4,393′ Reasons to Smile.
4,393′ Reasons to Smile.
This is one of those memories that I will hold onto for a while. Mt. Mansfield is the tallest mountain in Vermont. So naturally I wanted to wanted to hike with the Trucks and make it to the top. Fortunately, I had some company for this trail run. Which turned out to be a great thing as we, myself and a friend, were out there for almost 5 hours. Before the trail run I made sure that everything was in order, making sure that we were prepared for anything the trucks may need out on the mountain. Looking back I laugh as this was a “test run” for the Axial Racing Wraith. We also had the Traxxas TRX-4 out climbing the mountain.
We both had an idea of the magnitude of the trail run so we got there nice and early. It was a foggy morning. We could not see the summit from the parking lot at the bottom. This added to the adventure ahead. Each truck was loaded down with extra bolts, steering links, and shock parts. Each truck had 3 batteries. The Traxxas was set up with 3, 7600mah batteries & the Axial Racing had 3, 500mah batteries. All were 2s. As we made our way farther up the Gondola trail, the fog parted and we could see the summit. A blanket of abandoned snow from the previous ski season still blanketed the ground near the top of the gondola.
I remember thinking halfway through that this was taking along time, but honestly seeing as we were closer to the top than the bottom, there was only one logical thing to do. Keep going. There was no sense in turning back. We had plenty of battery life and daylight.
When we finally got to the top, the view was amazing. I was nervous that they ESC’s on th trucks were going to be overheating. This was not the case. Both were cool and honestly I felt like the trucks wanted to keep going, it the mountain was bigger. I was most notably the weaker link in this truck and human duo.
Once the top was reached there was only one thing to do, slowy crawl our way back down to the parking lot and store the trucks away for the night.
Details of the Hike:
Time: ~5 hours
Batteries: 3 Per Trucks
Milage ~7 miles up and down (combined)
The wraith and trx-4 contemplate their next move.
Thanks for reading this far :)
-VTRC, Happy Holidays!