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?