Life and Death on the Chinook Pass in a WWII Truck
I was driving an 81-year-old 1941 Chev Cargo truck with its equally ancient owner as a passenger up the Chinook Pass in Washington State in August 2022. We were in convoy with 27 other ex-military vehicles climbing up the 5,430ft road over the Cascade Ranges near Mt Rainier. The convoy crested the summit and started down the other side of the mountain.
I was holding the truck back in third gear while taking in the view, including the massive drop-off on the road's edge. Finally, we got to a straighter part, and James, the owner, said,
"Put her in fourth and see what it will do!"
James apparently had never met a mountain that he couldn't go down in top gear. So to oblige him, I shifted up in the crash box to fourth gear.
A few minutes later, we were coming to a hairpin bend on the descent. Time to drop down to third. There are seven operations to go through in a crash box to change down a gear. I put my foot on the brake pedal to slow to the correct speed to change gear, but the pedal went straight to the floor with no pressure at all. So I reached over to the handbrake lever and started to apply it. In the USA, they call that the emergency brake.
"Don't touch that, it's the emergency brake", James yelled over the engine noise. "This is a fucking emergency!" I yelled back as I fought to find third gear.
I got into the lower gear and used that as the only retarding force on the truck for the next 10 minutes or so as we went down the pass. Eventually, we came to a flatter section of road with a small pull-off area. I turned in there and only just managed to pull the truck up on the handbrake before I ran out of space.
Shaking and breathing heavily, I waited for the recovery crew to arrive. They confirmed that the brake fluid had left home via one of the rear wheels. The truck was loaded onto a semi-trailer and headed to that evening's campsite while I jumped into a Jeep to get a ride. I was still a nervous wreck hours later. The boys stripped the wheel that night and discovered that the rubber cups in the wheel cylinder had lost all their shape and looked like a lump of chewing gum.
That was one of several near-death experiences I had on my leisure trip pursuing my hobby of military vehicles on the convoy. What we do for fun! I travelled with a great group of people and experienced some wonderful camaraderie during the two weeks on the convoy. Seven of us travelled from New Zealand to the USA for the North West Parks Convoy. Some of the Americans will visit us for convoys organised by the New Zealand Military Vehicle Club and continue our friendships. Does this unusual hobby of restoring and using historic military transport interest you?
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