With a 20 hr drive ahead of us we decided to head out early Thursday the 24th at 3:00 am... we met up with Warren and Tracy at the border and headed South... Ian, Ralph and Dave would meet up with us at Loon Lake Friday afternoon. First day of driving got us to Redding Cali. after about 16hrs., booked a hotel and crashed... Friday morning, after loading up with supplies, we buzzed through Sacramento and onto the Ice House Road turn off.. Ian and crowd had beat us to Loon Lake by about 30 min, they had driven all night straight through from Vancouver. Our original plan was to run the Rubicon from the East , this way we would be riding up-hill through some of the sections, or at the least give us a change from last time we were there. Unfortunetly the Landcruiser Rubithon was on, that would cause us too much traffic, so we settled for the Loon Lake staging area again. 

After a good sleep, we packed up and hit the trail in the late morning. The first fun section of trail is a winding part through some trees and over some big rocks. I (Andrew) was first up. I took a rough line to the left and got briefly hung up on a large rock. Had to reposition myself and managed to scrape the x-case over. Warren and Ian both chose the right side and cruised through. After working ourselves through the remainder of trees and rocks, we had our first breakage. While dropping off a ledge, not really a big one, Warren's eyelet for his pintlel hitch shattered when it hit coming down. He had used a rigging ring for a hitch and she couldn't take the load or shock from hitting ledges. We mickey-moused a repair with chain, until we figured out something better or found a nice shady spot to fix it up right. This all happened at the entrance to the Granite Slab, a huge granite bowl that's probably over a mile across with lot's of 'big' ledges and steep inclines to play on. Let alone playing in the area you have to climb some pretty cool ledges to get out of the bowl, I had to take a couple of shots at one quick steep ledge, the clinometer read 41degs just before the crest. Ian walked up it (well,, a little chirping <g>) with the front locker. In the granite bowl we helped out one guy in a Jeep Commando with starter problems as well as a Landcruiser whose windsheild had fallen off. We stopped just after and welded on an old u-bolt I had kicking around, to Warren's trailer tongue. This set-up lasted the rest of the trip without bending or disforming. Most of the trail consists of wandering over large rocks and you never really get out of 4-low, 1st gear until you get to the hwy again. The next notable section was going up, think they call it Walker Hill, a couple of large, inclined slabs with loose rock at the top and bottoms. To get off the hill, there's a about 5' hi dirt bowl to climb out of, a litle bit of a 'V 'to it. I walked through it without any problems, except for almost going sideways on one of the dusted slabs, also got some great air on my left front tire (~3'+ the 5' bowl) ,,, my left rear tire also decided to join the front for a moment or two<g> ,,coming out of the dirt bowl. Warren not wanting to be outdone went for 4+feet of air under his left front tire coming off of one of the slabs,, he recovered it and actually laid it down gently. Ian wanted to do some as well but unfortunetly missed his mark and did a proper "keep all four on the ground" run of it..

Ian at the start

Andrew coming out of a bowl at Walker Hill

Warren climbing on the detour

After watching a 4-Runner beat the tar out of itself trying to get up the Little Sluice and with no end in sight in his quest, we opted to take the by-pass, it was getting late afternoon anyways and the little ones were stirring. Unfortunetly we wouldn't get a chance to go back and do it, Ian would end up taking apart his front springs and replace his spring pins as well as flip his front shims, doesn't have a reverse cut front end and pinion was hitting quite a bit. We camped at Spider Lake for two nights, went swimming and so on.... Then it happened - first aid #1,,, not much wood in the area (I'd suggest picking some up on the trail before getting to spider lake) anyways while out on a wood haul, I was trimming the branches off a dead tree we had fallen. Warren was clearing the cut branches and so was I,,,,,,"BING" he got nailed on the top of the head with the chainsaw,,, sounds worse than it was. Luckily it wasn't still spinning, he ended up with a pretty good gouge on top of his head though. We cleaned and dressed it and he walked around with a cap on the rest of the time,, more likely to deflect "the question" than anything else. Anyways, stay clear of chainsaws, don't wear black when doing this and when operating be alert to your surroundings,, OH YA and shit happens... <G>

Spider Lake

Warren making a water crossing

Picking your way through The Old Sluice Box

Ian re-positioning

Andrew ready to drop

After a casual pack up on Monday morning, we were on the roll again. We headed out of Spider Lake area and down into the valley that takes you to Buck Island Lake. Somewhere along the way Andrew takes a wrong turn and ends up on a pretty challenging and fun dead end....... Not sure how I missed the trail but there's a lot of large sections of rock you drive over, actually they're all over the place,, in any case, I followed someone's else's tracks who had followed someone elses and so on...... We ended up at a large well used turn around :) ..... The trail we ended up on was great,, it dropped a fair bit of elevation, down several series of ledges and a nice tight challenging section around a large tree with 2' boulders strung all over the place. Our total distance on the wrong turn was about 300+feet of fun,,, but also turns out this is where Warren's second trailer problem would occur... His right side trailer spindle sheared off... He's running torsion axles, where the square stock comes out of the bushing there's a flat piece that connects to the spindle. This flat piece was only surface welded to the square stock and sheared off,,, to make my long and shitty explanation short, the shop that fabricated these axles did a crappy job.. Anyways out came the batteries again and with some scrap metal Ian brought along we gusseted it up. It wound up breaking again on us later and we froze up the axle's suspension completely with more gussets so we wouldn't have to look at it again. After the repair we all had a blast crawling back up to the right trail. Being the only non-front lockered rig in our group I had to give her a little more than I liked to get past the large tree and it's roots but I made it Ok.

We crawled along the top end of the ridge and stayed right, after a few more spotting required fun sections we came onto the trail down to the True Big Sluice or Old Sluice.... Basically a narrow, very narrow at the bottom, couple of 100' section ravine that as a variety of rocks, any where from pebbles to 5 footers strung along it's bottom. Oh Ya, through in some minor running water at the bottom just to keep the tires nice and wet.. I was first to go. Pretty much crawled my way with spotter on hand and with a couple of adjustments along way (undercarriage adjustments as well) did fine, Ian followed suite. My carb was starting to act up a bit causing me to stall a few times, it seemed to be doing this towards the end of each day. I ended up setting my idle alittle bit higher, had it down at 400rpm. Warren unfortunetely opted for the by-pass due to the trailer problems, think he had lost a bit of confidence in it a this point. Even taking the by-pass you still have to go through the tight section of the Sluice box. Basically its a tight drop off a left side cliff about 6' hi with a large ~5' rock on your right that rides along your rocker as you go by. With some positioning and re-positioning you climb the rock face on the left side to prepare to drop off it and wrap your right tire around the 'rock'.. My angle finder was at almost 45deg at one point (I re-positioned again <g>),,, managed to get it down to about 38deg and dropped off the left side face, the drop off the face is just about a vertical drop and I think the right side rock actually helped slow us down when coming down it. A litlte bit more scrapping on the old angle iron rocker panel and I was through. Warren and Ian both sqeaked a bit and with some tire dangling fun were also through.... On to Buck Island lake,,, Both Dave and Rox took some turns driving through various good obstacles on this day. Although Roxene has driven stuff in the past she found these section pretty 'exiting'. Dave has never driven off road before so it completely blew him away there's probably still an echo bouncing around in there from his stress releiving successes.. :) What better way to learn than on a 350, NV4500, ARB'ed,, YJ,, talk about taking out the challenge <g>....

Buck Island Lake

A hike worth taking

Where'd the road go??

 We crossed the dam and arrived at camp in the early evening,, just in time to get the mosquitos' welcoming while setting up camp. Dave and I dove into the lake without checking it first and just about froze our nuts off.. It was a lot colder that Spider was,, still felt good though after a long hot day on the trail... Sauna was set up pretty quick for later that night. The following day we hiked to the long waterfalls at the end of the lake.. It's definetly a must for those that hit this trail. There's a second lake tucked in behind there (Desolation Lake ???) and it's pretty much one long waterfall from the back lake to Buck Island lake about .5Km of white dropping water.. We stayed 2 nights at this site.

Wednesday morning we cruised out of camp. We crawled along side the lake trying the different lines and rock faces. The trail basically heads straight for The Big Sluice. Although the rocks are big and trail is tight, it was pretty much all a slow grade down hill. I managed to give myself a minor ding on my right rear quarter panel through one section. This was the section that we were hoping we could have run up hill, if not for the Rubithon.. If we had left earlier we could have squeezed her in, but hey we were on holidays too.... So we settled for downhill.... It's still a pretty good run for downhill,, if you can imagine running a trail like Upper Hut downhill consistently through the rough stuff for about a Km or so.. Lot's of rocks to hang up on and some good air time again,, mind you gravity working in your favor. Ryan (our one year old) got to sort of drive through a part of it and 'D' our 6yr old got to steer a 50' section of steps,, me doing pedals. Lots of bumps and scrapes on the persons this trip, but first aid treatment #2 as arrived. When getting out of the Jeep and not watching where I was going I stubbed my shin into a stump. I looked down and saw a 'piece' of wood sticking out of my leg, turns out about 1.5" of it went into my leg. After a 'few' beers and Tracy working the skin out of the way, I yanked it out, turns out I gave birth to a 1.5x.5x.5" splinter out of my shin. Poured some Cuervo for infection on it <g> and we were off... Shortly after Ian spots Warren through and out of a tight section by putting him on two wheels (same side),, controlled spotting of course.. <g>,,, I opted to go a little bit more to the left.

Warren using the wall to get out of a bowl

Ian found a place to rest his drink

Ian at the base of Cadillac Hill

We came into Rubicon Springs chatted with a few people there and proceeded towards Cadillac Hill. Prior to the hill Ian and I played in a pretty good mud hole and both got stuck, out came Ian's winch and we were off. Cadillac Hill was definetly way more fun than last time.. Found we had to work our way up most of it. The bottom part of it had large boulders strewn over it right on a switchback, you had to wander your way through them and then onto a off-camber slab to get out of that part. The slab went directly into a side hill with loose rocks to get your attention. One good ledge that someone has layed some concrete over and lots of loose rocks. The view riding up the hill on the right is great, you can pretty much see the valley that you have dropped into and back out of on the other side. We got the group photo at the top and wandered our way towards Lake Tahoe. We ran into one more rocky section before getting on the main, don't remember it from last time, but anyways out came the spotters again. Saw a little bit of snow on the way out, most of it in the shade. Ian had a minor fix to do to his shock mounting bolt on his trailer. We crashed at a hotel that night nad headed for home the Thursday. Warren ended up having the other torsion axle go on him just at the Oregon/Washington line. The place he bought these things gave him his $ back and paid for his repairs he had to have done on the way home.

All in all we had a great time, helped out a few others, worked together to get our group through, (relatively unscathed), lots of sun (no rain) and met a lot of nice people down there,,,,, Excellent road trip looking forward to the next one,,,,,, Did I mention no rain!!!!!!!

 

A future Wheeler, says "see y'all Later"  

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