4x4tographer 3,652 Posted September 1 (edited) Unfortunately I ran into mechanical issues at the trailhead the morning of and ended up deciding to make the trip home. My coolant overflow/recovery tank developed a crack at the "neck" on the bottom of the tank and was pitting out a slightly worrisome amount of coolant when we stopped at the Courtright Dam to take a few photos. The location of the crack wasn't something easily patchable. My suspicion is that (with my sealed coolant system) the extreme elevation - around 9,500ft - exposed a weakness in the tank. I made it home Friday night around 10:30pm - @theksmith went on with Roger and Kevin and stayed in touch throughout the journey. I did, however, grab a few photos on the way up and on the way back down the mountain! Courtright Res. The top of Courtright Dam Looking down the dam spillway Some of the surrounding granite domes surrounding the area https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczOF3ZbF6Dm9-6Iyy7psHEqtIJu-8uK-RdVwtDSIfSxuFzWkzOO3xNTeKsFp0vJQppQVPaY6f46TqMEYAuhX4Y5an5sYXSUeUxpfRsKJSUz6DJ7k5kmsmPfYjztk9qhoAFPJUdj23lqnzap4fqiFPK7oQQ=w2048-h1365-s-no?authuser=0 Dinner-to-go on the way back down the mountains A toppled Giant Sequoia. Jeep for scale. I popped into McKinley Grove to check out the Sequoias. Literally just off the road. The grove is about 100 acres and has about 150 ginormous trees up to 2,000 years of age. The road home wasn't boring. Did my best the stay near civilization, in case the coolant tank took a dump, while also trying to skirt the LA traffic. I took the 99 south to 138, across the north side of the Angeles National Forest and down into San Bernardino to connect to the I10. The 138 was interesting, going from a fast 2-3 lane highway down to a single lane through the tiny towns of Little Rock, Pear Blossom, and Llano (which all had traffic lights). I was surprised at the number of semis on this route. Traffic, of course, came to a screeching halt in easy of these towns. The views sitting in traffic weren't half bad, though! Once I got through San Bernardino traffic it was smooth sailing - though I was tracking a pretty large storm that was sweeping through Indio/Desert Palms. Probably one of the most widespread dust storms I've personally experienced. It took about 2 hours to clear it. That said - a bummer I was unable to experience the Dusy firsthand - but looking forward to the possibility of a redemption run in the future! Looking forward to hearing about the crew's experience on the trail. 😊 Edited September 1 by theksmith 5 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
theksmith 5,822 Posted September 1 @4x4tographer - really missed having you on the trip! @TrailTractor, @Roger - great to meet you both and wheel such an epic trail together! please share any photos you grabbed... here's a shot from camp at the end of the trail to get us started! 5 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TrailTractor 9 Posted September 1 Yes, it was trail run I won't forget, because I have a permanent reminder on the LJ from it. A lot of fun, and very challenging thanks for having me on the run! 3 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ob1jeeper 855 Posted September 1 Ryan, Sorry to hear of your issue that kept you from running this trail. 🤒 Tried to send you a message via ORP messages, but I'm blocked from sending you a message. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
4x4tographer 3,652 Posted September 2 2 hours ago, ob1jeeper said: Ryan, Sorry to hear of your issue that kept you from running this trail. 🤒 Tried to send you a message via ORP messages, but I'm blocked from sending you a message. Sorry @ob1jeeper my inbox was full. I cleared it out and can receive messages again. 🙂 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
theksmith 5,822 Posted September 2 (edited) i spent the night before the trip at a hotel in Clovis, a nice suburb of Fresno - which put me 2 to 3 hours from the trailhead still. Clovis is the last city/town of any size heading in. it took me just over 9 hours to get to Clovis from Phoenix. it was lunch time, so i tried out a local eatery (turned out to be OK, but not great). most of my photos are scenic - when the trail got rough i was usually clenching the steering wheel rather than the camera! a lot of the Dusy is dense forest, which i love since that's what i grew up with. i guess it could give some of you desert rats a sense of claustrophobia though! you're constantly steering on this trail, and to say the trail is "tight" would be a massive understatement. shorter and narrower rigs have the advantage here for certain. here's Kevin @TrailTractor coming up to one of a million of the easy obstacles. his LJ was on 35's and definitely hit bottom more often than me on 37's. his narrower track width was evident though many times when his rig sailed through a set of trees that i could barely squeeze my rig between. every so often the trail weaves through a meadow, many of which had a small creek crossing. it has been raining for a couple days before we got there and the first day continued to sprinkle on and off. there were puddles but not really much mud... the Dusy is usually a very dusty trail so the wetness helped keep that down and was appreciated by all of us - especially since Kevin and @Roger both had open-air Jeeps. Thompson Hill is the main event on this trail - a very steep, super loose, bouldery hill climb. compared to the last time i ran the trail 4 years ago, the hill was considerably rougher. it was way more dug-out in places. those extra holes of loose dirt between some rather large rocks ended up providing quite a challenge. this is technically the bottom of the hill, but before it gets really interesting. this was a sketchy spot where i kept sliding sideways and eventually had to winch. you can't tell at all from the photo, but you're looking down a steep incline here and my passenger rear is up against a hard ledge rock. the driver front kept sliding off the rock you can see here, and the other 2 tires had absolutely no grip in the loose sandy dirt. i ended up winching another 2 places before the top. Kevin winched once - which he said he'd never had to do before even after having run the rubicon multiple times and Fordyce as well! Roger's 40" tires, 1-tons, and Atlas transfer case kept him moving forward the entire trail without needing a winch. Gadget slid sideways into one tree on Thompson, which ripped the passenger mirror clean off. Roger also had a sideways slip and got a very minor dent just behind the hood and dislodged his a-pillar light bracket a bit too. Kevin was the only one to escape the hill without a souvenir! continued... Edited September 2 by theksmith 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
theksmith 5,822 Posted September 2 we spend the night at the Thompson Lake camping area, which already had 2 other groups setup. the last time we ran the trail i only saw 2 groups the entire time, so i was starting to worry that the trail would be crowded! it turned out we only saw a couple more rigs, a couple dirt bikers, and one SxS the rest of the trip - still much more activity than 4 years ago. we parked beside the trail while we checked out one of the many small lakes you pass by. the second day it never rained, but the sky stayed interesting which made for nice photos! we took a short stroll to a picturesque creek bellow a small camp site known as Bob's Beach. many of the creeks had small trout (or some kind of fishy fishy). apparently there's good fishing in many of the nearby lakes as well. the second day still had plenty of trail challenges, but thankfully there's nothing else comparable to Thompson Hill. it we had the Ershim Lake camping area all to ourselves that evening. most of the Dusy exists in a 300ft wide corridor between 2 wilderness areas. i'm thankful we didn't loose this trail when the wilderness boundaries were created. the third day went pretty fast. the entire trail did seem rougher than my previous trip - but we still finished in 3 days comfortably. *most* of the third day moves fairly fast. near the end you have to come down the north gatekeepers, which unlike most of the trail, will get you out of your rig to walk the obstacle beforehand! there's plenty of room to camp just past the end of the trail, with 360* panoramic views. we all got a few battle scars but head a great time. Kevin sadly not only lost a mirror to a tree on the third day, but got a major crunch to the passenger a-pillar as well. Gadget broke and bent up her passenger rear aluminum fender flare - also from a tree. Roger's beast of a machine finished with only the minor dent from day one. of course all the sliders, skids, and a couple of wheels took a beating - but that's to be expected on most difficult rock crawl type trails. this time the Dusy was a doozy for sure! 5 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bradywgn71 1,017 Posted September 2 Great trip reports and what an experience!! Our wide Jeep would have been so crunched on this trail! 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
