Skunked Fishin Trip From Back In The Day....'68

[echo1]

One of my anecdotes from another forum.

Not exactly a lost story. Back in '68, when the holidays fell on the DAY, instead of the default Monday, every once in a great while you'd get a 5 day slot of off time. Well, me and my backpacking buds decided on a new destination, "Thousand Lakes Primitive Area", northwest of Lassen NP.
DAY 1: So we load up my buds sister's '65 split- window VW bus and head out after school. By the time we got out of the Bay Area & crossed the valley it was dark, so we frog gigged our way to the Serria foothills.
DAY 2: When we got to the "Lava Tubes", on the west approach to Lassen, we stopped and had frog legs for breakfast. We continued on to Hat Greek, world renown for trout fishing. Turned west at Hat Creek ranger station and head the 20 miles of forest service roads to the primitive area. It was August (?), they'd been heavily logging and a couple of saddles we went through had 18" of dust. Anyway, we get to the trailhead, marker sign confirms what our map said, Maggee Lake, the 2nd biggest in the primitive area, 2.5 miles. The first 2 miles of it straight up through broken shale, 3 steps up, slide back 2 steps, plus it was over 100* at 10am. Took most of the morning and part of the afternoon to get there. We didn't really think about it, but the wilderness area was on a high plateau and snow melt were the lakes only water supply. First lake Maggee, MUD hole. Decide to press on. The next "lake", Everett, another mile was the biggest (on our chart), We got there, it's a pond, 2 feet deep for a hundred yards. To say the least we got skunked on the trout action.
DAY 3: Hike back to the bus in a couple hours, load up and head out. A half mile from the trail head we went through one of the dusty saddles. In the middle of the deepest part, the bus quit, stopped dead. My 3 buds were all mechanics, 2 worked at a Flying A service station. They poke at it for a few hours then decide we have to move the dead bus off the logging road or risk getting bulldozed by a logging truck the next day, Monday. Took 6 hours to dig our way off the road on to the shoulder, make camp.
DAY 4: Next morning we draw straws to see who's going with the owner and hike out. I lose and get to trek 20 miles to the ranger station. Takes all morning to get to the station. The rangers BIL has a jeep and can fetch us after work. BIL shows up in a '43 Willys about 6, takes a couple hours to tow us to the little Hat Creek store. Spend the night in the parking lot.
DAY 5: The "mechanics" decide it's the points & condenser and have to hitch hike 30 miles to an auto parts store in Burney. Of course, it takes the owner and another bud all day there and back. Replace said parts...NO beno. Make the call to "DAD", he can't get there until day after tomorrow.
DAY 6: Fish Hat Creek, catch some pan size.
DAY 7: Dad shows up late in the morning, tows us to a Burney service station. It's over a hunnerd degrees, the weathered mechanic, at least 90 years old in long sleaved coveralls and quilted painter's hat with no brim, pops the deck lid, stands back and says: "You boys been up in the red dirt", whips out a screwdriver and grounds the positive generator terminal to the core, makes a little spark and fires right up. He said the red dirt has a lot of iron in it and reversed the polarity on the 6-volt system. Took 5 minutes, charged us $2 bucks. Pointed the bus west and headed for Freekmont, 12 hours out at VW bus speed. That's when I decided to learn VWs, PAX

 

[PoorRichRichard]

Dude, that’s a motherless in’ story!!!

Reminds me of some of the Montana backwoods trips I’d take with my buddies in high school during the 90’s.

Thanx for sharing

 

[ar15robert]

Interesting on grounding the generator. I owned a very although it was 12v system but no way would ever think that. They were so simple it’s spark and fuel should fire.

Today the parts changer would be stumped because the problem might not show on the ecu. Hard to beat old school mechanics who had lots of knowledge.

 

[echo1]

Thanks guys, that was the abridged version with a few details omitted, like the bigger lake Everett. We had to wade out in it to knee deep to get to clearer/cleaner water to boil (pre-filtration days). Deet resistant mosquitoes big as bats.
Then diggin out the bus we had to make the path for the tires go slightly down hill in order for the 4 of us to push it clear of the road. The last 3 feet we had to make it wide enough to clear the front suspension.
On the way to the ranger station we ran out of water for 10 miles until the station.
When we got to the Hat Creek store, us, the bus and all our gear was filthy. We borrowed a hose from the store and douched the bus inside and out, then bathed in an irrigation ditch in the alfalfa field across from the store.
We stopped at the William B Ide Adobe on the Sacramento River, to clean up once more before getting on 5 south for the drive home. There was a floating dock, so I decided to go for a swim. Soon as I dove in, the Sac swept me away and I had to give it all to get back to the dock 30 feet away. I used to free dive and swim with the rip on the coast a lot, that was the hardest I'd ever swam.
We did pick up some hippie chicks in Red Bluff though. Helped ease our pain PAX