My 2WD F150 adventures

[TantoTrailers]

So the rest of the drive to Utah was no better than the first half. After the ice storm we drove into a wind storm and into a closed I80 in Wyoming. Google Maps got us around the closure and back on I80...in the middle of the closure which resulted in a sweet $435 ticket. But it was our best option anyway because the road was closed for another 12 hours after that and the detour was through Steamboat CO...we spent the night at a hotel on the border of Wyoming and Utah and arrived at Powder Mountain Sunday morning right as planned with plenty of time before first chair. We were lucky enough to be escorted around by a host for about hald the day showing us all the powder stashes and we took a cat ride followed by a hike up a peak to an awesome powder run. We camped on some BLM for 2 nights and were going to stay a 3rd but it was raining starting the morning after our first night and didnt let up. This did mean sweet sweet pow pow in the mountains though so no complaints. We crashed at my buddys pad and in the 2 days out in the field i was able to test my electrical system and solar. Everything worked awesome in the worst conditions. Snowboarding was bomb. We rode Pow Mow, Snowbird, Brighton, and Snowbasin. I think Brighton became my fav resort to date and PowMow is definitely a repeat. I may go back to the other two on a huge dump day but otherwise they were not my jam. This trip brings the mileage on the trailer to 15k and it did require some maintenance upon return. My fenders took a beating from the dirt and salt and rocks and whatnot and so I dropped them off for an official powder coat. My crappy roller job with Rustoleum isnt working long term. It was an awesome trip. 7 days of snowboarding and hiking beat my ass but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat! The truck is acting weird though, my 7 pin was hit or miss with charging while driving and I noticed some other minor electrical issues that i think are related to outdated software. I will ask for an update next time its in for oil. Oh yea...on the way home i hit 100k on the truck 99996 of which have been driven by me. We also ran into another I80 closure on the way home and tiis time we stayed on a side street to go around it for 2.5 hours of white knuckly night time driving! Ugh whyyyoming?

 

[TantoTrailers]

Shred pics

 

[TantoTrailers]

Not much of an update but I got my fenders professionally powder coated since my roll on job was not holding up at all. Stoked to see how these hold up now!

 

[TantoTrailers]

Decided to take the camper for a night of camping at Shabbona with maybe a bit of fishing but that wasn’t the main objective. Originally was going to do 2 nights with a buddy but circumstances made it so he could not go and I was already geared so 1 night would do me just fine. Got there with some sun left to make camp and process some wet wood for the fire pit and cooking. As the fire did it’s thing I went out to make a few casts with a jerk bait from the shoreline by the cabins but no takers in the 10 minute effort I gave. The birds on the lake were in the thousands. Everything I could think of as water fowl was out there, it was fun to watch for a while.

Cooked my ribeye and enjoyed the evening with my slow burning wet wood. Got to do some night shots and I pissed off a beaver cause he swam away and gave the canon ball tail slap before diving under as I snapped away with the camera. Drank plenty of corona for all the right reasons and called it a night in my toasty warm hut on wheels. Woke up sometime after maybe 10 hours of amazing sleep? Don’t judge me...and started breaking down camp. As I was packing up the awning I noticed what I thought was ash falling and quickly realized it was snow flurries. I didn’t think much of it, went about packing the rest and hitting the different points I wanted to fish from shore before taking off back home.

The snow quickly turned to heavy flakes with sideways wind, I wasn’t prepared for that as I forgot my fishing gloves, hands got cold quick at each spot. No takers on my baits anywhere but it was nice to check out the lake basically completely deserted. There was one brave soul in a boat, hope he caught something! I got some cool pics in the snow and got home safe to enjoy the rest of my weekend which now feels like it was a whole long weekend somehow! I take it as a win.

 

[TantoTrailers]

 

[TantoTrailers]

Holy crap!! Way too much time since my last post but not much has been happening on the trailer side of things just yet. I did take the Tanto out for my first adventure with my girlfriend to my buddy's cabin down in Indiana and then a few weeks later we did a quick weekend trip to Brown County Indiana for some mountain biking on their awesome trails. I got a new mountain bike to join the Tanto on many adventures to come; 2020 Nukeproof Reactor 290 RS. I'm so stoked on the bike!

The Brown County trip was a hot one, we were in the 90s during the day with full sun, no shade in our campsite except for the awning. Little to no wind made for some sweaty relaxing but we still had a blast. I got to test my fridge and all of the electrical on what I would consider the hottest weekend I would want to be out camping by choice. Everything worked wonderfully. We drove out on a Thursday night and since my F150 is being a little ********** and wont charge my trailer, I was running on battery till the next morning. I used about 30% of battery from the time I left the garage to the following morning which was about 16 hours or so in the heat. By noon the next day I had recharged 100% of the battery power used with my solar panels on the roof of the trailer. The fridge ran perfectly keeping our frozen meats at the bottom frozen and everything else just above freezing. Things cooled down enough to comfort levels for sleeping so that was a plus. All in all, the Tanto is behaving just as designed and I could not ask for more.

Hope you all stay safe and get out as much as you can while doing so!

 

[TantoTrailers]

It's been way too long since my last update but things have been crazy. The client I was working at got hit with a nasty cryptolocker attack on a Saturday morning while we were at camp in Wisconsin in October. Life has not been the same but im making steps to get back to normal!!! Lots of retail therapy. I'll try to post all the updates here now!

Some pics from October campout!

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[TantoTrailers]

Like I said, the attack derailed my outdoors activities to the point that I didn’t do anything after that campout till spring this year! It’s been tough getting back into the swing of things after so many months of 12-16 sometimes 20 hour days for 6-7 days a week.

Anyway we had plans to go CA for Memorial Day which are no cancelled but on the way we were going to car camp. What better way to did it than get an RTT! So I got a Weekender 56 from the good people at 23Zero and installed it on the bed of the pickup with some existing cross bars that I have been using for kayak transport and shuttles.

Well the RTT opened a whole new host of things I needed to prep! Go figure...another area to dump money into.

So I got a locking tool box for the bed of the trailer, installed some custom rails to lock it into place. Inside is all things camp related that were previously in the tongue box of the trailer; chairs, table, fire pit, everything to set up comforts of camp!

I also got a 300w power bank to power the fridge that I didn’t want running off of the truck battery when parked. It is a great setup and actually hooks right into my existing solar panels, pulling 118w out of a 120w panel!

Finally I wanted to secure everything with some lock-in cross bars and keyed hardware to make sure no one can steal the RTT when parked in San Francisco.

All in all I’m really happy with the new RTT option. It makes road trips much easier where we are not spending multiple days at camp. It has its purpose in the quiver of outdoor shelter; backpacking tent (also for kayak camping and bike packing), RTT for road trips and quick getaways, and the Tanto trailer for extended stays in the sticks.

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[Deleted member 9101]

The tool box on a slide is pretty slick!