The Rubicon – Maybe not
As part of our trip to California this last month I wanted to give the Rubicon a try. We left Novato, CA about 8:30 AM and headed for the trail. The drive through Sacramento was no problem and 50 had light traffic. We made one last fuel stop before heading up Icehouse Road.
Icehouse Road is a typical mountain drive with lots of altitude gain as the road twists and turns. We made Loon Lake and the Rubicon trail head a little after lunch. We took some time to get the FJ ready for the trail, airing down the tires and getting a little food in our selves.
The Rubicon is a difficult trail and the obstacles start coming one after another right from the start. With the FJ in 4 low it was a slow crawl up and over the larger boulders covering the trail. Towing the trailer made line selection critical due to the inability to back much. I was also mostly self spotting which tends to slow things down.
We reached the Granite Slab and slowly negotiated the ledges and drop offs. After making the Wentworth Springs cutoff things really started to get interesting. It was fully challenging both my ability and the ability of the Toyota FJ Cruiser pulling a trailer. I managed to high center the front by driving right over large boulder, one of the risks of self spotting. This required the Hi-Lift jack and some rock stacking to keep the forward progress going.
With a little rain, climbing Walkers rock was when things really got interesting. There is a very narrow section of trail that had a large boulder right in the center. I thought I could get by the boulder by placing the left side up on a ledge but the FJ just would not climb where I wanted it to. I ended up having to try driving right over the boulder using rock stacking and finesse. No joy. We had to pull the rope and winch the FJ forward over the boulder. The winch was also needed to keep things moving while dragging the trailer over the same rock.
Finally underway again we topped out in a nice grove of trees and decided to set camp.
Camping was no fun at all. The mosquitoes were some of the worst that I have seen. LJ was miserable and getting bitten like crazy. (She counted almost 100 bites the next day)
The following morning we reviewed our situation and decided to head back out. The bugs were going to make the rest of the trip a real pain. With no spotter it was going to take lots of work on my part to get us through on the right line. We did not have another vehicle if we had trouble on the trail. Most of all, the Rubicon was going to beat the hell out of my rig and the trip was not worth the potential cost.
Will we go back again? I don’t know. We love to get out in the back country and we don’t mind some very technical obstacles to get there. However, our goal as the destination and with the Rubicon the journey is in the drive. If we go back I think I’ll leave the trailer at home.
Very interesting—was wondering if you had regeared or had a after market transfer case?
Thanks
Tomas,
You and LJ are brave souls to venture the trail alone. We should have been there with you! I trust your new gearing helped a bit???
Glad you made it out alive and in one piece. I have done the Rubicon with 3″ lift and 33s in my FJC but with great spotting during the Rubithon first all FJC run in 2008.
I would not suggest anyone trying to run the Rubicon solo, if they have not run it first with an experienced Rubicon spotter.
35s might have made the difference for you. I know of a very expereinced driver that pulled his trailer through behind his 80 series land cruiser.
Anyway, glad you are ok. You are lucky you turned around, no way would you have made it through big sluce and then you could have really found trouble climbing Cadilac hill.
This is just not a solo trail. Way to dangerous.
We are OK because we were never at risk. I have pulled the trailer through all sorts of stuff and there was no luck involved in when we turned around. It was a decision based on the trail that we had covers and what was to come. When we started on the trail I fully realized that we might be turning round. The hardest part of solo travel (which is what we do 90% of the time) is self spotting. Picking the line then execution is lots of work and very tedious.