literally someone being a troll. this is Veeky Forums afterall. the actual meets are pretty chill, if a little poorly managed as of late. but all we can do is work to improve. it wont happen over night though. lots of roads up here just arent setup for keeping large groups of cars comfortably together. so if we dont all actively keep track of each other, split ups can happen. the point of the radios was supposed to be to aid in keeping track of pack mates, not to replace the need to do so
Lincoln Rodriguez
>taking b8 seriously
Anthony Green
bump
Hunter Perry
A "bump" is so boring.
For those interested in how the Big Bertha tunnel looks in Seattle, a camera drone was flown thru the tunnel. While this is not the same entertainment value as drone video from the ice cave adventure from last year's meet, at least this drone video relates to a driving topic.
