Everyone is home safe and sound. We had some carnage and some twisted sheet metal. We all know the exact sound when a rock hits a certain spot on our vehicles now and we are all now spoiled on what wheeling really is.

The trip started off poorly to say the least. Dave and Scott were suppose to be at the campsites at lower loon lake wednesday afternoon / evening. Scott unfortunatly had a wheel bearing seize on him just outside of Fresno where Dave drove down to meet him to try and salvage the parts. After hours off cutting and cleaning, the best they could do was get it driveable but not wheelable. Meanwhile back in the bay area, Danny and I were on schedule to leave at the projected 7 O'clock. After hearing from Jackson that his boat had sprung a leak and that he wouldn't be getting off the boat until 5, Danny and I started our wait. Then at 7, we finally got a hold of Jackson as he was at Justins, trying to get Justin out the door. At about 8:45, wednesday night, we talked to Justin and he thought that they could be ready to go in about a 1/2 hour (from Menlo Park). At this point I had to make the decission to call it off until morning for the simple fact that it was going to 2am before arriving and also the fact that wife had to work the next day and a parade coming through at midnight would only make things much worse. Danny went home to get some sleep and Justin, Jackson and Alex (Justins' friend) stayed at Justins with the intent to be at my place by 6:30 the next morning. At 6am, I got a text from Justin saying that he would wake everyone up in about 15 minutes to get going (it's an hour drive at least from his place to mine). Danny pulls in at 6:25 knowing that he should have slept in more. At about 7:30, we get a call saying they are at the gas station next to Justins house. To make a long story short, they show up at my place a little after 10am. Meanwhile, the search continued for Scotts spindle to get him back on the trip. After a couple of shotty junkyard leads, I got word from Mark from the WT4X4 club that he's willing to let us "barrow" his off of his truck. A huge gesture which we were lucky not to have to take him up on. Luckily, WFO had one in stock in which they sold to Scott at a screaming deal. While there, they picked up some other goodies which they also got a great deal. WFO is a stand up place with great service and inventory.
Anyways, After 3+ hours of Justin wrenching on his truck at my house rebuilding his rear driveshaft and such, it was time to hit the road. It was now 1:30 and the drive up is about 3 hours to the resevoir. I took some nice "before" pics not knowing what shape my truck was going to be in when I returned.







Fianlly at the damn and then resevoir, Justin finally found some time to wrench on his truck . He wired and plumbed up his ARB's and air pump while we waited for Scott to meet up with us. He went back into town to top off his cooler with ice. This gave Jackson and I a chance to play with our new lockers . Very different from the open/open we'd been use to.





We finally roll onto the trail and right away, it's easily close to the hardest wheeling Iv'e done to date. I thought it was tough and the initial sounds of your truck banging on the rocks below was earie at first.


(Gate Keeper)



It's a short jog of medium sized rocks you have to manuver around to get to the first stopping point, granite bowl.

Once we all arrived there, we found out we had our first carnage. Justin was un-able to repair a broken motor mount prior to leaving on the trip and so it jumped up and bit him. The radiator fan took a nice chunk of radiator out shooting coolant everywhere.



With some pinching off fins and one of Dave's stop leak containers, it held together enough to get us to our first camping spot.



Did I mention it was now 10pm on thursday when we still had about 1.5 miles to the next camp site? NIGHT WHEELIN THE CON!



Fianlly making dinner at around 11:30 pm



A little side note about Danny. I was super lucky to have him as a passenger. His spotting skills were awsome as well as his ability to pack a cooler to have ice still at the end of the trip and make some outlandish dinners. I salute you buddy

The next day brought us some instant wheelin. We finally stumbled across our next famous object, soup bowl. We all looked at it



But only Justin had the balls to try it



A nice video showing how far he was able to make it with a fullsize rig (we all would have had the same outcome)



This is a rock right at soup bowl that shared the name of many other rocks on the trail, diff killer.



That rock is right where you lead into this little off camber spot. Scott did well but I think he scratched his mirror.



just when you think your'e through, it kicks the back over for a second chance of carnage



Dave went through with a good amount more clearence than his brother



Then we finally made it up to little sluice for lunch.



Shortly after lunch, I managed to hit a rock with my driver side rear wheel well



Little did I know, I'd end up getting a bit more before I would be done.......

Great pics and story so far! Keep 'em comin!

I'll keep adding on it today a little at a time. I'm uploading some videos which takes a bit of time.

good posting so far, cant wait to see the rest.

The trail is nothing but beautiful scenery and crazy rocky jeep sized trails. Here's a couple of shots on our way to Buck Island





It's much steepr than it looks in the pics



I didn't get too many pics at this point because my camera was locked inside my center console and I finally had to break it open to get to it. During this section, We had a hub blow on Jacksons truck while trying to use his slider to slide him around to go up a good little hill. Quick fix and we were back at it. Hit winch worked great (once he figured out how to plug it in the right way ).

Finally, buck island. From what Iv'e heard, a lot of people turn around here as a good "half way" point. There was a ton of jeeps and early broncos looking at us like we were high.



Finally finding a campsite a bit down the trail, it ended up being really nice and quiet.









Danny apparently doesn't know the difference between my bronco and tree



Dave and Scott (brothers)



Then Danny somehow manage to Jerk off all over my bronco (really sun screen)



A last minute Shackle replacement before heading out



It's a pretty rocky section of trail leading us all the way into "BIG SLUICE"





Lots and lots of this



"BIG SLUICE" is a very technical hill that's about 200 yards long and has some insanely tight spaces. I thought the first spot was hard

Seems like Justin never stopped fixing things huh?

And Dave's truck seems pretty damned capable for being so huge out there!

I'm pretty sure that was the last thing anyone had to fix. If I was running a shackle flip, I would have easily crunched a couple of shackles. Dave's truck did extremely well. There's really only two spots up cadillac that seemed to give him much of any trouble. I can tell you that the jeep guys sure felt stupid for having trouble getting through stuff that was "tight" seeing Dave get through with no body Damage.

Dave's truck is like a zombie. It moves really slow but it never stops following you.

It starts with a hard left turn between a rock and a wall. We all managed to get through unscaved but I think Dave needed some belt dressing from this point on. Here's some pics and videos.















Here's Justins video. I have one of Dave as well I'll load up later. It's a good amount longer.



Jackson hung up on a rock





More of big sluice coming up......

dave safe and sound at home and scott is well on his way with no problems as of right now... hope everyone else made it without any more problems.. how did jacksons hub hold up for the rest of the trip down the hill,,, hot??

Random shot of my truss





It's weird that you can get totally use to this to where your'e almost glad to hear some sounds over others. (turn it up a bit for this, it's great )



Then came the very very technical spot. It was either going to be Scott or I going through first and even though I offered, Scott still took the lead which looking back on now, I very much appriciate. His door and fender will never be the same. I ended taking my half door off thinking I was gauranteed carnage and didn't want to leave bondo all over the trail. It ended up being for nothing. After stacking some rocks and throwing a couple of passengers on to help to keep me from tipping, I made it through unscaved. The last 3 drivers all gave a sigh of reliefe knowing that there was a chance. Justins was the only one I got good pics of because me being heaviest, took on the responsability of helping weight down the far sides of the vehicles. Alex actually took over for me as Justin crept closer and closer.











And here's a video I had Justin take while Jackson went through. It doesn't look too bad but he was 4th through and we had stacked rocks with Danny and I hanging off his passenger as far as possible.



More pics coming down to rubicon springs







We found a sweet camp spot where we were able to bath and soak up a little sun.





After the campsite we headed up Cadillac hill. It's a 7 foot wide gouge in the side of a mountain which has tons of boulders pertruding on side that you'd preffer them not to. The jist of it being that every 15 feet or so, the chance of rolling down the side of the mountain is very real. I'm not going to lie, by this point, I was ready to be on my way home. Everytime we got through something, there'd be something even worse around the bend. I didn't get much but I did get about 5 videos of Dave trying to squeeze through a rock and a tree. Here's one where he finally made it through.



Others will have more to contribute once they get a chance for this section. After a while, you find yourself chugging uphill for about an hour with just random smooth spots and random tough spots. My trans started overheating and so did my patients. We finally came to an awesome clearing on a cliffside where we had lunch and got another group shot.







Finally, we started hitting some decent road where you could actually go about 3 mph. You'd be suprised how nice it felt to finally move faster than most people walk. About another 45 minute drive with it gradually getting better and better and you finally reach the exit. Bathrooms and nice place to air-up and check your truck for "issues". We did a really thorough check but it turns out, it wasn't good enough. Right out of the gate I had a weird vibration and Jackson had a hub heating up. We took apart his hub to service it but of course his was different from mine. We got Scott to drive back from where he had gotten a camp site for him and Dave. Somehow, he had a tool for the job which got us back on the road just at dusk.



By the time we left Tahoe, it was dark. Just getting onto 5 from hwy 50, I felt something wrong in the rear. I was waiting for the next exit to pull over and right when I was going to pull over nicely, the truck made it much more clearer to get the F off the road. Shaking violently almost like a bad flat tire.
To all of our suprise, This is what we found as the problem.



A little hard to see but once the wheel was off, it was clear. The lug nuts had loosened somehow (got my tires worked on at Walmart before the con ) and started shearing off the wheel studs.



We opted to swap out the studs only thinking it might be easier. It wasn't bad but if it ever happened again, we'd swap the entire axle shaft. We get it back on the road and for some reason, I have almost no brakes. Turns out a chunk of wheel stud managed to stay in the drum brake and screw things up. To make another long story short, 5 "repairs" going 45 mph down 5, we finally got my place in Tracy around 1:10am.

We unloaded, backed it into the garage and called it a nite.

We were painfully lucky the wheel didn't break loose and go rolling down the highway and that it was while I was already slowing down when it happened otherwise it would have been painfully ugly. Next time, I checking my lugnuts!

Anyways, I have more pics and I'll post up more videos and i'm sure the others will have a ton to add. Hope you enjoy.

very freakin cool, cant wait for more pics but it looks like an incredible trip/


Hopefully next year I can make it out there as a passenger or driver.

I can honestly say that a passenger is a great thing to have on this trip. A perfect trip would be about 5 trucks that are ready and tested with everyone having 1 passenger to help spot and also to help with other stuff. This trail for driver and passenger alike is down right tiring. At the end of the day, you are beat. Danny had energy when I didn't and vice versa. By the end of it, we were so deliriously tired that some old guy in a dodge dakota said "Your front liscence plate light is out...HHahhahahhahhehehheee" and Danny and I thought it was the funniest thing ever. We were so tired that we joked about it for a half hour and still on the drive home.

I'd love to drive it again but I'd be totally down to go as a passenger too. Not in Daves truck though, that's a very bumpy ride.

Sounds like an AWESOME trip! I'm bummed I missed it but it sounds like you had a great time anyway. Props to Jackson for lifting his truck and the next month doing the rubicon! Rich thanks for the play-by-play, looks like Justin has some procrastinating issues to address eh?

wow, all in all I just checked my trip meter in the gps and found I have done about 670 miles driving from my door to my door. thanks for the great recap Rich, , I will pick out some favorites and post up maybe tomorow,, right now I am just happy to be sick at home instead of int he cold,,, thanks again for the loner jacket buddy since I did a an d forgot one.