Rubicon July 2023

[mrk5]

We all made it off the trail on our own power. Got back to Pollock Pines at 6pm Wednesday after stopping for a late lunch in South Lake Tahoe.

I will work a more extensive write up here in a bit when I get the laptop out. Too much story for the phone.

 

[mrk5]

My drive to the west end of the Rubicon is 1,100 miles, or about 18 hours. Our first plan had been to drive 2 days, but my mom decided to come along and she can't sit that long in the car so we changed to 3 days. We left at about 2pm on Friday and stayed at the original Little America in western Wyoming. The longest day on the road was Saturday, driving from Little America to Fernley, NV. Sunday morning we had to make a short stop on the way to our final destination in Pollock Pines, CA.



The view of Lake Tahoe coming in from Carson City, NV.





I was not expecting the heat here in the Sierra Nevada's. In Colorado, we escape the heat in the mountains, but here they are nearly as hot as our summer time temps on the plains. It was 97 degrees in Pollock Pines when we arrived. It was nicer around South Lake Tahoe in the upper 80's which was a nice change from the 109 degrees in Nevada. I think the elevation must play a big part as Pollock Pines is about 1,500ft lower than our home on the plains.

I'm really glad we took 3 days driving out because we got to our rental house mid afternoon so we had plenty of time to prep for starting the trail the next day. We had already discussed doing a later start for the first day of the trail because @72gmck5 and @ashman were going to be getting in later on Sunday, and it ended up being MUCH later after all the trailer tire trouble. We left Pollock Pines a little after 11am Monday. @stupidhumans2000 and @Imaginary Friend 1985 were coming from in state and started the Rubicon ahead of us. The plan was to meet up at Buck Island the first night. As many would expect, things didn't go to plan.

A lot of the pictures I've seen of the Rubicon must have featured the Loon Lake trailhead because to me this was the most iconic imagery of the trail. To me this said "Rubicon" more than anything else. We took some time at Loon Lake for plenty of pictures.







Some more pictures from the first day. I was tail gunner for the trail, so you'll notice most of my pictures are of the tailgate perspective.







I thought it was funny there are lane markers on the trail. I assume because it's technically a county road. So spotters not only have to help find a line thru the rocks, but you also have to make sure the driver stays in their lane.



I thought it seemed like the trail started to get more challenging once we crossed the Friends of the Rubicon Bridge.



I would say the Little Sluice was the most difficult part of the entire trail. Unfortunately, because of that, I don't have any pictures on my phone. @ashman made it thru with just a little rock stacking. @72gmck5 ended up wedged in pretty good and we had to use a winch to get him moving on thru. I needed about the same rock stacking as @ashman, but it took a little more work for me to get out; it was definitely a tight fit for my 12 foot wheelbase.

Aside from Little Sluice, the only trouble our group of 3 had on the first day was the hose between the fuel pump and sending unit coming loose in @72gmck5's fuel tank. It started out with the engine not running well and eventually led to a no-start. Luckily it was a relatively quick fix due to some forethought on Ryan's part to put in an access hatch from the bed floor.

Unfortunately the pair that started the trail earlier ahead of us didn't fare as well. @stupidhumans2000 ended up with a cracked transfer case in the Little Sluice. They were able to patch it up with some JB Weld and get the leak stopped for the most part. He also battled a leak from the pitman arm seal popping out. They were able to bandaid that issue with the neck of a gatorade bottle. Despite all that, they managed to make it to Buck Island ahead of us late starters.

Back to our group of 3, we reached a landmark called Arnold's Rock about 7:30pm but the light was fading quick. We decided it was time to call it a day and give up on our goal of joining the other 2 at Buck Island. Here are a couple more photos to wrap up the day 1 report.





I will continue with day 2 in the next post.

 

[skunked]

The reflectors are there to keep people on the trail. Otherwise, it's hard to tell where the trail is.

I bet little sluice was filled in from the recent jeep event. I was turtled on both driveshafts last month when I ran it

 

[mrk5]

We headed out a little after 9 the next morning, but before departing I took some time to assess the previous day's damage.

I tried running a lower tire pressure for the trail. I had been doing 15psi, but went down to 12 this time. That ended up not working out so well. At one point we came down off a boulder and a loud hissing sound came from the front passenger tire. I quickly realized the bead was unseated, but luckily it sealed up as we moved forward. That tire was basically 0psi by the time we stopped for the day.




The lower pressure also seemed to result in hitting the front diff and axle a lot more than I have on any other trail. By the end of day 3 the front cover was leaking pretty good, but tightening up the bolts fixed that issue.



I chose a very poor line coming down a drop that required turning left around a tree. I got too close to the tree and the truck leaned into it.



At some point we ended up a little too close to the front driveshaft.



Fortunately none of that was anything to stop us from proceeding down the trail. We didn't get too much further down the trail before we decided we were glad we had made the decision to stop where we did. It was have been very tricky to drive that part of the trail in the dark. I think the section of the Rubicon between the bridge and Buck Island may have been the most challenging. Here are a couple more random tailgate pictures.





We did have a couple more trail repair opportunities on the second day. @ashman's K5 decided to take a dump right there in front of me on the trail.



The transmission cooler line had come loose. The clip was still there so he just had to pop the line back in place to fix the leak. Good old transmission fluid makes any leak look like a murder scene.

While Josh was dealing with his transmission cooler, I had manage to find a place on Big Sluice where my wheelbase fit perfectly into a couple of boulders. Luckily another group came up behind us, but they were made up of 3 Suzuki Samurai and 1 first gen grand cherokee. The lead Zuki wasn't sure he could pull me out but I assured him I didn't need much of a tug. He was able to get me out and I could tell he got a big kick out of pulling my 7,000 pound truck with his 2,000 pound Samurai.

The other issue was a broken ubolt on @72gmck5's rear axle. We were able to keep the rig moving by putting a ratchet strap around the axle and spring plate. We had plenty of time to take care of the axle because we were stuck in trail traffic.

We saw very few other rigs on the trail Monday, probably owing to our late start, but Tuesday it was like rush hour traffic. While we were packing up camp, a group of about 15 vehicles passed us. Later when we reached Buck Island, there was our first jam up. The group ahead of us was having some trouble and then a group of nearly a dozen side-by-sides were coming up a bypass going in the opposite direction from us. Eventually the group in front of us moved on and the side-by-side group stayed on the bypass so we could move on past them.

Not too much further down the trail we were stopped again and this was when Ryan discovered his broken ubolt. We're pretty sure it took us nearly 2 hours to finally get moving down the trail. There was a group with a couple of basically stock Gladiators ahead that was struggling mightily. Once they were finally out of the way we decided to let the Samurai group by since they were trying to get to the top of Cadillac Hill and then back down to their camp at Buck Island. Wouldn't you know it, about 50 yards down the trail the Grand Cherokee in their group broke the tie rod. We had to cool our heals while we waited for them to do a weld repair.

Everyone was really cool about waiting and we met some good groups. The only jerk was a guy that is part owner of some private property near Spider Lake. It was obvious he felt like the Rubicon was his backyard and the rest of us were just in his way. Everyone we talked to that had been to the trail a few times commented about how they had never seen that many vehicles on the Rubicon on a Tuesday. We suspect many people had done like us, and postponed their trip due to the heavy snow this past winter.

I don't have many more pictures from day 2. We finally managed to meet up with @stupidhumans2000 and @Imaginary Friend 1985 at Rubicon Soda Springs at about 6pm. This is private property located on the trail and they have paid camping areas. We setup camp on the far end of the property on the other side of a water crossing. It was $20/rig per night so bring cash if you plan to stay there. I would say it is worth it for the swimming hole that was near our camp. We all relished soaking in the cool water after the hot days on the trail.

We started down the remaining section of trail once we drove out thru the water crossing shortly before 10am.

The final noteworthy section of trail was Cadillac Hill. Unfortunately, none of us knew where to look for the obstacle's namesake. It is a tricky, winding hill climb. We had a short delay when Josh broke a ujoint on his front driveshaft. He had a spare front shaft so he made a quick repair by swapping the slip yoke. Unfortunately, I was too busy driving to get pictures. Here is one pic I took to show the view from Cadillac Hill.




We stopped to take a nice group photo once we reached the Observation Point Overlook.




Way back at Little Sluice we found a big piece of squarebody tail light that turned out to be from @stupidhumans2000's K5. Without his knowledge, we decided it would be mighty helpful if we fixed it for him.




Not much further down the trail, @72gmck5's center pin finally decided 1 ubolt and a ratchet strap was not enough. We used some larger 2" ratchet straps to keep the axle in place while we finished the trail and drove back to Pollock Pines.



We were officially off the trail at about 2:30pm. We stopped in South Lake Tahoe for a late lunch and made it back to Pollock Pines at 6pm.

My family is staying here for a couple of days heading back Saturday morning. We're going to check out the area since we've come all this way.


Edit to add more info:

Since we had quite a bit of discussion about fuel I wanted to report that I used 24 gallons from Pollock Pines, thru the Rubicon, and filling up in South Lake Tahoe.

The 3 of us in my rig used about 7 gallons of water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning.

 

[mrk5]

The reflectors are there to keep people on the trail. Otherwise, it's hard to tell where the trail is.

I bet little sluice was filled in from the recent jeep event. I was turtled on both driveshafts last month when I ran it

I wouldn't consider it filled in. Maybe that's where I managed to scar my font shaft.

 

[imiceman44]

We headed out a little after 9 the next morning, but before departing I took some time to assess the previous day's damage.

I tried running a lower tire pressure for the trail. I had been doing 15psi, but went down to 12 this time. That ended up not working out so well. At one point we came down off a boulder and a loud hissing sound came from the front passenger tire. I quickly realized the bead was unseated, but luckily it sealed up as we moved forward. That tire was basically 0psi by the time we stopped for the day.


View attachment 452609

The lower pressure also seemed to result in hitting the front diff and axle a lot more than I have on any other trail. By the end of day 3 the front cover was leaking pretty good, but tightening up the bolts fixed that issue.

View attachment 452610

I chose a very poor line coming down a drop that required turning left around a tree. I got too close to the tree and the truck leaned into it.

View attachment 452611

At some point we ended up a little too close to the front driveshaft.

View attachment 452612

Fortunately none of that was anything to stop us from proceeding down the trail. We didn't get too much further down the trail before we decided we were glad we had made the decision to stop where we did. It was have been very tricky to drive that part of the trail in the dark. I think the section of the Rubicon between the bridge and Buck Island may have been the most challenging. Here are a couple more random tailgate pictures.

View attachment 452613

View attachment 452614

We did have a couple more trail repair opportunities on the second day. @ashman's K5 decided to take a dump right there in front of me on the trail.

View attachment 452615

The transmission cooler line had come loose. The clip was still there so he just had to pop the line back in place to fix the leak. Good old transmission fluid makes any leak look like a murder scene.

While Josh was dealing with his transmission cooler, I had manage to find a place on Big Sluice where my wheelbase fit perfectly into a couple of boulders. Luckily another group came up behind us, but they were made up of 3 Suzuki Samurai and 1 first gen grand cherokee. The lead Zuki wasn't sure he could pull me out but I assured him I didn't need much of a tug. He was able to get me out and I could tell he got a big kick out of pulling my 7,000 pound truck with his 2,000 pound Samurai.

The other issue was a broken ubolt on @72gmck5's rear axle. We were able to keep the rig moving by putting a ratchet strap around the axle and spring plate. We had plenty of time to take care of the axle because we were stuck in trail traffic.

We saw very few other rigs on the trail Monday, probably owing to our late start, but Tuesday it was like rush hour traffic. While we were packing up camp, a group of about 15 vehicles passed us. Later when we reached Buck Island, there was our first jam up. The group ahead of us was having some trouble and then a group of nearly a dozen side-by-sides were coming up a bypass going in the opposite direction from us. Eventually the group in front of us moved on and the side-by-side group stayed on the bypass so we could move on past them.

Not too much further down the trail we were stopped again and this was when Ryan discovered his broken ubolt. We're pretty sure it took us nearly 2 hours to finally get moving down the trail. There was a group with a couple of basically stock Gladiators ahead that was struggling mightily. Once they were finally out of the way we decided to let the Samurai group by since they were trying to get to the top of Cadillac Hill and then back down to their camp at Buck Island. Wouldn't you know it, about 50 yards down the trail the Grand Cherokee in their group broke the tie rod. We had to cool our heals while we waited for them to do a weld repair.

Everyone was really cool about waiting and we met some good groups. The only jerk was a guy that is part owner of some private property near Spider Lake. It was obvious he felt like the Rubicon was his backyard and the rest of us were just in his way. Everyone we talked to that had been to the trail a few times commented about how they had never seen that many vehicles on the Rubicon on a Tuesday. We suspect many people had done like us, and postponed their trip due to the heavy snow this past winter.

I don't have many more pictures from day 2. We finally managed to meet up with @stupidhumans2000 and @Imaginary Friend 1985 at Rubicon Soda Springs at about 6pm. This is private property located on the trail and they have paid camping areas. We setup camp on the far end of the property on the other side of a water crossing. It was $20/rig per night so bring cash if you plan to stay there. I would say it is worth it for the swimming hole that was near our camp. We all relished soaking in the cool water after the hot days on the trail.

We started down the remaining section of trail once we drove out thru the water crossing shortly before 10am.

The final noteworthy section of trail was Cadillac Hill. Unfortunately, none of us knew where to look for the obstacle's namesake. It is a tricky, winding hill climb. Unfortunately, I was too busy driving to get pictures. Here is one pic I took to show the view from Cadillac Hill.

View attachment 452617


We stopped to take a nice group photo once we reached the Observation Point Overlook.

View attachment 452618


Way back at Little Sluice we found a big piece of squarebody tail light that turned out to be from @stupidhumans2000's K5. Without his knowledge, we decided it would be mighty helpful if we fixed it for him.

View attachment 452619


Not much further down the trail, @72gmck5's center pin finally decided 1 ubolt and a ratchet strap was not enough. We used some larger 2" ratchet straps to keep the axle in place while we finished the trail and drove back to Pollock Pines.

View attachment 452620

We were officially off the trail at about 2:30pm. We stopped in South Lake Tahoe for a late lunch and made it back to Pollock Pines at 6pm.

My family is staying here for a couple of days heading back Saturday morning. We're going to check out the area since we've come all this way.

If you're here till Saturday morning maybe we can have dinner Friday night.
Pick a place.

 

[nvrenuf]

Love those quarter panel guards on @stupidhumans2000 Blazer.

 

[Wes Harden]

I hear the trail is is a monster every spring before the annual Jeep event.

Cool pictures. I drove through the area last Christmas, wife has family in the Grass Valley area. Is 11 hours for me.

 

[mrk5]

If you're here till Saturday morning maybe we can have dinner Friday night.
Pick a place.

I'll talk it over with the family and see what we can work out. It'll probably have to be on the early side as we'll be heading out early Saturday.

 

[imiceman44]

I'll talk it over with the family and see what we can work out. It'll probably have to be on the early side as we'll be heading out early Saturday.

Good.
I get off work around 3pm and I don't want to come home at midnight.
No biggie if you can't make it happen, we'll meet again at BB in a few months

 

[mrk5]

I opened this thread and it came up on page 1. My first post was 2017 and we finally made it.

This may be a ridiculously long time to plan for a trip but I think this is the only way we'll get it done. So I would like to start a discussion of doing a big Rubicon run. Hoping some of the California guys like @skunked, @K85 Octane, @ChrisPerry and @sreidmx will help out.

First thing I was wondering about is weather. My first thought was spring break, but I'm guessing it will be snowed in at that point. So now I'm thinking right after school is out might be better. So maybe the first week in June?

Any thoughts?

Aside from that I had a few more reflections on the Rubicon.

I thought some might be interested in comparisons. I only have Colorado and Moab trails to compare to, so I'm a little limited.

Thinking on the individual challenges of the trail, it certainly wasn't the most difficult; Pritchett Canyon in Moab and Penrose Trail System in Southern CO spring to mind immediately for that honor. The best comparison that came to mind is a trail in Colorado that has been closed for 10 years, Left Hand Canyon/Carnage near Boulder; often referred to as just LHC. However, it comes up far short when you consider the length of LHC. The best way to make the comparison is to imagine driving up and down LHC continuously for 8 hours.

The next closest comparison to a Colorado trail would be Holy Cross. Chinaman Gulch is close, but not quite there. Again, those trails are much shorter. It's harder to come up with a Moab trail because the slickrock offers such phenomenal traction compared to the dusty granite on the Rubicon. @ktmoutfront mentioned Steel Bender to me and that is probably about the best comparison.

One thing jumped out to me on the Rubicon, it gave my suspension a good workout. I failed to mention in my writeup above, one of my hood pins tore out of the core support. Like any good squarebody, the whole truck gets a good twisting along with the suspension.

 

[skunked]

Did you run old sluice? That is the most difficult section of the trail however most skip the loop. I've heard the RTF loop is fun too, haven't ran that yet.

 

[mrk5]

Yes we did. I didn't realize it until you asked. Looking at the map I remember Nicole seeing a sign for Indian Trail and asking if I knew where it went. And I agree it was the most difficult stretch, although Little Sluice was the most difficult single obstacle. It was the first thing we did the second day and Nicole and I both commented we were glad we camped where we did and didn't try and drive thru there in the dark.



The only thing obstacle I'm not certain about is Soup Bowl. I thought it would be more obvious where it was.

 

[mrk5]

I added some info to my trip report post above and thought I would post it here too.

Since we had quite a bit of discussion about fuel I wanted to report that I used 24 gallons from Pollock Pines, thru the Rubicon, and filling up in South Lake Tahoe.

The 3 of us in my rig used about 7 gallons of water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning.

 

[ashman]

We had an absolute blast on the trail and @mrk5 posted a pretty good summary of it. I got a few pics, but mostly video. Hopefully we'll have a video to share soon on our Uinta Garage Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/uintagarage

Obviously had to get a shot in front of the sign. It was so much fun, but at this point we really had no idea what to expect.


I was leading most of day one. Not because I knew where to go, but I just happened to be in front. 8)


Our camp for night 1. We picked a spot that had some flat ground near a bathroom between Arnold's Rock and Old Sluice Box.


After 3 days on the trail, we all got some well deserved pizza!


The biggest issue I had on the trip was getting there and back. The tow rig (2017 GMC duramax) ended up having issues with the DEF system and had to be repaired at a dealership, and all told I lost 6 trailer tires. I brought 3 spares with me, and bought 4 new tires in Reno, and still ran out of tires.



Here we are on the side of the highway. We pulled the blazer off to reduce weight and strapped up one of the axes because we were out of tires. @72gmck5 drove the blazer the last few hundred miles, while I limped the trailer with his rig back home.


I'm still pretty wore out, and the ride home is most on my mind at the moment, but I'll post some more pics soon.

 

[Wes Harden]

Wow I am wondering why the tires didn't last ?

 

[mrk5]

Because it was fawking hot on the highway. Trust me, I experienced it fully.

 

[ashman]

Wow I am wondering why the tires didn't last ?

Because it was fawking hot on the highway. Trust me, I experienced it fully.

That was FOR SURE a factor, but there were others.

2 tires were lost due to punctures. Picked up a nail at some point on one, and we lost a ratchet which went under the tires and punctured another.
2 tires were just shit spares I picked up right before we left that both blew within 20 minutes of putting them on. These were probably heat related also.
2 more tires we think we lost due to rubbing on the trailer. This was a HEAVY load and one of the trailer fenders is bent enough to contact the tire during bouncing. We lost 2 tires in that position before we realized it was happening. On the way out, we plugged the nail tire and had it in this same position before losing it again as well.

We found another tire that was loosing air pressure that turned out to be a bad rim. We caught this one before it blew, so I almost forgot about it.

I think that's all of them, but it's hard to remember.

 

[skunked]

That’s a heavy ass load for sure.

 

[pblaze725]

I unloaded at Loon Lake and drove around to the Tahoe side. I saw you guys coming out. I was waving like Forrest Gump.

I met up with. @supermotard750 & some Full-size takeover guys. I did the trail backwards and had the most epic adventure. I made it out on my own power.

The JIMMY got the new nickname of “turtle”. Slow and steady.
I didn’t take a lot of pics.