Cruzer vs The Rubicon Trail

I’m loving every update! Keep em’ coming, Cruz!

 

way bad...

 

Looks like a blast!

 

Wow. Just wow.

 

Just means I need a do over

 

Page 5

After Soup Bowl was Axle Hill. People are known to have broken axles on this hill, supposedly. Didn't look bad and was quite easy actually. I took the harder line on the left while the Jeeps took the easy line on the right.


The first ledge is small


Followed by another ledge about a 1.5' or so


After Axle Hill at the next bend was an un-named obstacle (or just a set of weirdly placed rocks) before Winter Camp.


Didn't look like much so I went left, while there was an another line to the right.


As I get closer I see these 3 rocks.. I'm like hmmm that middle one is going to eat up my rear driveshaft. I get out to inspect and discover there is a little drop behind them so these 1.5' rocks will end up actually being bigger. We were also going down hill so the line just to the right meant my driver front wheel would have to go down the red outlined rock on the right, which would make me tipsy.... I don't like tipsy and try to avoid it as much as possible. So I back up and swing wide to the right.


Of course another squeezy was there to greet me right after


Tight but not too bad


Our goal for the first day was to reach Spider Lake and camp somewhere. I wanted to be near water so that I could replenish any non-potable water containers (jerry cans for fire safety, showering, doing dishes, etc..). Unless you have an RTT there is surprisingly not that many good spots to camp along the trail thus far. When we got to Winter Camp it was nice to see a big dirt lot that was flat but it was a little muddy. Would be much better during the summer. We took a quick break at this point.




Once we left Winter Camp I knew that Little Sluice was next and I was getting excited and nervous at the same time. But before I could get to Little Sluice I had to go through another squeezy - the second tightest on the trail. As I approach I am given 2 choices of squeezies. The right side has a big boulder and a tree. The left side, once you go around the bend, is another boulder and tree combo. I go left cuz the boulder is a little smaller.


As I go around the bend it doesn't look bad. I'm thinking just go straight, pass the tree, and then cut right to avoid the boulders. Could not do that because of our shitty turning radius. Tried swinging wide to the left but the rocks would tilt us towards the tree. In the end I got out of the truck and had my buddy drive so I could do the spotting. Positioned him so that the passenger slider (and body) was as close to the tree as possible. In front of the rear passenger and offset to the outside of the tire I stacked big rocks, in a row, leading up to the tree. As the truck moved forward the rear tire climbed onto the rock causing the body to tilt away from the tree, this then allowed the sliders to contact the tree, where we then did a pivot move in order to cut sharply to the right. We were here for about 20 minutes.


With the camera mounted on the center of the hood, this is the view of how far I could go, which shows the boulders being in my way. Couldn't go up the boulders as that would've tilted me into the tree as well.


We finally reach the entrance to Little Sluice where there is a bypass to the left. I was told by my friends that the bypass was a little hairy for them.


If you haven't noticed, there are portapotties placed along the trail, usually at the well known obstacles. The bypass on the left goes up and over.


The Little Sluice used to be extremely difficult 11+ years ago where it was buggy territory until the Forest Service decided to dynamite the big boulders to be more passable. There are still some big ass boulders - definitely not a cake walk. I get out of the truck and do a walk through to pick out my line. The hardest section of Little Sluice is just a little after the beginning. Straight forward here at the beginning.


As always pictures are deceiving but my line is drive down the middle of these 2 big rocks and then start going passenger to straddle that big one further down in the middle of the picture.


Rocks are getting bigger and bigger. This is the line I'm picking.


Once over, the line will go passenger


I want to avoid this rock wall that juts out


As I walk further up, the rock wall is still to left but it's just a clusterfuck up ahead. This is where I don't know which line to take and would decide when I got there


Here I come down the entrance




I'm about to go over the 2 rocks in the middle


I straddle the two bigger rocks


I get over


sorry gonna have to pause here and leave ya'll in suspense

to be continued...

 

Sorry folks for those that have read Page 5 already. After re-reading it and watching the video I discovered my timing was off so I had to edit Page 5. Please re-read.

 

Great write up and love the pictures. Looks like a great time!

 

Great write up, Cruz. I love the foreshadowing, and your having to post in sections is pretty suspenseful! I’m headed out to buy more popcorn.

 

Crazy trip report Cruz, I'm sad I couldn't join this trip.....but also relieved I didn't hahaha.

 

I unloaded one Jerry can into the tank. By the time I reached a gas station I only had a 1/3 tank left.

 

Just keeping things suspenseful lol

 

This thread is just reminding me of this video F250 Destruction - YouTube . Just bashing your truck up

 

That video is epic. With his temper I’m sure he didn’t learn a thing and still maintains his know it all altitude.

 

Where's the "rest of the story"? (points if you know the famous newscaster this comes from)

 

Page 6

I lost what I had written and had to re-write it

Anyways.... where was I?

I continue to follow my line and get on top of this big rock


That same rock + the 4Lo Delete becomes a problem as I try to finish it off. Takes several bump attempts to get over.


As I continue forward I'm still on track with my line


As I try to straddle and get over the boulder I am instructed to go driver


So I go driver


Where I run into this guy and tilts me towards the rock wall I was trying to avoid


I'm committed at this point and push on through


As I pass the rock wall I am not well lined up


As I Austin Powers to make that turn I end up getting turtled


As y'all know my truck is pretty high off the ground and again these pictures don't these rocks any justice


So I end up having to winch forward but these guys dictated that I winch forward some more cuz the 4Lo Delete issue would not be able to get me through this combo


I get the winch disconnected at this point


I move forward several feet and I'm stuck again but I just had to bump it to get out of there


After this point it's pretty easy with a ledge I have to navigate down before the trail reconnects with the Little Sluice bypass. I thought it would be quick and easy to stitch the videos together but it turned out to be a couple days Anyways, the video is below but it's not as exciting without my narration as it just seems I'm just going through without a strategy.

EDIT: With this video you can clearly see how the 4Lo Delete issue affects me

https://youtu.be/wtXnweIxFQE

...to be continued

 

Since I was carrying a lot of weight I only went down to 14.

 

Yup E. I typically watch the tire as I deflate them and know what kind of footprint I'm looking for. Let too much out and not only does it become a bead pop issue but it also stresses out the CV axles exponentially.

 

That spot where you had to winch forward was nuts. No easy way to pivot around once you got into that spot. But the winch made it look easy!

 

Yeah, but if I had come down the line I originally wanted I think I would've had a better chance... but the spotter made an executive decision and I had to go with it.

 

love this

 

Page 7

When I was in the Little Sluice I was too occupied with completing it when I should've been looking for trails that led out to Spider Lake where we were supposed to set up camp. I missed these 2 trails so instead of backtracking I figured we would catch it again after V-Notch. Nope. None of the trails on this map were viable or even existent. By this point we were 6 hours into the trail and only covered almost 4 miles. Instead of backtracking we decide to push forward another 1.5 miles to reach Buck Island Lake.


V Notch wasn't tight at all.


When I got to Arnold's Rock I saw a group of Jeeps and an old Nissan pickup heading towards us. There is a very tight squeeze, impassible for a Tundra, to the right, which I ignore and go up the ledges to the left. Fortunately, the other group decided to go down the squeezey. Below you can see one of their Jeeps about to enter the squeeze section. Also, as you can see on the left side this obstacle has been filled in with maintenance rocks. I had a hard time going up it myself as I didn't have a spotter. As soon as I got up top I came back down to spot the others.


Once we got through we had to deal with a nice ledge. The Jeeps went around while I went down it.




If it weren't for the maintenance rocks the other way around would've been worse


8 hours into the trail we get to the Old Sluice entrance. After doing tons of research online I already knew that it would be impossible for me to fit through so we just take pictures and move on through the bypass


At the Old Sluice entrance you can see in the background that it's solid granite and goes down to the side. In my tall ass truck feeling that off camber tilt makes me uneasy. The slightest little drop on the driver's side makes me pucker The Jeeps of course didn't feel any of this.


Of course as we plug along when we encounter this off camber shit. Fortunately, through online recon I was prepared for this obstacle. There are 2 lines. Continue straight off camber then when you reach the ledge you have to go down off camber - well at least for a Tundra. Or line 2 cut hard driver and square up for a tall drop off of a ledge.


Line 2 for me please! Did a little Austin Powers to square up and down we went








I scraped the rear end, which I was hoping to do


So now my new license plate has a lot more character to it


Here you can see if I went straight to take line 1, like the Gladiator, I would've been very tipsy. The drop would've been much bigger but of course maintenance rocks took some of the fun out


We were getting close to Buck Island Lake but yet still so far away. I didn't even wait to get filmed and was just trying to find my way over this boulder section. As my front wheels go over the rock, I end up sliding across it on my sliders


I wasn't really paying attention to what was in front me so as I go down


My passenger front goes up the boulder causing my rear to flex placing my passenger rear slightly in the air. I had to engage a locker in order to keep going forward.


Soon after I had to navigate through a squeezy S turn. People have hit the trees before


Getting out of the S turn was tricky as I was being off cambered into a rock






After this there were more squeezies. I just jammed through them not bothering to wait to get filmed again.




The closer we get to Buck Island Lake the more water starts appearing. We end up doing several water crossings probably 18" tall at the most. There's a section after this that we were driving in the stream, was pretty cool.


Soon after this, don't have footage, I drive up and see a nice big waterfall to climb I was like I did notice a body of water to the driver side but totally ignored it. Tundra drives up and over it with a little bit of a struggle. The front locker definitely helped pull me forward. The Gladiator tried and tried but was getting high centered. So from my view up top I advised the Jeeps to go through the water in order to go around this obstacle. I knew that the Rubicon had a deep water crossing - I didn't realize this was it until the green Jeep with 33s was almost hood deep in the water . The other 2 door Jeep on 35s had the water level up to his wheel wells, while the Gladiator took in a lot of water in the bed. Even at my truck's height the alternator is almost 3' off the ground but it would've been submerged and would've killed the truck if I had attempted the water crossing.

Soon after the water crossing we finally arrive at Buck Island Lake. The water is beautiful, clear, and fucking cold AF!


We set up camp in this flat dirt section. We traveled about 5.5 miles in 9.25 hours. We stacked rocks, everyone had to get winched at one point, and didn't even have the time to eat lunch. We were tired AF. The lesson I learned today is don't fucking skip Spider Lake.


to be continued...