[lupinsea]

.

Evan's Creek
GPS Mapping Run

November 15th, 2008

Finally had some time to get down to Evan's Creek ORV park on the corner of Mt. Rainier National Park (just across the park's boundary). It has been about 8 months since I was here last and it was good to be back. I was expecting this to take two days and had prepped gear for camping but as it turned out we mapped all the trails in one day. There were 5 Jeeps total in our group: two heavily modified long-arm TJs, a somewhat modified 4" lifted TJ on 33's and ARBs, my 2" TJ w/ the belly-up skid, and an LJ on a 2.5" lift. Plus there were a ton of other people on the trails, several of whom I recognized from Jeepforum (hey Yyoon, Jonwood), probably taking advantage of the unusually good weather and blue skies.

Given the expected trail traffic we decided to run the 102 first, as that would take us away from the popular 311 and get us into the back of the ORV park. We quickly aired down and headed out. Less than 100 yd later I realized my t-case linkage wasn't hooked up so I couldn't shift into 4WD. This required a stop while I popped the linkage back into place. Not easy to do with a low-profile skid plate as that only makes it tighter to get your hand and tools where they need to be. After that, no problems the rest of the day.

The new antenna for my GPS unit worked wonders. It boosted reception by 3-5 times over the GPS receiver's built in antenna. Even in dense tree cover there were at least 5-7 satellites with full signal strength and a few others with partial strength. At some points accuratcy would be as high as 5 ft +/-. As a result, we recorded some very accurate and very clean data. Below is a screen shot of the raw GPS data after importing it to the map software. When I have time I'll clean things up and publish a new Evan's Creek map.

It was a full day of wheel'n but by night fall we had all the trails mapped out. The last two trails we did run in darkness and my Trail Night Lighting systems worked great. Except when i burned my finger trying to adjust one of the side-lights. I forgot how hot those halogen bulbs can get.


There's even a short video I edited and posted to youtube.

[yt]31F5b9cZd_Y[/yt]





Driving over some gravel toward the top of one of the peaks
where the trail crosses a rock garden.





It's actually a good size rock field.





A 2-door Unlimited motoring over some rocks at the
crest of a different trail.





Many trails cut across some steep terrain.





This is where the trail crosses the rock garden. The trees
open out to see the lowlands beyond. In the distance
is civilization.





One of the guys getting hung up on a pile of logs for fun.





Just before sunset we caught a glimps of Mt. Rainier in
the dwindling sunlight. What a great fall day.





A topography map of the ORV park area with the GPS data in
red for the trails mapped. Approximately 20 miles of trail
took 8+ hrs of driving at a pretty good clip. Let's see, that's 2.5 mph on average. Sounds about right.

.

[IGotADisneyJeep]

Pretty cool Jay...I been waiting to see some videos of you offroading

^5 Jay

[aaron1981]

Very nice can't wait to see the finished product. I enjoyed your section you did on your other mapping page.

[Jeffro06]

Very nice...I especially enjoyed he video.

[jonwood]

Looks like it will be a great map, and good meeting you out there.

[JEEP97TJ]

Wow, that is amazing. Thanks for sharing the trip.

[thething]

That first picture of the jeep in the rock field made it look almost like a small remote control or something like that. nice pictures

[krawler00]

I thought the same thing about that pic! Great video and I want to go up there some day!

[lupinsea]

Thanks guys. I've been getting more interested in the video stuff. Especially now that youtube.com has been around for while as a hosting site. Doing the video editing works is fun and it really gives you a better idea what the terrain in like. But it also presents a bigger editing challenge. Besides the particular content and image quality decisions, there's also a time factor. I try to cut out the especially bad or boring bits. As it was, I cut the raw footage from 12 minutes down to 4:30 minutes in the final video. The rest of the 5 min clip being still shots and titles.

My apologies, though, for the video quality. I was just using the built-in video capture on my regular still camera. It's good in a pinch and something I'll likely use a lot more often in the future but it's still not as good as a dedicated camcorder. Though, after having two dedicated camcorders in the past that have simply collected dust I'm not likely to go that route again.

As it is, my current camera is falling apart so I'll be need to replace it soon. While the focus will be on improved image quality, I'm also factoring in any video capture ability. I've got my eye on a couple good cameras, just trying to refine things down to the right one.

[WsRpAoNrGtLtEjR]

Wow what beautiful pics. Sweet rigs too. Good job w/ the vid!

[Duble-it]

Good video, looks like fun.

[LandRover]

Originally Posted by lupinsea

Just before sunset we caught a glimps of Mt. Rainier in
the dwindling sunlight.

Yeah, I think I can just make it out in the distance




Great pics as always

[wawheeler]

very well presented post.

[Polecat]

Great pics. Looks like a great place to go wheeling.