Gate Keeper!!!


Dean on the slabs


time to go to sleep!!!

Oh man! You can't just throw us this little tease and run off....How did it go? Looks like good weather..was Marty with you? Did you go all the way through? Details please. Glad you made it back!

what a tease
you know there's plenty more pics where that came from

...I take this one as "Huey takes a nice picture of his xterra while Dean works hard and stack rocks under the rear tires for more traction?"

I was wondering if you guys survived this weekend... :rolleyes: Now that we know you guys are back for sure...more pics!!!

And the tease goes on... I'm at work and too busy for deatils right now. Maybe tonight... maybe... Unless you can bug dean to spill.

Oh man, you guys even tried to go through the GateKeeper?!? I'd figure you would go around!!
C'mon guys gimme some more pics, I wanna see some tire spinnin' smoke billowing traction grabbin' Rubicon pics. Did you get to Spider lake?
Pony up guys!

Dean... Where are you?!?

I've not yet gone through my pics yet, so you'll just have to wait for the gory details, but let's just say that I'm never driving through the Rubicon in my Pathfinder again! Once is quite enough, thank you!

I'll write more later.

Ok, you can thank Matt (SLOmatt) for uploading the images for me. The write-up will have to wait...

BTW, YES, we did make it through GATE KEEPER!

Cliky cliky Photos were taken by Matt and I.

...You guys are saying that only trail damages were Huey's 2 scratches and Dean's tail light cover?

I am VERY impressed.

Well, Tim also dropped a rock on his finger and got a small boo-boo.

Oh, and Huy's truck had a very minimal run-in with a tree branch.

- Matt

Nice going guys! Great pictures too. Huey, I reckon you just can't wait for spring to do that again, eh?
By then, I'll be ready to go as well.

Well, if you don't count the new dents and scrapes on Huey's skid plates and wheels, a $4.00 broken clip on my rear bumper, and a bent left-side rear lower control arm (which now needs to be replaced and reinforced), then... yes, that about sums it up.

Wow, so many ROCKS, and so little carnage!
Good show guys.
Thanks for posting the pics Matt.

Wow. you guys rock!



Can't wait to hear the write-up. Looks like it went pretty smooth considering what you guys just accomplished.

I updated the photo album to include descriptions and I'm working on the full write up now.

So who wants to go next year?

For lazy folks, here’s the short version.

-Lots of big rocks
-Damage? Huey: one small dent on the front passenger door, one large scratch/dent on the rear driver’s door, lots of dings, dents, a bent Calmini u-bolt on the rear diff skid, and scratches on every skid and front ARB bull bar. Dean: dents and scratches on the under carriage and front TJM bull bar, one very worn down rear diff drain plug, one rear light lens, and the possibility of a bent unibody.
-Long days that pushed into evenings
-Warm days and COLD nights
-Lots or hiking and rock stacking
-Four very cold, dirty, tired, but satisfied souls!!!

Day 1
Sat got off to a late start, something about Dean’s truck missing bolts that hold his drive shaft on. I didn’t want to question it, but I think getting those bolts on was a good idea. We met up in Pleasanton at around 8:30 and got off to a speedy start. A quick stop was made at Placerville for a fire permit and some gas and then we drove the last ~20 miles to Loon Lake. It was Dean and his buddy Tim in the Pathfinder and Matt and I in the silver sub.

We arrived at Loon at 12:30 and stopped for a quick lunch and to air down. There was a morbid decision by the group to “check out” the Gate Keeper for shits and giggles before taking the bypass. I followed Dean over and before I knew it he was climbing the first set of rocks on the Keeper. “Uh, Dean? Are you sure you want to go though the Gate Keeper? I thought we were just going to check it out?” Dean, “This is Gate Keeper?” It was too late, Dean had committed himself. So we went though it, and just when we thought it was over Squeeze Rock took a hold of us. After a 1 billion point turn in this tight section of large rocks we were out.

The Granite bowl was a relief to see. One large rock with trees growing out of it, very cool looking. We moved on ready to tackle what ever was next. After all we did Gate Keeper, we were unstoppable! Well I guess we let our guard down, because a tree reached out and took out Dean’s rear taillight just before we hit Walker Hill. Now mind you, even though if it isn’t a named obstacle on the Con, doesn’t automatically mean it’s flat and easy… as a matter of fact 90% of the unnamed stuff was grueling! Leaving hardly any flat spots where if you were lucky you could reach a whole 5 mph.

Walker hill proved to be as tough is it has been hyped up to be. Very large rocks on a 25* incline. It was tough to keep three wheels on the ground and Dean proved that 4 feet of air between his tire and the ground was ok, as long as you kept moving forward. With about five good size rocks in the way and one thrown in on the driver’s side ready to do body damage, not to mention the drop on the passenger side down the mountain, the last obstacle was to say the least hard, we had to winch though it. At this point a few Toyota and Jeep guys had caught up to us. As they drove by they stated that they were wandering who was on the con with “Street Tires”. They were very nice and wished us luck after they found out that we went through the Gate Keeper. The worst was behind us, or so we thought…

After Walker Hill we moved on, in hopes of reaching Spider Lake before night fall. The trail proved to be too much and it took quite a bit of work to get though the easy sections. We winded our way through the forest and climbed over more large rocks. By now it was getting late, and Spider Lake was no where near according to our GPS map. The sun was going down fast and we needed light to keep moving. We were tired, hungry, and could already use a shower after all the dirt, hiking, and rock stacking. This took a toll, I ended up high-centered on a rock facing 45* down hill, while Dean took a different line and was stuck between some very large rocks! We all took a deep breath and did our best and got out of our binds. The sun had already set and we were working with just the after glow of sunlight finally reaching the entrance to Little Sluice. This was good enough, and we decided to set camp for the night.

That night it was extremely windy. It was cold and the air was dry. We set up camp as fast as possible and started to cook dinner. After dinner it was a quick movie on Matt’s computer and we all retreated to our warm sleeping bags for the night. I fell asleep instantly only to be rudely awakened by a loud jeep making it’s way into the Con on a night run. Ok, no biggie, just a fellow wheeler getting to camp late, back to sleep I go. Then a bit later, time unknown, a much louder Jeep rolled though with it’s stereo blasting! Arrrrrrgggghhhh! Make it stop! Well it didn’t he came back every hour for the next few hours to “share” his music! Well there went out sleep…

Days two and three to come… maybe tomorrow.

explorx4,
Wow, I'm impressed by your pathfinder! I did not know they were capable of that kind of rockcrawling. How much ground clearance do you have and is the Pathy a unibody?

Great pics guys!

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Thanks for the compliments, man! To be honest, I didn't realize it was capable of that kind of rockcrawling either! Damn, I hope Nissan gets wind of this. I'm pretty certain that my truck is the first (and probably the last!) R50 Pathfinder to traverse the entire Rubicon Trail.

I don't know how much ground clearance I've got, but since it's a unibody with MacPherson strut IFS, I can only get a mild suspension lift. I'm running about 2.5" lift in front, and about 3.5" to 4" in the rear. Combined with 32" tires, that puts me about 4" above stock height for my '97 LE (which has heated leather seats, by the way! ) I like to 'wheel in comfort!

By the way, it turns out I didn't bend the unibody after all. It appears that the fenders got whacked out of alignment by the bumper, probably on that ridge between Walker Hill and Little Sluice.

So...how did you guys get out of the situation? Did one of use the other for the winching point?

Day 2 (Saturday, October 25):

8:00am: Rise and shine, boys! We ran out of water to wash dishes with, so Huey, Matt, and I hiked over to Spider Lake (1/4 mile) while scouting the bypass to Little Sluice. After filling up our 5-gallon jug we returned to camp, where Huey whipped up some yummy scrambled eggs and sausage!

By 10:00am we were packed up and picking our way along the Little Sluice Bypass. There are actually several different bypasses around Little Sluice. We selected a route that appeared to be the easiest (but it was still rather challenging!) Shortly after Little Sluice is a somewhat steep rocky drop-off that required some very careful tire placement and brake modulation. Huey nearly blew a bead on a front tire after sidewalling it on the way down the ledge.

We finally reached "The Slabs", basically the bypass around Old Big Sluice, around 12:45pm, and continued down towards Buck Island Lake. The view looking down into the valley below was breathtaking.

Forty-five minutes later we were skirting the eastern shore of Buck Island Lake, dodging boulder after boulder, each snatching mercilessly at our rocker panels. One particularly grumpy boulder managed to get inflict some pain on the rear left door of the Silver Sub.

Around 3:30, we finally reached the gradual downhill switchbacks of the Big Sluice, which I personally think should really be renamed to "Long Sluice" because, well, it just goes on and on and on...!!! The hardest part of Big Sluice is the first switchback, in which the only safe line is to drive the front tires off a 3-foot high boulder, and use the rock sliders to let the rest of the truck follow.

Much to our dismay, that was just the beginning of Big Sluice. That first obstacle might as well have been called "Big Sluice Gatekeeper" because the rest of the descent was riddled with pumpkin-grabbing, rocker-panel-eating boulders, several of which forced us to break out the winch cables to free ourselves.

By the time we finished Big Sluice, it was about 5:00, and we blazed towards Rubicon Springs. After Big Sluice, even 1-foot-high rocks looked like asphalt pavement, and were a welcome sight!

We finally reached Rubicon Springs as daylight was fading, surveyed the well-appointed facilities, complete with picnic tables and portable toilets, and quickly set up camp.

Having mostly skipped lunch to facilitate forward progress, we were famished by day's end, so we feasted on grilled chicken legs and rice with sausage, all the while watching another DVD on Matt's laptop. We camp in style, I tell you!

We slept deeply and soundly that night, and, thanks to the end of daylight savings time, we took advantage of that extra hour!

Does that put you around 11" of ground clearance? A couple of the pics it looks like you have a decent lift on it.

Yup, I have a new respect for the Pathy now. Is your TJM a customized mount too?

Actually, I think it's somewhere around 13". As with most IFS rigs, the lowest part is the front suspension crossmember. I can easily clear a 2-liter bottle standing upright. Fortunately, I don't have a t-bar crossmember that affects my breakover angle, and the belly of the Pathfinder is relatively flat. Another thing that seemed to be an advantage on this trail was the coil sprung rear. Huey's Xterra snagged its leaf springs quite frequently, especially the load leaf, whereas my lower links tended to slide more easily over rocks.

The TJM is a bolt-on; the bumper I have is no longer produced, unfortunately, so if it gets irreparably damaged, that's it.

PM'd you.

Got my pics up. I posted some of Huey's photos in my album as well. Click here.

Nice Dean...thanks for sharing.
Spring time for a repeat?

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.