So, did both you have to use a locker? I mean, do you think an xterra could get through if equipped with a winch but w/o a locker?

nice pics guys...
hey huey, you ever gonna get some "real" tires on that truck???

Oh, and I wonder if Huey is the 1st person to ever go through Rubicon with Scorpion A/T, modest A/T tires of all? :p :rolleyes:

Someone even called them, "street tires," huh?

Funny you should ask. I would say that there were many times that the locker was required. Sure, you could probably winch yourself over a few of 'em, but then an obstacle that might take 20 seconds to cross with a locker would take 5 minutes with a winch.

I'd guess we had the locker engaged for a fair number of obstacles, even the random unnamed ones. I can't imagine how much more frustrating it might have been to drive that trail with open diffs.

On the bright side, if you really want to check out the Rubicon, you could probably do a good weekend trip from Loon Lake to Little Sluice and back, or from Tahoe to Rubicon Springs and back. By doing this you basically skip the most heinous sections (Big Sluice!)

After we completed Cadillac Hill, I was thinking that if you're looking for a bit more of a challenge than Deer Valley, you could run from Tahoe to Rubicon Springs, camp out there, then head back. Cadillac Hill is easy to get down. Getting back up is the tough part. Even with the rear locked, we had to break out the winch cable.

Akio,

We ended up leaving the air compressor for the locker on most of the time, and used the locker itself every 10 minutes or so. There are many sections of the trail where we did not have sufficient clearance to drive over rocks, so we did the "slide n' grind" method and used the ARB to drive the one rear wheel that was on the ground.

Speaking of Huy's tires, my favorite quote of the trip occured on the second day when two Toyota's caught up to us while dean was demonstrating how to balance on a rock with both tires a couple of feet in the air.

Dean on a rock

The Toyota guys drove up and said "We were wondering who was running such gentle tires on this trail.". Apparently they had seen our A/T tracks and were quite amused by them.

And with that, the story continues...

DAY THREE : ARE WE DONE YET???
Pictures

Sunday morning we woke up to a perfect Sierra Nevada day. We took our time tearing down camp, Dean even had time to silicon his tail light back together except for one piece that was lost in the “space dust” that covers most of the trail. I spent a couple of minutes exploring the Jeepers Jamboree area at Rubicon Springs, it’s pretty impressive what they have setup out there. There is a single small cabin where the campground host lives. Usually he is there to collect the $10 camping fee but he was absent during our stay. There are multiple pit toilets scattered around in the trees and in the middle of the clearing there is a podium and several large areas where they prepare and serve the food to the Jeepers. Parts of the area are wired for lights and water, during the Jamboree they must bring in a generator and a pump. In one corner there is even a makeshift out-door shower complete with sink and full length mirror so that you can perty up for the trail.

The previous day we had headed down the slabs and Big Sluice to the springs which are at the bottom of a valley. This day our route took us up and out of the valley, up Cadillac Hill to the observation point, and finally up Dollar Hill and to the staging area. Heading out of camp we only encountered the “standard” foot high rock and granite slabs we had been driving over for two days, no big deal. There were a few spots where we had to get out and stack rocks, but over all the morning was fairly uneventful.

After driving for an hour or so we headed up a slight hill, turned right, and suddenly we were on Cadillac hill. The trail is cut into the side of the mountain and makes a vertical climb of several hundred feet before it reaches the top. The hill itself isn’t extremely steep, but there are large rocks spaced sporadically and the areas in between the rocks are filled in with large amounts of dust the consistency of flour which offers very little traction. As we hiked up the hill to plan our route, we noticed that almost every single tree had extensive winch cable damage on it, a testament to the difficulty of the hill and the idiocy of people who don’t invest in a tree saver. As we started up the hill we immediately became stuck when Dean’s slider made contact with a rock and lifted a front tire. Even with the locker on, and rock stacking, and us all pushing, we could not get enough traction to slide the truck over the rock. This ended up happening to both trucks a couple times on the way up the hill, we would lift one front tire , loose traction, and then have to winch over the rock we were on. Towards the top of the hill the trail got a bit steeper and fortunately rockier so we had better traction. At one point there was a very steep section that had concrete in between the rocks to make it passable. After about 30-40 minutes we reached the top and continued on.

The section between Cadillac Hill and the observation point was difficult but required spotting very few times. Water was running down the trail as it wound through the trees which caused some traction problems but nothing serious. After a short time we broke out of the trees and on to the granite slabs that make up the observation point. From the top of the hill you can look back and trace the route of the Rubicon down into the valley, past the springs, and then back up the hill. After re-winding the winch cables (Dean’s had been wrapped around his driving lights for 3 days) we had lunch and enjoyed the view. After the observation point there were a few small obstacles on the trail but nothing like we had been driving on. As we wound down the narrow trail from the observation point down into the trees we had a chance to relax a bit. Eventually we started recognizing sections of trail that we had seen on our outing to the Barker OHV trail the month before, and we knew that we were getting closer and closer to the end. The last obstacle on the trail is Dollar hill which is a very rocky climb that ends with a tricky boulder field. We managed to get Dean hung up a bit on some boulders, which required a winch to get him through, but after the hill it was relatively smooth sailing. 10 mph feels VERY fast after you have been crawling at under 1 mph for several days, and it took us a while to get used to driving that fast (5th gear in 4 low). Eventually we shifted out of 4 wheel drive and had some fun pre-running the trail and getting the rear of the truck to slide out a bit. The last 4 miles of the trail seemed to take forever and were very bumpy because of the speed we were traveling.

Along the way we ran into a tour group on ATVs, the leader asked us “where did you come in from”, assuming that we had just been driving around the Barker Meadows trail area. When we told him we had entered at the Gatekeeper he looked confused and asked “where is that.” We clarified that we entered near Loon Lake and suddenly he understood and said “you made it all the way through in those trucks, wow!”

We reached the staging area, had a high-five all around, checked the trucks to make sure we had no damaged parts we hadn’t noticed, and then headed out to highway 89, past Emerald Bay, and on to South Lake Tahoe.

The Rubicon definitely lived up to its reputation; the big obstacles like Cadillac Hill and Big Sluice were very difficult and required a large amount of concentration and work. What surprised us was the difficulty of the trail that connected the named obstacles. Some of these areas, in particular the section around Buck Island Lake, took much more time to pass than we had anticipated.

After swimming in dust and grime for three days, a shower and a real bed never felt so good.

YOU GUYS ROCK!!!!

Ohh yeah.. and the Pirelli Scorpions rock too...ain't no street tires.

....

Excellent writeup, guys.

I guess I won't be visiting Rubicon until I get a locker... I doubt that'll happen next year, though.

Did you guys run into anymore people, or just those toyota and jeep guys? Doesn't sound like there were many people on the trail.

Do you guys have front lockers too, or just rear (I'm not sure if they make a front locker for your trucks)?

Great pictures.

Robinhood150,

The trail was fairly empty, we saw the toyota guys several times and ran into some jeepers the first night.

Both trucks had rear lockers only.

- Matt

My buddy Tim, who hadn't yet been introduced to the sport of rock-crawling, was moderately anxious when we started the trail at Loon Lake. "We're driving over THIS!!??" Later, as he learned how to spot, but more importantly, where to stack rocks he was constantly amazed at the amount of deformation our tires experienced as we crawled over the rocks. He was certain we'd rip holes in the sidewalls. Even at a relatively high 18psi, we were able to break the bead occasionally, allowing a short "psssshht" of air to escape.

I'm certainly glad for the 3-ply carcass of the BFG ATs!

You guys are awesome. When I get some time and money I want to be just like you! Seriously though, that is amazing. Given the condition of the jeeps we saw coming out of there on the last trip and all the mods and lifts they had...man, that is just too cool. We should get this write up to Nissan so they at least know what their rigs can do!

Nice...Very Nice.

Absolutely awesome!!!!
and some terrific pics!

I only wish I could have gone with you. Great pics and just amazing that you made it through fairly clean....

Mick

Very nice guys. I'm proud to say I drive a Nissan Xterra, one of the proud few vehicles which can make it all the way through the Rubicon with relatively minor modifications. Not that mine did it, you guys are the heros.

Nissan needs a new commercial which takes place on the RUBICON.

Dean, you took video right? Make it into a commercial yourself, maybe Nissan will buy it. That would be a cool side job, and give you something to do in these winter months when the sierras are snowed in.

And we thought we where the ones late ? I broke my motormount on the way in, so we set-up camp on the top of the slabs next to the lake. I'm glad you guys made it through. Friday we stayed at camp and recooped from our lack of sleep. With the use of a tie-down strap I secured the motor down and proceeded we decided to venture in a little ways to set up camp at Spider lake. The strap worked the whole weekend and got us home. Sunday we left early to get out to Loon but decided to take Whintworth springs out. I'll be interested to take that way in next year.
Sorry we missed you but it sounds like we both had a great weekend

Dang Marty, I hadn't haerd from you before the trip so I had no idea you were still going. Sorry we missed you, but it sounds like you had fun anyways. Sucks about the engine mount tho.

BTW, when we hicked to Spider Lake on Sat morning we took a good look around to see if you were camped there just in case, but no luck.

Oh well next time dude.

I have a good feeling I will be making a trip to the Rubicon next year, I know Marty and Gary are interested and Dean will probably go again (though he thinks he doesn't want to ), maybe we can plan a trip for Aug.

Personally, I think you guys decided to run the Rubicon the best time of the season, warm but not hot, and hardly anyone else. If you chose earlier like in the middle of the summer, it'd be pretty hot and more people running the trail. If you chose earlier in the season...like May or Jun, the trail would be still covered with some snow. Trying to climb wet rocks wouldn't be much fun... You'd have to hook up your winch every time you see moderately large rocks... I can't imagine how frustrating that would be...

Ooops I actually meant Sept., Oct. is a bit too late, too cold and not enough light. Sept. should be late enough to allow the jeepers to get their fill and allow for less traffic and slightly cooler weather.

The best time of the season is to go right after Jeepers Jamboree, where they've done all the rock-stacking for you already! I honestly don't think I'll be running the trail again the whole way through again in my truck. Day 2 was just too too much. Big Sluice just about sucked out my will to 'wheel. . I've nothing more to prove. I would consider running Loon to Spider Lake, or Tahoma to Rubicon Springs, but not the middle part. I'll ride shotgun or play spotter-boy, though!

Deer Valley is still my favorite place to camp remotely.