Peter Weber
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- September 23, 1999
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- Simi Valley, CA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '99 Sport
Well guys, here it is:
Rubicon Trip Report
Location: Lake Tahoe area, California
Date: Aug.28 – Sept.1
Participants:
Vehicle 1: 1992 Navajo, Tom (FAKRWEE) Rios, owner/driver
Peter Weber, spotter/photographer
Vehicle 2: 1992 Explorer XLT, Colin (Fenderguy) Ignacio, owner/driver
Winter Douglas, spotter/mechanic.
General information about the Rubicon trail:
The Rubicon crosses a section of the Sierra Nevada mountains, starting at Loon Lake and ending near Lake Tahoe at Miller Lake. Elevations run from a 6300-7100 feet.
It is classified as very aggressive mountain terrain for short wheelbase four wheel vehicles and rated a 10 on a scale of 1 - 10.
Some of you reading this report took part in the Moab outing this spring. I read somewhere that the difference between Moab and the Rubicon is the constant need for attention. In Moab, you typically drive fairly easy trail for the sections between each obstacle. At the Rubicon it is obvious that as long as you are moving you need to be totally aware of your tire and vehicle placement
The Rubicon's main milestones are (starting at Loon Lake): Loon Lake, “Walker'' Rock, Little Sluice, Spider Lake, Mud Lake, Old Sluice, Buck Island Lake, Big Sluice, Rubicon River Bridge, Rubicon Springs, Cadillac Hill, Observation Point, Miller Lake. About 14 miles of 4-wheeling!!! Some people say it’s 22 miles, but that’s from a different starting point and out to Lake Tahoe.
This trail is not recommended for vehicles with a wheelbase longer than 102 inches. That put Tom’s Navajo right at the limit, while Colin’s XLT is about 10 inches over and, sorry to say, the recommendation should be heeded. Both of Colin’s passenger doors can attest to that.
Monday, Aug.28: 8 hour drive to Placerville. We met Colin and Winter in Valencia at Wendy’s along I-5.The only thing left was to pick up a few cans of fluids at a local auto supply store and stop by at Warden’s 4Wheel shop. Tom wanted to get reacquainted with the guys that rescued him 2 years ago on a previous trip. You need to ask Tom about the details, I don’t want to repeat the story second hand.
Tuesday, Aug. 29: As we started out, the morning was gray and it stayed like that for the next 2 days. The turnoff to Loon Lake is approx. 20 miles east on Highway 50 (Icehouse Road). A fire permit is required for a any open flame. We got ours at the ranger station. Icehouse Road climbs up into the mountains for what seems forever. Along the first 10 miles of this road, you get a good education about the devastation by a forest fire. What was once beautiful forest, is now a barren wasteland due to a fire some years ago.
We arrived at Loon Lake about 10 A.M. and after crossing 2 dams, we reached a spot considered the staging area. Airing down to around 15 pounds or less, locking hubs and shifting into low and we proceeded with Tom and me in the lead. We soon entered a stretch of woods. The trail snakes between some tightly spaced trees and boulders forcing even short wheel base vehicles to make three-point turns. We made it through without adding any paint to the trees. Before coming out of the woods, you cross Ellis Creek.
The trail then winds its way across the Slabs for about a ½ mile. This is a wide open expanse of granite with no trail to follow. You just pick a set of dark rubber tire marks and hope you selected the right one. Technically, this section is not difficult, but it made me feel very small and insignificant.
After crossing the Slabs, and climbing several steps and ledges on the other side, the next major obstacle is Walker Hill. With a vertical granite wall on the left and a steep drop off to the right, driving up this grade requires your full attention.
The next attention getter is Soup Bowl. At some of the tougher spots, I had gotten out to spot and help Tom find a good line. Since I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, I had tripped a few times, landing on my keester, by walking backwards and tripping over beach ball size rocks. At Soup Bowl, Tom decided to do me favor and save my backside from potential injury by me staying in the truck. The problem here is a double ledge (similar to the Double Whammy in Moab), that you have to climb somewhat off camber angling to the right.
On our first try, the left front came up getting air causing Tom to back off. He gave it another shot with the same results. I don’t know how far up the left front came (Winter said something about a foot and a half), but I learned the real meaning of ‘pucker power’. Tom’s custom rear bumper sticks out quite far and stopped us from going over backwards. After backing off again and trying a straighter line we made it over the top.
Colin also needed a couple tries and his stock rear bumper received some more trail modifications.
Next was the Little Sluice. This is considered by many as the toughest section of the Rubicon Trail. The problem is a rock the size of a small car in the middle of the chute. The space available is not wide enough for a vehicle to get through. You have to put your left tires up into the rock wall and the right side over the rock. (When we stopped at Warden’s the afternoon before, the guys there told us that around the July 4th weekend it became real interesting when another rock of about the same size dropped into the sluice about 10 or 15 feet from the first one.)
Tom had taken a bypass on his previous trip and this time wanted to get his money’s worth out of his new suspension, transfer case and 35 inch tires by trying to go up the Little Sluice. So, we ignored the first bypass and started into the Sluice, Colin right behind us. After a short distance we were faced with a 3 foot ledge in front of us with a big rock sitting there, blocking the way and a second one directly behind it. Checking out and discussing various lines we thought that maybe, just maybe, we could make it across the first rock. But, then there was that second one. We finally admitted to ourselves that unless you’re a mountain goat (or have J**p), it’s just not going to work. No sense tearing up a Navajo and an Explorer, knowing perfectly well that we’re not going to make it anyway. We took the last bail out option by turning sharply to the right up a rock wall. I used Tom’s video camera taping him getting out of there (I used my good old Nikon for Colin). A short stretch across a rock slab, a side trail to the right and one more obstacle brought us to Spider Lake where we camped for the night. It started to drizzle and we pitched our tents in a hurry. It never really developed into anything serious, but stayed with us all night and into the next morning.
Wednesday, Aug. 30: I don’t like camping in the rain, but breaking camp in the wet is worse. We got rolling around 9 a.m.
We backtracked to the main trail, continuing towards Buck Island Lake. After a short distance, the trail splits. You can hug the mountain to the right at the tree line and go down “Old Sluice’ (I’ve seen it called ‘True Big Sluice’ and also ‘Main Sluice’) or go left across another slab of granite. This is where Tom broke his radius arm 2 years ago and being the sentimental type, he wanted to re-visit where he spent two days in solitude while his cousin Ralph (some of you might remember him from Moab) made his way back into Placerville to get a replacement part. I had walked the Old Sluice the evening before scouting the trail and by not it taking now, I was looking forward to a while of easy driving. All I can say is, I was glad that Tom wasn’t using a roof rack to carry gear and also warned Colin and Winter not put anything heavy on top. It’s about a ½ mile of 20+ degrees of off camber giving you a feeling of being on the verge of rolling at any time.
After this ‘character builder’ comes a section of woods with deep ruts left from earlier in the year when the trail was still wet. However, this late in the season it was dry. One more rocky section to cross where both trucks had the rear bumpers banged up again. Also, if my memory is correct, here is where Colin’s longer wheel base demanded it’s first tribute in the form of a minor dent in the front passenger door caused by a good sized boulder.
We reached the dam at Buck Island Lake at about noon. After a picture taking session on a little rocky peninsula, we had to tackle another steep rock wall. A few yards further on, Tom’s truck made an ungodly grinding sound. A check of the front end did not reveal any obvious problems. A few hundred yards later, Tom decided something was definitely wrong. Winter, being the mechanic, crawled under the truck and gave us the bad news. ‘Tom, your driver side radius arm is cracked just about all the way through right behind the upper eye’. This was the same one that was replaced two years ago.
We discussed our options, mostly centered around Colin and Winter going on to Rubicon Springs and hopefully finding a working phone (we couldn’t get a signal on the cell phones) to place an order for a new radius arm. Another option was to remove the arm and take it to the Springs. We were told that a group of 25 jeeps were also on the trail behind us. We hoped a welder would be available at the campground or a jeep would have an onboard one. By taking this approach, we could still place an order if a welder was not available.
By this time, Winter had dropped out of the conversation and kept looking under the truck. He then announced ‘I’m gonna fix this truck so you can drive it to Rubicon springs’. Yeah, right, with what and how. We had tools and various spare parts with us, but of course not a radius arm. Murphy’s law still applies even out on the Rubicon Trail.
Winter’s idea was to strap a nylon cargo tie from the spring mount (at the top of the front axle) to the radius arm rear mount. This was the most ingenious trail fix I have ever witnessed. Not that I have a whole lot of experience in this department. But this was brilliant, especially since it worked. To get a better idea of the finished product, check the pictures.
Approximately two hours after diagnosing the problem, we were on our way again. The first test for ‘the fix’ was a fairly steep and rocky section up the side of the mountain to get around Buck Island Lake. There is a trail along the edge in the water, which is used when the water is low. This was our first choice. I decided to scout it out. It looked pretty good. There is a nice ledge about 6-10 inches under water along the shore. By going ‘real’ slow, I thought we could keep the water out of the air intakes. Unfortunately, about 100 yards or so further on, there was this big mother of a rock sitting right in the middle of the trail. No way to straddle it, no room on the left (toward shore) and with the trail sloping into the lake, impossible to get by on the right without getting into at least three feet of water. We decided to take the high road and made it without problems.
Next was the Big Sluice. Right at the entrance is a 4 foot drop over the ‘Big Rock’. The strap held! Further down Tom’s steering seized. He dropped off a rock into a hole with the steering turned to the left. The back end was still on top of the ledge. After taking the weight off the front with the HiJack (making sure we worked only from the side) Tom was able to turn the wheel and get it the tires straightened out.
There was also a tight squeeze to the right around a large boulder. To keep the doors matching, Colin decided to put a dent into his right rear door panel. From here it was an easy run across the bridge to the campground at the Springs.
The first person we ran into was Art Richter, one of the owners. Telling him about our problem, he said he would send Merlin, the caretaker, to our campsite. He had good news. He has an onboard welder on his Jeep and the next morning a mechanic would be available around 9 a.m. to do the job after the Chrysler group left. The Jeeps came by our camp sometime after six.
Thursday, Aug. 31: After another drizzly evening and night, the dawn brought a cloudless sky. Winter removed the radius arm to have it ready to be welded. By about 10.30 a.m., this job was completed and it was Winter’s turn to do the reinstall. By noon we were on the trail again.
Only one major obstacle left, Cadillac Hill. Tough, but it presented no major problems. The view from the Observation Point was fantastic. From here the trail got easier and easier. We passed Miller Lake and hit Highway 89 at Lake Tahoe, getting to our motel in South Lake Tahoe close to 4 p.m. Tom treated everybody to a steak dinner. Later, we hung out for a couple hours in a small bar that had pretty good entertainment. By this time, Colin had been carded for the 3rd time that evening.
Friday, Sept. 1: Drive back to southern California. We took Highway 395 along the eastern edge of the Sierra. From Bridgeport to Big Pine we ran into more rain with the mountains peaks getting snow. The next day I read that they had 4-8 inches of snow in the higher elevations, the earliest snow since 1988.
All in all, it was a great trip with some extra excitement thrown in. Despite the diversity in our ages with two of us being in our fifties (Tom and I) and two in their early twenties (Colin and Winter) we had a great team. I’ll go out with these guys again anytime and anywhere.
For pictures, go to: Dead Link Removed
Rubicon Trip Report
Location: Lake Tahoe area, California
Date: Aug.28 – Sept.1
Participants:
Vehicle 1: 1992 Navajo, Tom (FAKRWEE) Rios, owner/driver
Peter Weber, spotter/photographer
Vehicle 2: 1992 Explorer XLT, Colin (Fenderguy) Ignacio, owner/driver
Winter Douglas, spotter/mechanic.
General information about the Rubicon trail:
The Rubicon crosses a section of the Sierra Nevada mountains, starting at Loon Lake and ending near Lake Tahoe at Miller Lake. Elevations run from a 6300-7100 feet.
It is classified as very aggressive mountain terrain for short wheelbase four wheel vehicles and rated a 10 on a scale of 1 - 10.
Some of you reading this report took part in the Moab outing this spring. I read somewhere that the difference between Moab and the Rubicon is the constant need for attention. In Moab, you typically drive fairly easy trail for the sections between each obstacle. At the Rubicon it is obvious that as long as you are moving you need to be totally aware of your tire and vehicle placement
The Rubicon's main milestones are (starting at Loon Lake): Loon Lake, “Walker'' Rock, Little Sluice, Spider Lake, Mud Lake, Old Sluice, Buck Island Lake, Big Sluice, Rubicon River Bridge, Rubicon Springs, Cadillac Hill, Observation Point, Miller Lake. About 14 miles of 4-wheeling!!! Some people say it’s 22 miles, but that’s from a different starting point and out to Lake Tahoe.
This trail is not recommended for vehicles with a wheelbase longer than 102 inches. That put Tom’s Navajo right at the limit, while Colin’s XLT is about 10 inches over and, sorry to say, the recommendation should be heeded. Both of Colin’s passenger doors can attest to that.
Monday, Aug.28: 8 hour drive to Placerville. We met Colin and Winter in Valencia at Wendy’s along I-5.The only thing left was to pick up a few cans of fluids at a local auto supply store and stop by at Warden’s 4Wheel shop. Tom wanted to get reacquainted with the guys that rescued him 2 years ago on a previous trip. You need to ask Tom about the details, I don’t want to repeat the story second hand.
Tuesday, Aug. 29: As we started out, the morning was gray and it stayed like that for the next 2 days. The turnoff to Loon Lake is approx. 20 miles east on Highway 50 (Icehouse Road). A fire permit is required for a any open flame. We got ours at the ranger station. Icehouse Road climbs up into the mountains for what seems forever. Along the first 10 miles of this road, you get a good education about the devastation by a forest fire. What was once beautiful forest, is now a barren wasteland due to a fire some years ago.
We arrived at Loon Lake about 10 A.M. and after crossing 2 dams, we reached a spot considered the staging area. Airing down to around 15 pounds or less, locking hubs and shifting into low and we proceeded with Tom and me in the lead. We soon entered a stretch of woods. The trail snakes between some tightly spaced trees and boulders forcing even short wheel base vehicles to make three-point turns. We made it through without adding any paint to the trees. Before coming out of the woods, you cross Ellis Creek.
The trail then winds its way across the Slabs for about a ½ mile. This is a wide open expanse of granite with no trail to follow. You just pick a set of dark rubber tire marks and hope you selected the right one. Technically, this section is not difficult, but it made me feel very small and insignificant.
After crossing the Slabs, and climbing several steps and ledges on the other side, the next major obstacle is Walker Hill. With a vertical granite wall on the left and a steep drop off to the right, driving up this grade requires your full attention.
The next attention getter is Soup Bowl. At some of the tougher spots, I had gotten out to spot and help Tom find a good line. Since I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, I had tripped a few times, landing on my keester, by walking backwards and tripping over beach ball size rocks. At Soup Bowl, Tom decided to do me favor and save my backside from potential injury by me staying in the truck. The problem here is a double ledge (similar to the Double Whammy in Moab), that you have to climb somewhat off camber angling to the right.
On our first try, the left front came up getting air causing Tom to back off. He gave it another shot with the same results. I don’t know how far up the left front came (Winter said something about a foot and a half), but I learned the real meaning of ‘pucker power’. Tom’s custom rear bumper sticks out quite far and stopped us from going over backwards. After backing off again and trying a straighter line we made it over the top.
Colin also needed a couple tries and his stock rear bumper received some more trail modifications.
Next was the Little Sluice. This is considered by many as the toughest section of the Rubicon Trail. The problem is a rock the size of a small car in the middle of the chute. The space available is not wide enough for a vehicle to get through. You have to put your left tires up into the rock wall and the right side over the rock. (When we stopped at Warden’s the afternoon before, the guys there told us that around the July 4th weekend it became real interesting when another rock of about the same size dropped into the sluice about 10 or 15 feet from the first one.)
Tom had taken a bypass on his previous trip and this time wanted to get his money’s worth out of his new suspension, transfer case and 35 inch tires by trying to go up the Little Sluice. So, we ignored the first bypass and started into the Sluice, Colin right behind us. After a short distance we were faced with a 3 foot ledge in front of us with a big rock sitting there, blocking the way and a second one directly behind it. Checking out and discussing various lines we thought that maybe, just maybe, we could make it across the first rock. But, then there was that second one. We finally admitted to ourselves that unless you’re a mountain goat (or have J**p), it’s just not going to work. No sense tearing up a Navajo and an Explorer, knowing perfectly well that we’re not going to make it anyway. We took the last bail out option by turning sharply to the right up a rock wall. I used Tom’s video camera taping him getting out of there (I used my good old Nikon for Colin). A short stretch across a rock slab, a side trail to the right and one more obstacle brought us to Spider Lake where we camped for the night. It started to drizzle and we pitched our tents in a hurry. It never really developed into anything serious, but stayed with us all night and into the next morning.
Wednesday, Aug. 30: I don’t like camping in the rain, but breaking camp in the wet is worse. We got rolling around 9 a.m.
We backtracked to the main trail, continuing towards Buck Island Lake. After a short distance, the trail splits. You can hug the mountain to the right at the tree line and go down “Old Sluice’ (I’ve seen it called ‘True Big Sluice’ and also ‘Main Sluice’) or go left across another slab of granite. This is where Tom broke his radius arm 2 years ago and being the sentimental type, he wanted to re-visit where he spent two days in solitude while his cousin Ralph (some of you might remember him from Moab) made his way back into Placerville to get a replacement part. I had walked the Old Sluice the evening before scouting the trail and by not it taking now, I was looking forward to a while of easy driving. All I can say is, I was glad that Tom wasn’t using a roof rack to carry gear and also warned Colin and Winter not put anything heavy on top. It’s about a ½ mile of 20+ degrees of off camber giving you a feeling of being on the verge of rolling at any time.
After this ‘character builder’ comes a section of woods with deep ruts left from earlier in the year when the trail was still wet. However, this late in the season it was dry. One more rocky section to cross where both trucks had the rear bumpers banged up again. Also, if my memory is correct, here is where Colin’s longer wheel base demanded it’s first tribute in the form of a minor dent in the front passenger door caused by a good sized boulder.
We reached the dam at Buck Island Lake at about noon. After a picture taking session on a little rocky peninsula, we had to tackle another steep rock wall. A few yards further on, Tom’s truck made an ungodly grinding sound. A check of the front end did not reveal any obvious problems. A few hundred yards later, Tom decided something was definitely wrong. Winter, being the mechanic, crawled under the truck and gave us the bad news. ‘Tom, your driver side radius arm is cracked just about all the way through right behind the upper eye’. This was the same one that was replaced two years ago.
We discussed our options, mostly centered around Colin and Winter going on to Rubicon Springs and hopefully finding a working phone (we couldn’t get a signal on the cell phones) to place an order for a new radius arm. Another option was to remove the arm and take it to the Springs. We were told that a group of 25 jeeps were also on the trail behind us. We hoped a welder would be available at the campground or a jeep would have an onboard one. By taking this approach, we could still place an order if a welder was not available.
By this time, Winter had dropped out of the conversation and kept looking under the truck. He then announced ‘I’m gonna fix this truck so you can drive it to Rubicon springs’. Yeah, right, with what and how. We had tools and various spare parts with us, but of course not a radius arm. Murphy’s law still applies even out on the Rubicon Trail.
Winter’s idea was to strap a nylon cargo tie from the spring mount (at the top of the front axle) to the radius arm rear mount. This was the most ingenious trail fix I have ever witnessed. Not that I have a whole lot of experience in this department. But this was brilliant, especially since it worked. To get a better idea of the finished product, check the pictures.
Approximately two hours after diagnosing the problem, we were on our way again. The first test for ‘the fix’ was a fairly steep and rocky section up the side of the mountain to get around Buck Island Lake. There is a trail along the edge in the water, which is used when the water is low. This was our first choice. I decided to scout it out. It looked pretty good. There is a nice ledge about 6-10 inches under water along the shore. By going ‘real’ slow, I thought we could keep the water out of the air intakes. Unfortunately, about 100 yards or so further on, there was this big mother of a rock sitting right in the middle of the trail. No way to straddle it, no room on the left (toward shore) and with the trail sloping into the lake, impossible to get by on the right without getting into at least three feet of water. We decided to take the high road and made it without problems.
Next was the Big Sluice. Right at the entrance is a 4 foot drop over the ‘Big Rock’. The strap held! Further down Tom’s steering seized. He dropped off a rock into a hole with the steering turned to the left. The back end was still on top of the ledge. After taking the weight off the front with the HiJack (making sure we worked only from the side) Tom was able to turn the wheel and get it the tires straightened out.
There was also a tight squeeze to the right around a large boulder. To keep the doors matching, Colin decided to put a dent into his right rear door panel. From here it was an easy run across the bridge to the campground at the Springs.
The first person we ran into was Art Richter, one of the owners. Telling him about our problem, he said he would send Merlin, the caretaker, to our campsite. He had good news. He has an onboard welder on his Jeep and the next morning a mechanic would be available around 9 a.m. to do the job after the Chrysler group left. The Jeeps came by our camp sometime after six.
Thursday, Aug. 31: After another drizzly evening and night, the dawn brought a cloudless sky. Winter removed the radius arm to have it ready to be welded. By about 10.30 a.m., this job was completed and it was Winter’s turn to do the reinstall. By noon we were on the trail again.
Only one major obstacle left, Cadillac Hill. Tough, but it presented no major problems. The view from the Observation Point was fantastic. From here the trail got easier and easier. We passed Miller Lake and hit Highway 89 at Lake Tahoe, getting to our motel in South Lake Tahoe close to 4 p.m. Tom treated everybody to a steak dinner. Later, we hung out for a couple hours in a small bar that had pretty good entertainment. By this time, Colin had been carded for the 3rd time that evening.
Friday, Sept. 1: Drive back to southern California. We took Highway 395 along the eastern edge of the Sierra. From Bridgeport to Big Pine we ran into more rain with the mountains peaks getting snow. The next day I read that they had 4-8 inches of snow in the higher elevations, the earliest snow since 1988.
All in all, it was a great trip with some extra excitement thrown in. Despite the diversity in our ages with two of us being in our fifties (Tom and I) and two in their early twenties (Colin and Winter) we had a great team. I’ll go out with these guys again anytime and anywhere.
For pictures, go to: Dead Link Removed
Three weeks to go. 
