Big Red bites the dust- RIP

We are sad to say the the trust­ed red 95′ Ford van that has trans­port­ed many a climber into the moun­tains of the North Cas­cades has final­ly thrown in the towel.

There were times when Big Red was not cruis­ing, like the heat wave it drove through on the east side of the moun­tains on the way to Winthrop. Vapor lock. Too hot to cruise, but some kind­ly local folks let our group flop for the night on their farm before the group resumed the next day, on their way to the fan­tas­tic Lib­er­ty Bell Moun­tain. Now that is an added adven­ture right there- thanks Big Red!

But, for the most part, Big Red deliv­ered and safe­ly trans­port­ed our groups from the busy streets of Seat­tle and up pot­holed roads on obscure Cas­cade Moun­tain log­ging roads lead­ing to the remote trailheads. 

We’ve replaced Big Red with a new Toy­ota Sien­na van, which will pro­vide bet­ter fuel effi­cien­cy and a very com­fort­able ride for our guests. Hard to replace the char­ac­ter of Big Red though and the well over a 100,000 miles of wear in tear in the moun­tains. With luck and some TLC, it wil be run­ning around on dif­fer­ent mis­sions as we have donat­ed the van to a Vet­er­ans organzi­a­tion- keep on truckin!