Trip Report: The Rubicon Trail Experience September 5th, 2012

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[video=youtube;sm12DWwiP2w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm12DWwiP2w&hd=1[/video]

I grew up in California as a kid. My friend down the street spent every night welding/building his 40 and 60 series landcruisers. He spent hours and hours after dark working on those things. With no 4x4 trails within hours of my house, I never understood the allure and I thought he was crazy. One night he gave me a tour of his garage and his cruisers. He told me about his true passion: driving his cruisers on the "Rubicon Trail" every few months with his dad. He lived for that trail, and everything he did was for the end goal of getting back to the Rubicon. That conversation planted a seed that has never stopped growing. Ever since that discussion 15 years ago, that seed has grown into a dream of experiencing the Rubicon trail for myself.

On Wednesday, September 5th, that dream became a reality. Turbominivan, Billylight, and I hit the open road, looking for adventure. They say that adventure starts when your plans take an unexpected turn... We definitely had an adventure. Dempsey gave a fantastic summary of that first day here: http://www.rme4x4.com/showthread.php?92801-Rubicon-Trail-Sept-5-8-2012

An hour into the ride, Billy's kids wanted to ride with Fender in the back. They were having a blast back there.

Just outside of Wendover, the Wagoneer started to overheat and lose power. It didn't help that there was road construction and the big rigs were going up the passes at 15 MPH. We pulled over to assess the situation.

Billy swapped out the fuel pump while his kids watched...

That didn't seem to do much, so we bypassed the fuel filter using a bic pen. Yeah, Billy really is that cool.

Maverick caught us on the radio to tell us that he broke a leaf spring on his trailer. We got it fixed in Wells.

Right as we were getting the leaf springs swapped out on the trailer, Turbominivan's clutch started acting up on him.

He and I booked it to Elko where he had to respectfully bow out of the trip that he had been counting on since February. *It was a heartwrenching experience as he was told his jeep wouldn't be fixed in time to complete the trail with us.

Around 1AM my brother Brian met up with me from San Francisco. We headed up Ice house road for an hour or more, and the trailhead coldn't come soon enough. Brian was sitting in the back, holding a tarp over all our gear, trying to keep it all dry. We crossed the dam to Loon Lake, crossed through the staging area, and began on the trail. My excitement was overflowing. I felt like a kid sneaking into disneyland after the guards had gone home. I exclaimed aloud "we finally made it, we're actually on the Rubicon Trail." It was a truly exciting moment for me. It was 2 AM and we had never been on the trail, and it isn't defined well at the start. Fortunately for us, we caught sight of some yellow reflectors installed on the granite, which made route finding a cinch. After a hundred yards or so up the rail, we spotted a familiar red JK and a smiling face approaching us. TJDukit and LHRacing had beat us to camp and were there to help us set up. We quickly pitched our tents in the drizzle and our heads hit the pillow by 2:30 AM. What a day!

 

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In my efforts to be more like my early-morning heroes DAA and Frieed, I awoke before the sun rose. The rain had stopped and it was a beautiful morning.

For the next hour and half we wandered around checking out the landscape and taking pictures as we awaited the rest of our group.

It was stunning to see the amount of work that went into carving this spillway out of solid granite. Those walls are easily 50 feet tall.

 

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Pretty soon, Alex arrived from Santa Monica in his LJ.

The rest of the group soon trickled in.

We packed everything up and hit the trail before the large group of JKs started heading our way. We didn't want to get stuck behind any big groups, which proved to be the best decision we had made yet.

My disneyland excitement was just as high as the night before. I was so excited to be on this trail. I have no idea why, but this trail meant a lot to me. Within 5 minutes of starting the trail I turned to my wife and said "Why haven't all my friends told me about how amazing this trail is? Why haven't they grabbed me by the shoulders and said 'Steve, go wheel the Rubicon as soon as you possibly can'?" Maybe it's because I grew up in Northern CA and I have missed the pine trees and the granite. Maybe it was the fun factor, how there was fun obstacle after fun obstacle. The trail wasn't too easy, but it wasn't too hard either. It was just plain fun. Couple that with great company, incredible scenery, and being with my family, it doesn't get any better than this.

The trail was still wet from the rain the night before, which made it a little trickier than normal. It turns out the Mineral Basin shakedown run was perfect practice for this trail.

 

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While we were up there, a helicopter made about 20 passes over us, back and forth. We later found that Jeep had paid for a bunch of guys to wheel the Rubicon in stock 2013 Jeep Rubicons. They used the helicopter to fly in all their camping gear. Now THAT's glamping!

Proof that we filmed it too.

 

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After about 45 min into the trail, the terrain changed from large granite expanses to a more wooded area. We found an outhouse a little ways in, and we took a short break. Right as we stopped, it started to drizzle for a few minutes, just enough to keep the dust and the heat down.

We then made our way up Walker Hill. This was a fun climb without incident. Most of the difficult

Since everything was going so smoothly and I had made every obstacle I had tried, I thought I could tackle the tougher section coming down Walker Hill. I was overconfident and I ended up with both of my pass side tires spinning in the air. A quick tug of the strap and we were ready to go. Thanks Lane!

 

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From there we headed towards the [optional] little sluice. It'd be fun in a rig with at least 37s, but after walking the trail, we decided to take the easy section around little sluice.

I wish I had taken the time to see Spider lake, but I didn't notice the turnoff. Next time...


The trail got rockier and much tougher after little sluice.

Shane is my new favorite spotter.

We were all getting pretty hungry by now, and we picked a horrible place to stop and eat lunch. In retrospect, we should have had lunch near the bypass to little sluice. Oh well.

 

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We continued our pace after lunch.

Eventually we came to the section where the trail goes around "Thousand Dollar Hill." Thousand Dollar Hill used to be an obstacle, but it was recently closed off and is now illegal. I've heard stories of how they've slowly been taking the tougher sections out of the trail, where they're making it a lot easier. Even though this used to be the 'bypass', it was still pretty challenging.

 

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Next was a cool little chute we went through.

Pretty soon we found ourselves crossing a small stream.

 

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We then found ourselves at Buck Lake.

We decided this would be a great place to set up camp for the evening.

Shane talked us into going for a swim. I'm so glad he did, swimming turned out to be one of my favorite parts of this trip.

We had heard the stories about bears being popular in this area, so we prepared accordingly. We prepared food downwind and away from camp, we kept a clean camp, and we locked all our coolers and scented things (toothpaste, deodorant, garbage, etc) in the cab.


That night was an exciting night. After the swim, we headed back to camp for dinner. After we finished eating, we noticed two young guys in yellow "trail patrol" shirts walking our way. They were stacking rocks everywhere they could. They pretty much made ramps up the entire trail. When we asked them what they were doing, they replied "Chrystler paid a whole bunch of execs to come out and drive the 2013 Rubicons out here. They hired professional media, and if we don't stack these rocks then the new drivers will struggle on this trail." We asked if anyone would be removing the rocks after the jeeps went through and they just laughed. We then watched 13 or so brand new 2013 JK Rubicons come through. They had professional spotters, and it was obvious many of the drivers were new. Some were quite good, while others were still learning. I vote that we have our next quarterly training day on the Rubicon. I imagine these guys were good drivers by the end of the night. They told us that they were the ones who had helicoptered all their gear up to Rubicon Springs earlier that day.

Right behind the Jeep bottleneck, we caught up with the Scrambler guys. They told us that Maverick had hooked up with them earlier. We were glad to hear that he made it to the trail. Unfortunately, they also told us that he rolled on walker hill, and once he got righted, he blew a bead. Bad luck. After a few hours, he got things all back together and made it in to camp and met up with us.

 

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As I awoke before dawn, I searched for evidence of bears and I was delighted to find that they had left us alone. Our preparation paid off.

I headed down to the water, only to find Lane had beat me to it.

As the sun began to rise, I could tell that this was going to be a fantastic day. Although my disneyland excitement was starting to wear down, I was still having the time of my life.

 

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We got packed up and hit the road...

... we were finally a complete group with Maverick was with us.

The trail started to get tougher than anything we'd seen yet.

My front bumper finally got some action!

 

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Pretty soon we found ourselves driving down the sluice box. This was a super fun area. We met a group from sweeden, who had rented jeeps and were running the trail in reverse. They were surprised at how difficult it was to get up the sluice box.

Noah was an awesome cameraman. Before we knew it, we were at the Rubicon bridge. For some reason, this was the section of trail that I was most excited about. It sounds stupid, and I can't explain it, but getting my picture taken on this bridge was as exciting as visiting the moon. I was thrilled.

If this picture doesn't prove that Brett is a boss, I don't know what does.

 

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There are a few things that make this trail amazing. One is how the scenery changes every 10 minutes. The obstacles never end, and it's just plain fun. Add that with one of the most beautiful places you've ever been in your life, and it really is magical.

A few minutes later we pulled into Rubicon Springs. What a stunning place. This is private property, and they allow people who travel the Rubicon to use it. We decided this would be the perfect spot for lunch.

Some of us chose to sunbathe...

... while others chose to swim...

... and some chose to to both.

Kristi and her group headed out early so they didn't have to camp another day on the trail. Short after that, Brian, Layne, and I left Alex and Maverick behind with their new best friend.

 

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We worked our way up Cadillac Hill, which was definitely the toughest part of the entire trail. There were burn marks where the recent fire at the past Jeep Jamboree happened. We were so preocuppied with the difficulty of the trail that we didn't get any pictures. Everyone was hanging on for dear life. Cadillac hill must have climbed a good 1500 feet without a break. We were greeted with a spectacular view at the top.

From there it was a bumpy road out to the staging area.

 

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We knew we had to pass 3 lakes before the staging area, so we decided to camp at Miller Lake. We found the most amazing campsite in the world. I've never camped in a more beautiful spot.

My wife and I went swimming. It was cold at first, then it felt awesome (but not as awesome as my hot shower waiting for me at camp).

Fender did some filming of his own.

Later that night, Brett and Alex caught up with us. I guess they had enough of their new best friend. He sure was impressed with Brett's big block though. Once he passed out, they high-tailed it out of there and headed our way. It would have been a fantastic night for a campfire, but with the fire restrictions, we all gathered around the lanterns. This was one of the most peaceful places I've ever stayed in my life.

 

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On our way home, we gassed up in Truckee. If gas prices keep trending this way, I won't be able to afford another trip like this. Let's hope they go down.

I dropped my brother off with his wife and they headed back to San Francisco.

Fender was exhausted, the true sign of a great trip.

 

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In summary, this trip was absolutely surreal to me. It was exactly what I needed. It definitely ranks with one of the top 3 moments of my life. I think my wife would agree. It was so relaxing, fun, and enjoyable. The company was great, and I made lots of new friends and strengthened old friendships. This may have to be an annual trip for me, it was even better than I could have expected.


Here's our video of the trip:

[youtube]sm12DWwiP2w[/youtube]

 

[LT.]

Already, this is most impressive! Looking forward to more.

LT.

 

[blznnp]

thats a lot of reserved spots, can't wait to see all of the pictures. just from those first posts looks like a awesome adventure with great scenery

 

[ricsrx]

Steve this is great, and looks like a blast, i hope to get in on the next trip!!