Rubicon 2015 Spring

[Mb30sdl]

I think time has come to look back and reflect on first Rubicon run of this year. As we all know everybody on this forum has been talking for years about finally doing this trail and I have been patiently :think:waiting. Finally my bro bugged me enough for me to say: We doing this ...:yeahthat. Run was set up in mid May. For some unknown reason wife decided to come along with my kid.:banghead:which made for a logistical challenge. Friend of mine came along with me and his wife decided to bring their kids too.:yell: So they rented cabin at Lake Tahoe, we packed into to trucks and trailer and went.

Drive was uneventful, loved empty roads and clear sky on the way there.

Stopped to rest at June Lake

Driving by myself was the best part.

Got to Lake Tahoe by the eve and some snow started falling

So rested end of Wednesday , bought and packed everything on Thursday. At that point it was obvious that most of people that tried to go with us bailed and it was just I and John.

So with this information we decided to meet up at Georgetown gas station (there is only one). Due to lack of participants trailer was left at the cabin and we piled all stuff inside.

Friday morning I and Demitri jumped into truck and set our sites at Georgetown.

Looking at 3' of now by the road and ~8K Ft up got me a little worried, trail goes ~7500-8200 ft alt. But uans we got over the pass things started to look up for us.

So we had breakfast at local grocery store and waited for for John (no cell reception in town). John showed up we filled up and started moving toward beginning of the trail ~40 mil away. Looks like there was a forest fire couple of years ago they were clear cutting everything.

Finally we made it to dam and beginning of the trail.

Stopped for couple of posers shots

 

[Mb30sdl]

Parked at ranger's "club House"
Watched water being released while airing down.

And started rolling

Pulled up to the "gate keeper", stepped out to asses gravity of the situation. Looked like nothing special but i tied up my waterproof boots just in case

Steam rolled through gate keeper in few minutes and came up to granit bowl.

Made quick work of that place thanks to yellow reflectors imbedded into rocks.

and moved on into the forest

It was a lot wetter compare to Chris's experience. Lots of knee deep holes.

By Devils Peack there was broken down full size, covered and sitting there from previous weekend.

Got to a "little Sluce" went trough it very quickly

And stopped for lunch at "True Big Sluse" split. There we followed sighs and went left, True Big Sluse was to the right through V-notch.
Started driving on 30% granit slab parallel, quiet unnerving experience.

Got lost or so we taught, turned around and went back to lunch spot. Saw trail marker again started moving forward and at the ind of slab came on to this off camber drop.

No biggie, later came onto marker

And made our way down to Buck Island lake

Plowing along came to another marker

Started coming down Big Slues and that is were :shame:it's all went wrong.

 

[Mb30sdl]

Navigating through 2 big boulders with a tree growing in the middle of the. I was informed that my pass. wheel seem to be turned to the right.
After closer inspection i broke 3 and pulled 4th bolt out on pass side high steer arm.

So decision was made try to weld it and make it to the Camp site `1.5mil

i had some air tools and ready welder with me.
After cleaning it up putting upper king pinion parts back together I tried to weld it. We had to rearrange 2 batteries in the bed to make it 24V.

After it looked like it may actually hold up we started moving.

And ~20 ft later it fell a part.

So we decided to camp overnight in that spot, cooked decent meal (steaks). Truck was at ~30% slope so I decided to to open tent and sleep in the truck on passenger seat with trusty AR in my hand and 9mm close buy.
Demitri slept in John's Jeep and John camped in his tent ~200 ft back up the trail.

Next morning we packed all expensive stuff in Jeep and at 9 am started moving. I rented Sat phone for this trip and it came handy to call wife and keep her calm.

So hid the keys and marked GPS location

We made it to the bridge and moved to the camp

before we can get to camp we got stopped by fairly large ~200/300ft water hole. But John made it with no issues.

We pushed through Cadillac hill which I and Demitri had to walk most of it. :holymoly
But we made it to observation point at ~11 am

At this point my mind is in recovery mode thinking how and when can truck be recovered.
Cell phone still doesn't work and Sat phone doesn't have an internet. Saturday afternoon, I think I am screwed

By the time John dropped us of at the cabin and me trying to call tow companies led nowhere. I decided to hitch a ride with John and pick up F350 with trailer, in case I can find some one to recover truck.
This is what came up on different forums

And Unimog guy that was willing to help but wheels had to point in same direction. Which didn't do much for me there. If my wheels would have pointed in same direction I could drive out myself.

So to make this part short. I came back Sunday with f350 but no one was willing to recover at that time.In the mien time apparently forum was getting energized to help me out.

Our local expert Bebe ( thank you) came up with the plan to do on-trail repair.

Monday I overnight-ed parts and everything was set for a Wednesday recovery.

I got all the tools, generator, picked up Hamster from ORE (just in case), hooked up trailer and headed out Tuesday fternoon.

 

[Mb30sdl]

So i got to the Lake Tahoe again Tuesday night and rented hotel for 2 nights. At some point during those few days I figured out that recovery will be happening on 13th:holymolywhich is never a good day for me.
But hopping for the best I showed up at staging area 7am Wednesday. What I saw got me a little confused, Dodge Ram ext. cab with long bed on 37s. My first words were "Isn't this a little big for this trail?" (Bebe will have to help me with names) and I got schooled on how they have done this trail many times before. I decided to SH up before I made it worse. For being an ******* I was handed off to a second recovery vehicle Scout 2(60/80 with twin stick). We loaded my new parts and tool into Ram and Dodge left.
While packing Scout2 Bebe pulled up towing her Rzr and mechanic. She told us to start moving.
We made a quick drive cut up and passed Dodge, few minutes later I hear a metal sound. After stepping out we found handle fro Hi-Lift on the ground, further more foot was gone too. After looking for it for a while Dodge cut up with us but they didn't see it. We started moving again, few minutes later Bebe passed us like we were standing still.

Rest of the trail was pretty uneventful, few hard places but not a big deal. By the time we got to my truck Bebe was there and also one more Jeep from recovery group that got there day before and camped overnight.

Truck was as I left it few days before. Thanks god.

While waiting for Dodge with my parts mechanic dissembled and got everything ready. I boiled some coffee and tea for a brekfast.

Some time later Dodge guys made to our location, assembly went a lot faster and discovery was made that my DS upper link bolt was missing (I have 4 link so it wasn't a big deal). Dodge had one on a truck and after installing it every one started trek back.

With rain clouds gathering and light mist starting coming down Bebe grabbed mechanic and left in a hurry.

We started making our way toward campsite. Sout2 and I made it quick work of of that 1.5mil and parked at camp to wait for everyone else.
That when call came that Dodge snapped it's front drive shaft. We turned around and went back to them. Found them at the bridge in 2wd. Scout grabbed drive-shaft and left for the campsite to find a piece of pipe that we can use.

I stayed behind to help in case that we need to pull Dodge. Last Jeep was set up for snow wheeling so he was way too light. Slowly making our way toward campsite again we got a call that sheriff is stuck in mud-hole next to camp. I was sent to recover the sheriff.

Going trough water-crossing just before camp

it makes a turn to the right so u don't see a camp entrance till u make that turn. I see sheriff's jeep front berried in the mud-hole past its 35" tires
and i hear this "Hmmm no front license plate." at which point i slowly shifted into R and backed up to beginning of the crossing.

What happened Scout got stuck in it and sheriff coming down to check on me pulled him out and decided they cam make it, first one got stuck in first 3ft.(water-crossing is mostly packed with fill rock except last 10ft or so then is ~3+ft hole). Second jeep pulled him out and they left.

After seeing this we strapped Dodge to get him through the hole. I had window open to let Dodge know when i need a little slack to bump it through the hole. And after being showered with mud and water coming from my front tire we made it to the campsite.

At which point rain started coming down more with small hail. After setting up makeshift tent

we proceeded with drive-shaft repair

Camp mostly consists of broken Jeep's parts:

After looking and finding nothing usable for a while we found an old pice of pipe that was exactly needed diameter

Pipe was cut to fit inside drive-shaft tube

Then welded with on board Stick welder

 

[Mb30sdl]

After installing drive-shaft back in it was ~5pm I and Scout quickly made our way up the Cadillac Hill and parked at the view point. Then call came in, Dodge broke u-Joint i believe, they were in 2wd close to the top and slowly making the way to the top. So no help was needed. I pulled out stove and boiled some water for a tea.

I didn't finish drinking the tea when Dodge pulled up and every one started moving again.

200-300ft later Dodge stopped in he was done. Upper link bracket on frame broke off and axle rotated 30% forward.

After closer inspection bracket undamaged (was only welded on one side on the bottom and top was holding on 2 pins in the frame) was removed, axle rotated and bracket was welded back on again.

At that point it was ~10pm.

Dodge was strapped to Scout trying not to load up the front and we were still ~5mil away from staging area. About .5 mil into the trail Dodge turned it's wheels against the rock ledge and poped passenger side tire off the bead.

That was quickly repaired, wheel jacked up and aired up with strap on it. That was ~11pm. After that we made it to the staging are and loaded up on trailers.
IT was 12:05 and nightmare was over.

 

[Mb30sdl]

Saved for future posts now 4

 

[Mb30sdl]

Saved for future posts 5

 

[bebe]

:corn:

 

[06 H3]

What a great story. When **** goes wrong on the rubicon **** goes bad! Luckily Bebe was able to help out. Sometimes no matter how prepared u are **** goes wrong. I brought as many spares as possible...steering box, steering hoses, ball joints, driveshaft, wheel bearings, etc. and even then you risk not having what u need.

We gotta hit the rubicon together one day. Maybe bring Hamster?

 

[Highatop]

Yea, a good and tough story. Glad you found support and some help. Good luck w/ your repairs

 

[Mb30sdl]

Yea, a good and tough story. Glad you found support and some help. Good luck w/ your repairs

That was back in may, repair are done.

 

[owlxxx]

we want more!!! we want it now!!! thanks for this write up, :cheers: will keep checking in for updates.

 

[Mb30sdl]

Doing as fast as I can, had to go to San Diego saturday, doing payroll today.

 

[woodwardsh3]

great adventure you all had
And all in the name of having fun

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

neat adventure. Schmidt happens, sometimes it happens a lot - but you made it out safe and got several days of wheeling with friends... a win in my book. I say that for a couple reasons, but one springs to mind instantly when you said 'glad the truck was as left'. Near Walla Walla Washington is some pretty good snow and mud wheel. Kind of boring in the summer, but add 15 feet of snow and/or mud and things get interesting. We were wheeling with a friend who had (past tense) a 60s quad-cab power wagon. As he was wont to do, he broke it. No big deal, we'll come back tomorrow with parts and fix it. Uh, no. It snowed 5 feet that night 5 feet the next night, and then rained. Then snowed again. We went up a couple weeks later and couldn't find the truck. Completely gone. Actually, it wasn't completely gone. When the snow happens, you can't get into the mountains because it's simply too light and won't compact. So no one got up there until 10 feet of snow fell. Then people went wheeling and compacted the snow. Right over his truck. We found his flattened truck in the spring. It was really, really ugly. Of course, once it started melting - people started.... ummmm... borrowing parts off the truck under the mistaken assumption that it was an abandoned. Keep in mind, that it look really bad before all of this (for example, he had cut a tree in half for the front bumper - that was the nice part of the truck) - so their assumption of abandoned really was valid. We hauled what was left out in July - somewhere I have a picture of what was left.... but 'leave no trace' was part of our lexicon back then too (this is late 80s) - so we retrieved and scrapped the carcass.

so my question - what welder are you using? I'm going to add a welder to my FJ40, and was going to simply go old school/new school with a huge alternator, multiple batteries and an inverter-portable TIG/Stick welder. That said, there are as many solutions as their are people who wheel...

 

[Mb30sdl]

There is a lot of pics missing from post#4 and 5
ill repost pics tomorrow again.


I guess pics are all there, couldn't see them on Ipad