The Rubicon Trail 2009

[Number7 89]

We left Phoenix for The Rubicon on Friday, July 10th. We decided to take a different route

 

this time; up through Nevada to Walker Lake and then over, because it’s a shorter distance

 

and there aren’t as steep of summits to climb. We wanted to go across the Hoover Dam so

 

we could see the progress of the bridge they’re building.

 

Here’s Number 7 on the dam:

 

 

This is a link to the thread showing the progress of the bridge when we were there:

 

http://www.offroadpassport.com/forum/showthread.php?p=143#post143

 

We spent the 1st night in Beatty NV., the Gateway to Death Valley, at the Death Valley Inn.

 

It’s a nice place that’s recently been refurbished and remodeled, and we hung out in the

 

pool and barbequed before taking a walk around the city park.

 

 

Beatty’s a nice little town. There’s a man made of auto parts on the corner and they like

 

trains.

 

 

 

After leaving Beatty, we passed a couple of bordellos in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

 

Honestly, you would have to be sincerely desperate to drive that far for a fling!

 

 

This poor guy tried to fly in for one and apparently crash landed. I wonder if he’s still out

 

there?

 

 

From there we went through Tonopah, Hawthorne, Mina, Walker River Indian Reservation

 

and then cut over to Yerlington and then up to Carson City. Going through Carson City

 

turned out to be a huge loss of time; start and stop traffic all the way along! Finally we

 

made our way through town and down to Lake Tahoe through Zephyr Cove, beautiful!

 

 

 

Little Jeep, Big City:

 

 

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[Number7 89]

The next morning we left our Tow Rig and Trailer at the hotel and took the Jeep to

 

Georgetown. The scenery along I-50 is spectacular; you get your first glimpses of

 

the granite and you can see this roaring waterfall way up on the side of the mountain:

 

 

We stopped at the Ranger Station for our fire permit and a picnic lunch:

 

 

We got to Georgetown at about 3 and went driving around looking at the town. George had

 

noticed that our front OX cable was caught between the spring and the knuckle; it looked

 

like it was being pinched really badly. He had borrowed a gynormous crowbar in Beatty,

 

but that didn’t do the trick, so he’d been stewing about it the entire trip. I had the bright

 

idea of disconnecting the front sway bar and driving up on a rock so we could make the

 

spring dangle and get it out. Okay, fine smarty, now get me a rock. So off we go, looking for

 

a poser rock, and what do we find? A ballpark surrounded by big rocks to prevent people

 

from parking on the grass! Viola! Fixed!

 

 

We had the Hilltop Motel in Georgetown to ourselves until Sam arrived at about 6:00 P.M.

 

George had to try the new rig on for size while Sam registered; he said he likes it, and

 

honestly, he looked great in it!

 

 

As we grilled up some burgers and talked about the trail, a group of about 10 rigs from

 

Canada arrived. They were mostly in Jeeps, but also included in their group was a Suzuki

 

Sidekick and a Nissan X-terra. Unfortunately, my old point and shoot camera gave up

 

taking pictures in low light a long time ago, so no pictures of them at the hotel, but we did

 

end up meeting them again several times on the trail, which I will tell about later, and

 

which is why I brought them up at all.

 

The next morning everybody was up bright and early getting ready to hit the trail. George

 

was drinking his coffee outside, and crouched down in front of Number 7 just in time to

 

see a glint of sunlight through a crack in the front upper control-arm mount on the tube

 

side. We were both pretty nervous about hitting the trail with a cracked control-arm

 

mounting bracket, so we went looking for a welder. Low and behold there was a shop right

 

next door, and the guy said he could do it real quick for us.

 

 

He did a great job; $40.00 lighter and 45 minutes later, we were ready to hit the trail.

 

 

We were scheduled to meet the rest of our group, BigRube [Jack & Alice], at Stumpy

 

Meadows Lake, so at 10:00 we left Georgetown and headed that way.

 

 

Once we were all together and on the road, it was only another hour before we found the

 

trailhead to Wentworth Springs. This is the ‘Traditional’ way to get to the Rubicon Trail. A

 

lot of the books and trip reports you read describe getting to the trail from Loon Lake,

 

which is where we like to camp the 1st night.

The 1st must see stop when you go in through Wentworth Springs is this waterfall on Gerle

 

Creek.

 

 

Lunch at Wentworth Springs Campground

 

 

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[Number7 89]

After lunch we very quickly came to The Devil’s Post Pile, which was relatively congested in

our experience. We caught the Canadians and had to wait while they repaired a torn valve

stem, and there was a group from the Sacramento area coming the other way, also

waiting. We took a by-pass past the most crowded spot, which also happened to be the

most difficult spot, but I know we coulda made it! This picture should give you a general

idea of what The Devil’s Post Pile is like, although it’s taken at a relatively mild spot:

 

 

When you reach the top of the Post Pile you enter ‘The Slabs’ AKA ‘The Granite’. The

Canadians and we met another group from Utah right when we got to the slabs, and we all

stopped to chat for a few minutes. It was kind of cool because all three groups kept

meeting again throughout the trek.

 

 

Right there where The Post Pile meets The Slabs is where this placard is displayed:

 

 

From here we had to cross the Granite Bowl to get over to Loon Lake. Through the granite

sections, the trail is marked by reflectors stuck to the rock with an adherent, which are

kind of tricky to find them sometimes, but generally not too difficult.

 

 

The trail takes you down to ‘The Gatekeeper’, a difficult section through boulders and

trees, which leads to the spillway at Loon.

 

 

We got to Loon Lake late in the afternoon and found our campsite on the far side of the

lake. During planning, when the group looked to be about 8 rigs, we reserved a group site

to ensure that we could all camp near each other. As it turned out we were very happy with

the group site even though there were only 3 rigs; we had an entire ‘loop’ in the developed

campground to ourselves, including the restroom facility and water spigot. We were able

to take a very quick dip in the lake before starting dinner, not because of the time but

because of the water temperature!

 

 

 

 

We left camp about 8:30 Tuesday morning and headed back out for The Gatekeeper and

the Granite Bowl. One of the added bonus’ of coming in through Wentworth Springs is

running The Gatekeeper twice if Loon Lake is your camp of choice. For us it meant that I

got to drive The Gatekeeper for the 1st time Tuesday morning, while George did some

spotting for our group.

 

 

 

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[Number7 89]

Back out on the Granite

 

 

 

 

Just past Ellis Creek

 

 

Overlooking Loon Lake from the trail

 

 

Making our way along

 

 

Just another day in paradise

 

 

 

Little Sluice

 

 

 

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[Number7 89]

By-Pass to the Little Sluice

 

 

 

Approaching $1,000 Hill

 

 

My turn again! George’s services were badly needed for spotting after we got past the True

Sluice, so I got to take the wheel again.

 

 

 

After his spotting services were no longer needed, his navigating services were! As you by-

pass the True Sluice, there are so many different ways you can go, so George walked ahead

of the group to make sure we were taking feasible lines that didn’t drop off. So George

basically walked from the entrance to True Sluice Box – all the way over to Buck Island

Lake!

 

On the By-Pass to True Sluice

 

 

Out on the trail earlier in the day a couple going the other way had told us about a

campsite at the Buck Island Lake spillway that we should try to get. At one point, we

thought we’d miss out for sure because another group passed us on the by-pass to True

Sluice, but they stopped at The Mechanics Area, the most widely known campsite at Buck

Island.

 

Almost to the spillway we found The Canadians, AKA ‘The Herd of Turtles’ camped along

the trail, so we stopped to say hi and ask if anybody had lost a mechanic’s overall we had

found along the way. Tom came over and recognized the overall as belonging to another

guy in their group, and also asked us if we might have a spare pitman arm for a TJ. “As a

matter of fact we do”, said George, “give us a few minutes to set up camp and then come

on over there”.

 

So we totally lucked out because nobody was in the spot we wanted when we arrived. This

particular camp will only accommodate a few rigs, because you’re not allowed to park off

the trail. Right when you get to the spillway (which the trail goes across), look to your left

and you will see a nice clearing in the trees. This is where we camped. The proximity to the

lake is ideal, as you can jump in to get rinsed off, and walk a couple steps back to your

camp thus not getting sweaty!

 

Our Killer Campsite at Buck Island Lake Tuesday night

 

 

 

The Canadian guys walked over bearing gifts (a beer in each hand) to talk about the

pitman arm. George and I were afraid that if we sold it, and then ours broke, we’d be stuck

out there without a spare. But as it happened, a couple of rigs from The Herd of Turtles

were in Reno and on their way back to Rubicon Springs with it. So we ended up lending

our spare pitman arm to Tom with the agreement that they would meet us at Rubicon

Springs the next afternoon.

 

Wednesday morning the fun begins as soon as we leave Buck Island Lake

 

 

 

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[Number7 89]

It is less than 3 miles from Buck Island Lake to Rubicon Springs, but it is the longest 3

miles you will ever travel. Here is the roughest section of the trail which includes The Big

Sluice, for which there is no by-pass. We left Buck Island at 9 AM and arrived at Rubicon

Springs at 2 PM.

 

 

Number 7

 

BigRube (Jack & Alice)

 

 

We got seriously hung up here

 

 

But Sam didn’t!

 

 

The pictures of the Big Sluice Box don’t even begin to show what it’s really like. This is the

part of the trail where I describe it as rocks as big as Jeeps. Here’s what it looks like as

you’re approaching the Big Sluice Box

 

 

Number 7 at the top of Big Sluice

 

 

BigRube at the same spot

 

 

Sam’s turn

 

 

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[Number7 89]

Images from The Big Sluice

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is about the spot when we heard someone over the CB announcing that they

 

had found the cap off a U-Joint that looked really fresh, and suggested everybody take a

 

look under their Jeeps. It turned out that the party making the announcement was The

 

Canadians, who had caught up with us just as we approached The Big Sluice, and the

 

owner of the broken U-Joint was our own BigRube.

 

 

Unfortunately Jack didn’t have a spare; a service person at a dealership had told him that

 

you couldn’t buy the U-Joint alone: 'You have to buy the whole axle shaft', he’d said. To

 

our utter amazement, The Herd of Turtles had a spare U-Joint, and their leader is a

 

mechanic who really knows Jeeps! He noticed right away that the stub-shaft ear was oval

 

shaped, and to replace only the U-Joint would mean certain failure again very soon, and

 

Jack should replace the whole axle assembly. So, now we're thinking about probably being

 

stuck right here on The Big Sluice for the next few days while someone goes for parts, but

 

the Canadian mechanic also had a spare axle shaft that he was willing to sell AND install

 

for $200! If you took Econ 101, you know that supply alone dictated that he could have

 

charged a whole lot more! So, Jack pays $200, and about 30 minutes later we’re on our

 

way again. Love those Canadian Guys!

 

Back on the trail again

 

 

 

 

 

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[Number7 89]

When you get to Rubicon Springs you first drive through an area where there are

 

buildings, stages, lots of tents, and grass. This is where you pay if you’re going to camp

 

anywhere in the private property that is Rubicon Springs. The price was up from the last

 

time we there to $15 per vehicle; what a bargain considering what you get for your money.

 

Here we are lined up waiting to pay

 

 

We found The Herd of Turtles out by the river on the way to find a camp for the night. The

 

2 guys who had gone to Reno were back, but the pitman arm they bought didn’t work on

 

Tom’s Jeep. Since the worst was behind us, as far as rocky terrain vs. the risk of breaking a

 

pitman arm, and the Canadian group had treated us so well by fixing Jack’s Jeep we went

 

ahead and sold our spare to them.

 

We found a place to camp where Sam and Jack were under the trees on some soft ground,

 

and we were right next to them but on a granite slab. I really enjoyed hanging out where

 

we camped; it was pretty nice not to have to wear shoes to keep your feet clean after

 

swimming. The water wasn’t as cold in the river so we all got to take a good soak! Here are

 

some pictures of our camp Wednesday night at Rubicon Springs.

 

 

 

 

A visitor under our tent in the morning

 

 

Thursday morning we broke camp and started out for Tahoe. At the base of Cadillac Hill I

 

stopped to take a picture of Syd’s Grave. Sydney S. Mainwaring was one of the early

 

planners of the Jeepers Jamboree, and he is honored here on The Rubicon. There are other

 

grave markers alongside, of other people who meant a lot to The Rubicon and vice versa.

 

 

 

The placement of the graveyard at the base of Cadillac Hill facilitates your already growing

 

sense of anxiety and anxiousness as you approach this final obstacle on The Rubicon. It’s

 

steep, rocky, loose, wet and narrow in places with a drop off; all of the favorites wrapped

 

into one.

 

Number 7 at the bottom of Cadillac Hill

 

 

 

Jack took a higher line and got pretty tippy at the bottom

 

 

This is not a great photo of anything other than it shows what the trail is like in this

 

section

 

 

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[Number7 89]

Here’s Sam doing his part to keep blue paint off of the rocks

 

 

Jack & Sam making their way up

 

 

Almost to the top we caught up with the group from Utah

 

 

The final obstacle on Cadillac Hill

 

 

From the top of Cadillac Hill it’s a short trek to Observation Point.

 

 

On the trail to Tahoe

 

 

 

Here is the link to the thread about the Cherokee we saw at Miller Lake and what we

 

found at the air-up area: http://www.offroadpassport.com/forum/showthread.php?p=160#post160

 

The Cherokee scene was sort of an ominous way to end a wonderful trip. None-the-less,

 

everyone in our party admitted to having had the time of their lives. From there we went our

 

separate ways: Jack and Alice back to Stumpy Meadows Lake and their motor-home, while

 

Sam and we went to Tahoe for the night. We loaded Number 7 onto the trailer, showered, ate

 

and slept, in that order.

 

4 AM found us already up and on the road for home, with another great Rubicon Trail

 

Adventure under our belts!

 

 

We’re already daydreaming about running The Rubicon again, and looking forward to

 

sharing the adventure!

 

GnD

[peshaw48 6]

Nice write-up and pictures. Thanks for sharing those! Diane your trip reports are the greatest.

 

phil