SierraFest and the Rubicon in August

[the_weirdo]

4 weeks to go. You really don't want to miss this if possible, the Rubicon is a once-in-a-lifetime trail. If you are 50/50 on going, send me a PM and let's discuss. It's a great medium difficult trail for 33" tires - read the TORX report here: http://naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1103847

Who's in?

 

[TORX]

This trip has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm going to be putting in for the vacation time this week. I'm really looking forward to getting back down to Cali.

I kept thinking positive that I could make this trip happen, but the date has just been slowly creeping up on me.

As much as I would love to make this trip again, and hang out with my Cali buds, I just don't think it's going to happen this year. My vacation time isn't 100% yet, the Nail Salon isn't 100% (needs tires and ideally front frame plates), and not to mention the fuel bill could pay for some Phase2 parts.

I'm not one to say "I'm out," but...

 

[the_weirdo]

I'm not one to say "I'm out," but...

Sorry to hear it but I certainly understand the need to prioritize.

Any other takers?

 

[bmikes]

I wish I could, but I don't have any vacation time at work or the money for it. I might be able to next year though. I wanted to last year and this year and I'll be looking forward to it next year!

 

[bmikes]

Just read Torx's report from last year. Man I wish I had enough vacation time for that next year. But I get 40
Hours for the whole year, so I doubt I'll be making it next year either

 

[the_weirdo]

Quit your job and come run these trails with me. If not, I'll take pics and report back.

 

[bmikes]

Haha I'll be looking forward to the pics and report

 

[XJ_ranger]

I'll be there. Leaving tomorrow to help Phil get his rig together friday night / saturday. Will meet at loon on Sunday evening.

Leaving the trailer at loon, cant do the trail all the way through, undecided if I'll go part way on Wed, only to back track all the way to loon late in the day, or just bug out Wed.

See you there Weirdo. :cheers:

 

[the_weirdo]

See you there Weirdo. :cheers:

Safe travels. Jeep is packed and I am ready to go. See you at Loon on Sunday with cold beverages in hand.:cheers:

 

[NW-ZJ-SCOTT]

Safe travels. Jeep is packed and I am ready to go. See you at Loon on Sunday with cold beverages in hand.:cheers:

:bawl:

 

[the_weirdo]

T minus 10 hours. So looking forward to this trip.

 

[bisaeff]

CJ mike and I are packing - leaving 6am Sunday plan to be @ loon lake by noon

 

[the_weirdo]

Sat Aug 2: Leave Seattle at 9am, it’s 72 degrees and raining a little bit which gives me hope that the day will be cool. I will drive about 11 hours down to Redding, CA and stop for the night. I hit Portland around noon and the temp is already in the low 90’s. Getting down to Eugene the temp is now in the low 100’s and it feels hot. There is tons of smog in the sky from the CA fires, seems like all of Northern CA was on fire - you could see the orange smoky glow everywhere you looked. Highest temp I record is 108 degrees in Medford. Eventually I get to Redding and the temperature is still 104 degrees at 8pm. Thank God for AC in the hotel room.

Passing thru Portland - a shot out to the Gresham boys:

Smokey skies in CA turning clear as I pass most of the fires:

 

[the_weirdo]

Sun Aug 3: I wake up and leave Redding around 8am. I’ve got roughly 6 hours to go until I get to the Rubicon. Nothing major happens until I stop for gas in Cameron Park (just East of Sacramento). I am filling up with gas when a pretty woman comes up and asks if I know anything about cars. I figure she is selling something and kind of brush her off. She explains that she borrowed a friend’s pickup and it was smoking coming up the hill. I go examine it and it looks like the tranny overheated a little and puked some fluid. I check the other fluids and they are all low. We go inside and buy some fluid, then top it all off. The lady buys me a Gatorade for my effort (Lime and Cucumber which is really good and I wouldn’t have ever tried – thanks lady!) I get back on the road and hit the Safeway in Pollock Pines for supplies just before the turn-off for IceHouse Road and the Rubicon Trail (Loon Lake Entrance). Travel the 1 hour or so on IceHouse Road and finally make it to Loon Lake. The weather is mid-80’s and a little cloudy. I meet up with some of the crew, set up the tent, and drink a few Stella’s. Life is good.

Meeting up with some NorCal guys - Mr.Ed, Mike, Bruce:

 

[the_weirdo]

Mon Aug 4: I wake up at 3am to piss out lots of Stella, and it is raining. I probably should have checked the weather report before I left but CA is in a serious drought so I figured it would be nice. I was wrong. Go back to sleep and wake up at 7am. The altitude and too much Stella have me not feeling very good. Time to chug some Gatorade and pack up the tent. The driver’s meeting is at 9am and some people are starting to drive in. In total we start with 21 rigs which is a ton of rigs to run Rubicon with. It is still raining and will rain all day. A group of 5 vehicles including myself decides to bypass the Little Sluice - we get to the Buck Island dam around 4pm and can hear on the CB’s that the rest of the group is about an hour behind us. Figuring that the campsite at the dam was too small for 21 rigs, our group of 5 rigs continued on. We go past the lake and start down Big Sluice. On Big Sluice, my buddy Matt gets his Jeep in a really bad spot with a rear tire off the trail and nearly rolls it down the side of the mountain. It was so sketchy that he jumped out of the Jeep just in case. It takes a bunch of straps, winches, and snatch blocks to keep his rig on the trail. We finally get his rig back to solid ground and continue on to Rubicon Springs where we’ll camp for 2 nights. We get into the Springs (which is private property), meet the caretaker, and find out that she’ll let us have a campfire (remember that CA is in a huge drought and there are fire restrictions all over the state). Not only can we have a campfire, the Jeepers Jamboree that just ended left a ton of wood and she wheelbarrows over a few loads. It was great to have a fire.


It will rain for 3 days:

Loon Lake Entrance to the famous Rubicon Trail:

Rigs lining up on the slabs for a photo op:

On the trail:

Eric on Soup Bowl (optional obstacle):

Coming down a granite drop:

Famous Rubicon Bridge just before Rubicon Springs campsite:

 

[the_weirdo]

Tues Aug 5: No wheeling planned today. A helicopter is flying in and out of the Springs carrying in supplies and people for the upcoming Jeep Jamboree that starts on Friday. We just hang out, jump in the river, take a nap, BS by the fire, etc.

Helicopter:

 

[the_weirdo]

Weds Aug 6: Today we will wheel out of the Rubicon and get to the hotel. We pack up camp and start out around 10:15am. The last big obstacle to get out of Rubicon is Cadillac Hill. It’s a really good climb with a few decent obstacles and some off-camber stuff and takes about 75 minutes to get through. After we get off Cadillac Hill, we take the obligatory picture at Observation Point, then drive the 7 miles out to the staging area. No matter how many times you drive the trail, the last 7 miles always seems so long. You just can’t wait to hit paved road but the 7 mile drive is rough enough that you only average 5-10mph. It just takes forever to get through and it beats the hell out of the steering and suspension as you go faster. In hindsight I probably should have aired down from 12psi to 6psi for this section so that I can run it slightly faster. Eventually we get to the staging area, check our rigs, and air up. The 4 other rigs in my group leave to go hit a lunch spot about 15 minutes up the West side of Lake Tahoe but I want to take a shower and take a nap so I head South to the hotel. An hour later I check into the hotel and the lady tells me that there is not hot water. It sucks, but I just want a shower so I take a cold one. It still felt good to get clean. I nap for about an hour with the AC on full blast, then wake up and walk a block down the street to wash my clothes at the Laundromat. I finish up around 630pm and walk back to the hotel. As I walk up to the hotel the other rigs from the Rubicon trail pull into the hotel.

Coming out of Rubicon Springs:

Making the right hand turn up Cadillac Hill:

Further up Cadillac Hill:

Observation Point:

 

[the_weirdo]

Thurs Aug 7: I decide to take it easy today. The rest of the group seems anxious to get to Deer Valley but I just want to sleep in and take my time. Everyone else gets up early to gas up, get food, meet at Denny’s at 9am for breakfast, then head out to Deer Valley about 90 minutes away. I wake up at 10am, go to Safeway, come back for a final room check, and head out to Deer Valley around 1130am. My dad (in his YJ) and me (in my Cherokee) head over to Deer Valley where we arrive sometime around 1pm. We set up camp and just chill out for the afternoon. We do a Deer Valley night run without incident.

Leaving Lake Tahoe:

Arriving at Deer Valley (Hermit Valley Campsite):

is here:

 

[the_weirdo]

Fri Aug 8: The group does a day run up Deer Valley and eats lunch at the top of the first hill. A few years ago there was a lawsuit and it effectively closed down the trail between the two river crossings. However this year we found a sketchy sign on a sawhorse that closed the trail about 2 miles before the water crossing. Not wanting to get 20 tickets issued at the same time, the group decided to turn around and go back down. We eat some dinner and the some of the group decides to go on a night run for Slick Rock trail which is about 8-10 miles up the road. My brother has decided to drive up to Deer Valley and I want to see him, so I wait at camp. I’m also not very excited for a long night run – this trip is starting to wear on me a little and I know I don’t have a 4 hour trail run in me. I wait at camp with some of the other guys who stayed behind to take it easy. Eventually my brother rolls in and sets up camp. We decide to take an easy night run up Deer Valley. My dad, my brother, and I drive up the mountain to the same observation point I had lunch at during the day. We drink a beer at the top and watch stars for about a half hour. We fire up the Jeeps and about 50 feet from the top we hear the nasty sound of metal snapping. Turns out that my brother’s trackbar has broken at the weld. The circular metal piece at the axle end of the trackbar that holds the bushing has just torn. So I load my brother and his stuff into my rig and we go down the trail back to camp to see if anyone has a welder or run the same trackbar. Back at camp, we figure out that we have welding rod and goggles. We also us some sockets and a big hammer to pound the trackbar back into shape to hold the bushing. We wait for Tim (knucklehead_61) to get back to camp from Slick Rock because he’s the best welder in camp. Once he gets back we prep the tracbar and stick weld it using two batteries in parallel. It is ugly but good enough to get the rig off the trail and will work to get his rig back home on Saturday. We finally get to sleep at 4am and just pass out.

Following my dad up the Gatekeeper. Seemed lots easier than in past years:

Nice views on the way up Deer Valley Trail:

A little spotting:

Lou coming down the Gatekeeper:

Mike flexing it on Gatekeeper. I love his CJ, it is really clean:

 

[the_weirdo]

Sat Aug 9: The group is going to run Slick Rock and leave at 9am. I wake up right at 9am because I hear everyone start their rigs but I’m still pretty exhausted from going to bed at 4am the night before, so I decide to skip it and hopefully some guys will run it a little later. I make my way around camp and find Tim (skipper) and Art who agree to leave camp around 10:15am to go run the trail. I eat some breakfast, chug some Gatorade, and make some manifold burritos for lunch. We leave around 10:15am for Slick Rock Trail. The trail is pretty easy until you get to the final obstacle – the Stair Steps. This obstacle is anywhere from moderate to very difficult depending on which of the many lines you take up. We sit here for a few hours and watch people in our group and other groups try different lines. There are a few close calls with vehicles getting very tippy, but overall it was well-driven by most people. Tim (knucklehead_61) tried going down the obstacle on a line that I didn’t think was a very good idea and very nearly put his big red rig on the roof. He got very lucky by flooring it at the last possible second and kept it upright. After the Stair Steps you can turn around and run the trail backwards or you can get on the road and drive around back to camp. It starts to dawn on me that I am tired of camping and really want a shower and hotel room for the night. I am also not looking forward to doing a marathon drive home on Sunday – any time I can drive tonight will make Sunday that much easier. Driving the trail back and taking the road back both take about the same time and I decide to take the road back for a couple of reasons: 1) I want to stop and get gas on the way back to camp so I can start driving home tonight, 2) things have gone very smoothly for my rig on this trip and I want to minimize any chance of damage before driving 850 miles home. I get back to camp around 4pm and start to pack up. I get packed up by about 5pm and start to say my goodbyes. I hit the road at 5:45pm and drive 3 hours. I find a Motel 6 just north of Sacramento and decide to crash there for the night. This Motel 6 is clearly full of tweakers and other undesirables but the price was right and I was done driving for the night. I hit the sheets at 10pm and pass out. I wake up around 3am to the sound of tons of cop cars in the parking lot. I have no idea what the problem is but I need to go back to bed and have no trouble getting sleep.

Ran into a heard of cows on the road to Slick Rock. They let the cattle "free range" here and they put bells on their tails so you can hear them at night wandering around. There was a group of maybe 10 of them just walking down the road, so I took a picture. This cow was maybe 3 feet from my door:

Art, at the start of Slick Rock Trail:

At one point (maybe back in the 40's/50's), Slick Rock Trail was paved and it lead from Lake Alpine to a Swiss Chalet or something. Some of the pavement can be seen in a few spots:

Tim at the V-notch:

Great view before descending the steep hill:

Tim descending the hill:

Bruce stuck good just after breaking his rear shaft at the Stair Steps. His right rear tire was wedged in really good:

Eric going up the left line of the Stair Steps. It is WAY steeper than the picture looks:

hanging out on top of the Stair Steps:

Stephanie (Ms. Smasho) driving up in Gordo Smasho's rig. She made it look easy:

Mr Ed's rig after almost flopping on the Steps:

The cabin at Mosquito Lake, on the way back to camp: