Day two started out with a few mechanical problems. The weld Richard did on David's track bar (with only two batteries--ah, what an education I received!) broke somewhere on the trail and had to be re-welded by Andy who rolled in late with his big red long-armed XJ. The real problem was with Richard B's rig, which was slowly eating all the spare axle shafts and steering components in camp due to a weak stock front end, 35's and plenty of lead on the gas pedal! A busted axle and u-joint first thing necessitated a fix with bailing wire and duct tape, and meant he would have to drive the rest of the 'Con in 2WD. Goatman strapped him on the tough spots between Spider and Rubicon Springs.
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Rubicon (8/01)
Once on the trail out of camp, which got tough almost immediately, we split into two groups again: those going down the slabs to Buck Island Lake, and those going down the "true" sluice. I planned on doing the slab route, even though many had warned me that it was lots of serious off-camber descents--I HATE that stuff. Somehow I ended up in the sluice group. It must be Amy's fault, she talked me into it:) I was pretty nervous as we crawled our way through the trees toward the sluice, and needed serious spotting from Amy and others to avoid completely destroying all my sheetmetal. There were some very big drops over large boulders going down, and the trail was tight.
It's hard to figure out where the trail that leads to the sluice ends and the "actual" sluice begins, but it's all pretty good. We worked our way down behind Grant, dropping over some big ledges and squeezing past a lot of door-wrecking boulders until we got close to the final obstacle. Near the bottom of the sluice sits a 5-foot high rock right in the middle. You can go around it on either side (Paul and Andy F. took the high line, Robert the low line), or you could go right over the top like Paul S. and Andy C. did. The line over the top was pretty spectacular to watch, and with good spotting, worked pretty well. Just before it was my turn, Dave said he had found a bypass out to the slabs, and I didn't waste any time following him out that way. I was pretty frazzled by then and didn't really want to try the last obstacle. We met up with the rest of the group down near Buck Island Lake before heading down toward the Big Sluice.
The Big Sluice had a few tough spots, and by the time we got near the bottom Richard B. had bent his drag link all out of whack and we had a group of 40 guided Jeepers stuck behind us. Their guides were really annoying, running all over the place with walkie-talkies and trying to figure out when we would get out of their way so they could get back on their "schedule". We finally rolled into our campsite (called the Dirty Dozen, I believe) and got set for the next couple of days. There were some really nice swimming holes just upstream and the water was chilly but great after being in a hot dirty Jeep all day. We did another potluck style dinner and Amy and I made our nearly famous pan fried nachos. Saturday was leisure day for most, though a few groups had to head out. I worked on a leaky front tire, swam, and did a little hiking in between naps.
The trip up Cadillac Hill was not too bad compared to the other two days of breakage. We all ended up on top for a group shot before starting through the woods towards the nasty dirt road that leads back down to Lake Tahoe. There was a detour due to some roadwork, but we all ended up at the lake after a very bumpy and dusty ride. Overall, this was a fantastic trip thanks to a great bunch of people and weather that was better than you could ask for. Lots of broken parts, plenty of waiting around, great scenery, killer camp spots, huge trees, huge rocks, and clear blue skies. Maybe next year I'll have the balls to try the Little Sluice, but if not, I know I'll enjoy the rest of the trip. Thanks again to Richard Gauthier and NAXJA! See you in 2002!
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