My wife and I and my brother in law and his wife took our kids on a heck of an adventure for Christmas!! We took a Tucker up to our cabin at 10,000' for a week!
I owe a huge shout out to Blackfoot Tucker a.k.a "The Legendary Blackfoot Tucker" a.k.a. "El Supremo" (Jay) and his buddy, Gorilla a.k.a. "Scott", for not only letting us borrow Jays' 1544 for Christmas, but also working their asses off to have it done in time for us to take!! Who would imagine you meet a guy on a forum and a few years later he just let's you borrow his Tucker to go to your cabin for Christmas!?!? Well believe me folks, it is possible! I mean not only did they work like crazy to have it done, they installed light bars on it, Jay knows how I am scared of the dark, AND they also even put our names on the doors!!!
The trip was quite the drive fest for me. I left from Atlanta around 4:00pm EST and headed to Kansas City. We got to Kansas City around 3:00 am CST. My brother in law met me off an exit where I dropped my kids off with him so they could spend sometime with him and ride the rest of the trip to CO with their four cousins. I then headed on to Grand Junction CO. Arrived in Grand Junction somewhere around 3:00 pm MST. My life long friend, Teddy, that now lives in Montrose CO met me in Grand Junction and rode out with me to Salt Lake City. We were both in awe that we were finally going to meet "The Legendary Blackfoot Tucker" (TLBFT) in person!! All I can say is it did not disappoint. We arrived at The Gorillas shop around 7:45 pm MST. What a couple of great guys those two are. I could have stayed there all night to hang out an BS. They showed us Thundercat and Snowzilla and we just talked about all kinds of stuff. VERY VERY COOL to finally meet those guys in person!! They even had the 1544 all loaded up on a trailer ready to hook up and go.
As much as I hated to leave it had been a long, non stop, drive and I didn't want to keep TLBFT and The Gorilla out past their bed times! Teddy and I headed back and spent the night on the South side of SLC. Got to bed about 11:00PM. We headed out the next morning and got to Montrose just in time for me to pick my wife up at the MTJ airport. My wife and I headed from the airport straight up the mountain. Enough talking - time for pics!
We access our place via an easement through a HUGE private ranch. The road to their gate was very packed and through most of the ranch was somewhat packed. This is about halfway up to their gate.
First evening after we had made it up to the cabin and unloaded everything.
Sunrise the first morning. It sure is tough to have to look at that while drinking coffee each morning!
The majority of the trip basically consisted of the kids sledding to the point of complete exhaustion and then coming inside to recover by having monopoly battles. Once they were warmed up and recouped back to sledding they went. Check out this crew!
We had two sledding hills. One small close one and one big one. The BIG sledding hill is a MONSTER! We don't believe in raising softies so we told them they could hike to sled. Pretty soon no one was sledding on the big hill. Like basically immediately. They said the hike was too much. My brother in law and I then proceeded to prove them wrong and we walked up. ONCE... I think the steepness + the length + the sugar snow + 10,000' elevation combined to make the hike to the top an absolute soul killer! We started giving rides to the top after that.
The big hill from about 3/4 of the way up. It wraps on up and around the bend to the left at the top. Pics do not do it justice!
Riding up
The would be wore down so far they couldn't even stay awake long enough to get loaded back up and ride to the top of the hill again!
We burned a TON of firewood just staying warm watching them sled!
They'd be sledding even when the snow was coming down HARD!
We did a little ice fishing down at a buddys' cabin. Unfortunately we waited until towards the end of the trip when it was snowing, blowing and COLD! The kids hung tough but finally submitted to the cold after about 3 hours and twenty holes drilled.
It snowed ~18" over the last 48 hours we were there! Cleaning the solar panels off became a regular chore.
The two 12 year old boys took an axe and cut down a Christmas tree for us. Then all 6 kids made the ornaments for it.
The cabin
While there my son fell in love with the snowboard! I couldn't believe how quick he picked it up. This gives a better perspective of the big sledding hill. (Can't figure out how to embed the video)
https://youtu.be/coXqDvu-InI
While we were there I put 30 hours on Jays' 1544 which I will feel bad about forever! Then I also lost one of the ramps for his dang trailer!! It somehow disappeared over the week the trailer was parked so when we came back down we had to shovel up a snow ramp to load up.
I learned a TON about Tuckering for sure! Those 6 kids made memories that will last their lifetimes. On the way down the mountain they were already talking about next time!
I will always be grateful for finding this board, meeting Jay and his generosity!!
I owe a huge shout out to Blackfoot Tucker a.k.a "The Legendary Blackfoot Tucker" a.k.a. "El Supremo" (Jay) and his buddy, Gorilla a.k.a. "Scott", for not only letting us borrow Jays' 1544 for Christmas, but also working their asses off to have it done in time for us to take!! Who would imagine you meet a guy on a forum and a few years later he just let's you borrow his Tucker to go to your cabin for Christmas!?!? Well believe me folks, it is possible! I mean not only did they work like crazy to have it done, they installed light bars on it, Jay knows how I am scared of the dark, AND they also even put our names on the doors!!!
The trip was quite the drive fest for me. I left from Atlanta around 4:00pm EST and headed to Kansas City. We got to Kansas City around 3:00 am CST. My brother in law met me off an exit where I dropped my kids off with him so they could spend sometime with him and ride the rest of the trip to CO with their four cousins. I then headed on to Grand Junction CO. Arrived in Grand Junction somewhere around 3:00 pm MST. My life long friend, Teddy, that now lives in Montrose CO met me in Grand Junction and rode out with me to Salt Lake City. We were both in awe that we were finally going to meet "The Legendary Blackfoot Tucker" (TLBFT) in person!! All I can say is it did not disappoint. We arrived at The Gorillas shop around 7:45 pm MST. What a couple of great guys those two are. I could have stayed there all night to hang out an BS. They showed us Thundercat and Snowzilla and we just talked about all kinds of stuff. VERY VERY COOL to finally meet those guys in person!! They even had the 1544 all loaded up on a trailer ready to hook up and go.
As much as I hated to leave it had been a long, non stop, drive and I didn't want to keep TLBFT and The Gorilla out past their bed times! Teddy and I headed back and spent the night on the South side of SLC. Got to bed about 11:00PM. We headed out the next morning and got to Montrose just in time for me to pick my wife up at the MTJ airport. My wife and I headed from the airport straight up the mountain. Enough talking - time for pics!
We access our place via an easement through a HUGE private ranch. The road to their gate was very packed and through most of the ranch was somewhat packed. This is about halfway up to their gate.
First evening after we had made it up to the cabin and unloaded everything.
Sunrise the first morning. It sure is tough to have to look at that while drinking coffee each morning!
The majority of the trip basically consisted of the kids sledding to the point of complete exhaustion and then coming inside to recover by having monopoly battles. Once they were warmed up and recouped back to sledding they went. Check out this crew!
We had two sledding hills. One small close one and one big one. The BIG sledding hill is a MONSTER! We don't believe in raising softies so we told them they could hike to sled. Pretty soon no one was sledding on the big hill. Like basically immediately. They said the hike was too much. My brother in law and I then proceeded to prove them wrong and we walked up. ONCE... I think the steepness + the length + the sugar snow + 10,000' elevation combined to make the hike to the top an absolute soul killer! We started giving rides to the top after that.
The big hill from about 3/4 of the way up. It wraps on up and around the bend to the left at the top. Pics do not do it justice!
Riding up
The would be wore down so far they couldn't even stay awake long enough to get loaded back up and ride to the top of the hill again!
We burned a TON of firewood just staying warm watching them sled!
They'd be sledding even when the snow was coming down HARD!
We did a little ice fishing down at a buddys' cabin. Unfortunately we waited until towards the end of the trip when it was snowing, blowing and COLD! The kids hung tough but finally submitted to the cold after about 3 hours and twenty holes drilled.
It snowed ~18" over the last 48 hours we were there! Cleaning the solar panels off became a regular chore.
The two 12 year old boys took an axe and cut down a Christmas tree for us. Then all 6 kids made the ornaments for it.
The cabin
While there my son fell in love with the snowboard! I couldn't believe how quick he picked it up. This gives a better perspective of the big sledding hill. (Can't figure out how to embed the video)
https://youtu.be/coXqDvu-InI
While we were there I put 30 hours on Jays' 1544 which I will feel bad about forever! Then I also lost one of the ramps for his dang trailer!! It somehow disappeared over the week the trailer was parked so when we came back down we had to shovel up a snow ramp to load up.
I learned a TON about Tuckering for sure! Those 6 kids made memories that will last their lifetimes. On the way down the mountain they were already talking about next time!
I will always be grateful for finding this board, meeting Jay and his generosity!!
