Well if I've had a run of nothing but bad luck it appears to have turned the corner.
Avalance and myself went out to Moses Lake on Sunday and did some off-roading on the dunes. There was hardly anyone around and it was good fun. Although I enjoyed my time out there the area is littered with trash and resembles more of a post-apocylptic wasteland than the scenic dunes of Oregon.
Anyway as we're driving around a pre-scout mission on foot alerted me to a very sharp drop off that was beyond 45 degrees and went anywhere from about ten feet on the western side and tapered down to a smooth drop of below 20 degrees on the east side.
As I drove up around this obstacle and turned around I pointed my Av to what I thought was the shallow drop area. My only complaint about sand dune driving, there is nothing to make a point of reference to and well, I was too far west.
I slowed down as much as I could and the Avalanche dropped like a rock off of the 45 plus degree angle that was 3-1/2 feet to 4 feet down. The nose slammed down, sand came up, I heard some horrible popping noises gave it gas and cleared the obstacles.
I got out expecting the worse. When brmiller dropped over the razor back I cleared it unscathed at low speed. Here I was traveling faster and went down more than double the distance into harder sand.
http://www.chevyavalanchefanclub.com/attachments/Chief21.jpg
Amazingly my Avalanche was almost unscathed! The front end was perfect despite the sandline coming up to the license plate (notice the sand on the plate and embedded in the tow hooks). Not even the DRL housings buckled from the pressure. I did loose more foam from the rear bumper, which was filled with sand, and I did loose the small diamond step plate from the driver's side of the rear bumper. The tabs were hopeless cracked. However that was the extent of the damage (and who needs foam anyway).
Everything operated fine after the incident including my lights. Don't know WHY I was unscathed but Lance told me there was quite the poof of sand as I came down. The picture doesn't give the angle justice but the white sand exposed is where my under carriage and rear bumper was digging things up as I came down.
WHUMP!
http://www.chevyavalanchefanclub.com/attachments/Chief22.jpg
Avalance and myself went out to Moses Lake on Sunday and did some off-roading on the dunes. There was hardly anyone around and it was good fun. Although I enjoyed my time out there the area is littered with trash and resembles more of a post-apocylptic wasteland than the scenic dunes of Oregon.
Anyway as we're driving around a pre-scout mission on foot alerted me to a very sharp drop off that was beyond 45 degrees and went anywhere from about ten feet on the western side and tapered down to a smooth drop of below 20 degrees on the east side.
As I drove up around this obstacle and turned around I pointed my Av to what I thought was the shallow drop area. My only complaint about sand dune driving, there is nothing to make a point of reference to and well, I was too far west.
I slowed down as much as I could and the Avalanche dropped like a rock off of the 45 plus degree angle that was 3-1/2 feet to 4 feet down. The nose slammed down, sand came up, I heard some horrible popping noises gave it gas and cleared the obstacles.
I got out expecting the worse. When brmiller dropped over the razor back I cleared it unscathed at low speed. Here I was traveling faster and went down more than double the distance into harder sand.
http://www.chevyavalanchefanclub.com/attachments/Chief21.jpg
Amazingly my Avalanche was almost unscathed! The front end was perfect despite the sandline coming up to the license plate (notice the sand on the plate and embedded in the tow hooks). Not even the DRL housings buckled from the pressure. I did loose more foam from the rear bumper, which was filled with sand, and I did loose the small diamond step plate from the driver's side of the rear bumper. The tabs were hopeless cracked. However that was the extent of the damage (and who needs foam anyway).
Everything operated fine after the incident including my lights. Don't know WHY I was unscathed but Lance told me there was quite the poof of sand as I came down. The picture doesn't give the angle justice but the white sand exposed is where my under carriage and rear bumper was digging things up as I came down.
WHUMP!
http://www.chevyavalanchefanclub.com/attachments/Chief22.jpg
- it has been a long time since I was in Moses Lake - I was stationed in Bremerton and had shipmate from Moses Lake, so we would run over on the weekends to water ski.
