Plateau spends a great deal of time on the road, driving to projects both near and far, on road and off, and we put significant wear on tires as well as the vehicles themselves. With our fleet of trusty field vehicles it seems one of them is always in need of a new set of tires (Baby needs a new pair of shoes!), an oil change, new tabs, or let’s be honest, an air freshener. We’d feel guilty about all this driving, however, there really aren’t any rapid transit services or buses to ANY of the places we go. Our clients are not as eager to include the hours needed to bicycle to a project into their budget. (Huh, you don’t say?) It does feel a bit silly to be working on projects to meet environmental reviews while driving hundreds and hundreds of miles to get there. But there you go. That’s what we do.
When terrain permits, we take our faithful Jetta TDI, which makes us all warm and fuzzy to achieve 48 miles to the gallon. The grouchy looks from people who actually get a whiff of our diesel fumes tend to give us a complex. However, with over 300,000 miles and counting, they can huff and puff all they want. These days we’ve got the “Yeti” all kited out for winter in snow tires, which have come in pretty handy this season.
There really is nothing quite like a compact four wheel drive truck on some of these pseudo not-quite-logging roads that climb up, up, up through the trees. Being able to get over exposed roots, washboards (something akin to a heard of washing machines just laying in the road), across washed out “roads”, and streams is more than essential. It’s part of the necessary daily commute. “Little Green”, a Tacoma and our first official trusty badged field vehicle, recently was pampered with a new set of four burly all weather mud and snow tires. Perhaps the Waffle Stomper of Les Schwab’s many racks of tires.
Our most drastic and irrefutable need for new tires occurred when two tires blew out on “Big Green” (aka the Green Sequoia) during a project in Asotin County. While the pictures might indicate being shot up by bad guys, Michelle reassured us CRM in Eastern Washington isn’t so Indiana Jones-esque. Her working theory was that “Big Green” ran through some non-cultural pointed rocks via the freshly graded road. With only one spare tire, and a long way to town, what to do, what to do? Quite handily, Plateau was working with two vehicles that day. John wrestled with the jack and tire iron and loaded the wheels and shredded tires into the other vehicle. The rest of the team, crammed in with all the equipment and tires, were dropped off at the project area. Michelle continued into town to visit our Tire Heroes at Les Schwab who hooked her up with new tires. Just one more new pair of shoes….