Beginning in early March, our jeep club, the “Hillhorns” started to make plans to do our annual run of the Rubicon trail. I had a lot of excitement to do this trail for both the fame that it holds in the 4×4 world and the fact that this would be my first time crawling it. I had been on the trail once before two years ago in June of 2020 as a passenger. This was before I had my own jeep. In May of 2021 I got my 2001 XJ and spent the following year working on it and doing other trails with great anticipation to hit the Rubicon. Once plans were in place, I was stoked to say the least!
We left on June 3rd with a smaller group than usual of just four Jeeps. The small group was due to one injury, a honeymoon, a last-minute motor rebuild that was just a little too late, as well as a few other inconveniences for our fellow rock crawlers. None the less the seven of us/4 jeeps were ready to hit the road and get to the trail head. We met up in central California near the city of Modesto and headed to towards Lake Tahoe to get to the trail. A quick stop at California’s famous burger chain In-N-Out and a gas stop and we made it to the trail head in roughly three and a half hours around 12:30 in the afternoon.
We were starting at the most used trail head next to Loon lake. There we met a volunteer for the Rubicon Trail Foundation who was giving out some oil spill kits as well as some mesh trash bags. We thanked him, aired down our tires and began. Going into the first part of the trail, it gives you a good look at your future miles on the Rubicon. It has a lot of granite rock and some good obstacles to pass. We wheeled through it all and made it to the first bridge on the trail that crosses over Ellis Creek. We got out and talked about where we were all thinking of setting up camp. We all agreed that it was far too early in the day and that we should try to make it the famous soup bowl and worry about a camping spot later. We hopped back in and made our way to soup bowl. Boy was it packed! We got out and watched some people attempt it. Not wanting to add more rigs to the already long line of people trying to do it, we decided it would be best to set up camp and then come back. After talking to some guys and gals at soup bowl they informed us that “Winter Camp” was just right down the trail and there was still some room. We thanked them and headed down the trail aways. We set up camp and unloaded so that our rigs would have the best shot doing soup bowl. I took the moment at camp to do a quick scan of my jeep and so far, everything had held up great.
After grabbing some snacks and something to drink we headed back up the trail around 5:00 P.M. towards soup bowl. It was empty when we got there which I figured it would be considering we passed the large group on our way back. Once there, we wasted no time in figuring it out. Shockingly, our hasty approach did not lead to ultimate success. We were going for more of a “gun it and worry about it later” approach. What can I say, we’re a fun group who likes to wheel hard. All four of us attempted the obstacle and only one of us made it. The infamous Father Todd. I use the term infamous because he has rolled and flipped his jeeps too many times to count. However, we call him Father Todd because he is such a good hearted and nice guy that you would assume he must be a priest or something. He is a very well-balanced individual, flipping jeeps all the time but always with a smile. I surely had the hardest time and least chance of success at the soup bowl. My rig was the least built up. I was running 35’s, 4.5-inch lift, Aussie locker in the front, and some rock sliders. Other than that, it just came down to good driving, which of course I have a lot of room for improvement.
After finishing up at soup bowl with a couple more dings than we started with, we grabbed some chopped up firewood that was left nearby and headed back down the trail to camp. It was around 6:15 P.M. and we had a little less than two hours until sundown. We made it back to camp and started dinner and a fire. Make sure if you are going to have a campfire on the trail you get a fire permit online, they are usually needed in this area. We had linguica and some drinks and gathered around the fire. We talked for a couple hours, telling stories and spent a lot of time discussing the three black bears that have been roaming the trail lately. One of our jeepers did not like that conversation very much especially when it was time for her to head into the woods for a quick restroom stop. I tried to ensure her that black bear mauling’s are rare and deaths by black bears is even more rare than that, however that did not seem to help. We had some more laughs, and it was lights out by 11:30 for most of us. During the night I woke up twice to the sound of razors and a couple jeeps tearing down the trail. For a second in your dazed and drowsy awareness you would think they’re about to run over your tent. But within a few minutes I was right back to sleep.
We got up around 6:30 in the morning, sat down, had some coffee, a quick meal and then packed up and headed onto the trail. We were eager to get going this morning due to a new opportunity for us on the trail. A few months or so before our trip, an extra loop was added to the Rubicon Trail. We were not sure if we wanted to try it or not, we decided to wait until we got there and see how we felt. I think in all reality we already knew the answer, it was going to be an obvious yes. After a few hours of wheeling along some rough obstacles and some pretty steep mountains we got to the turn off for the added loop. And what do you know, we all agreed it was an absolute yes to do it. As you start off the trail, you sink down from the mountain and crawl your way down to a large shelf cut into the mountainside. You do a small crossing over a river that looks as though it flows right over the edge into the abyss. And you begin your journey of weaving around the granite. There are trail markers spray painted yellow to tell you which way to go. As we started the added loop we figured it would take roughly three hours at most due to some prior comments of people who had done it. Welp! Either those people were lying, or we were just going really slow because by the time we got out of that loop and back on the main trail, over five hours had passed. Although it took a long time, we were all very happy we did the extra loop, it had some great obstacles and was cool to have an added option to this famous trail.
Due to the amount of time we spent on the loop, we had a lot of ground to cover. Our plan was to spend the night at Rubicon Springs. Luckily the trip there seemed to go by in a breeze. We crawled our way through, some rain pouring on us and made it to Big Sluice. Let me tell you – it felt like we flew down that mountain side zig zagging all the way down. My rock sliders got put to use on that part due to the large amounts of little drop offs there were. Once we got to the bottom, we made our way to Rubicon Springs and got there by 5:30 P.M. While I was collecting some firewood, I met some guys who were in desperate need of some transmission fluid. One of our guys had a spare quart and was more than happy to part with it. It was at that moment we slipped in the question of anyone having any extra gas. One of our guys was running very low. Lucky for us they had an extra five gallons which they generously shared with us. We said our “thanks” and “good lucks” and headed back to camp. We tried fishing for some trout at the river by camp using some grub and worm lures with no luck! (If anyone has a tip for that spot I would love to know!)
We were all fairly tired from the long day and enjoyed loads of mac and cheese and more Linguiça for dinner. We sat around for a while and soon headed off to bed. We woke up at around two in the morning with it just dumping rain on us. Then someone in our tent piped up about how our shoes and boots were outside. We rushed to go get them. I grabbed my boots and dumped what must have been a quarter gallon water out of each, almost like a movie. I was far too tired and slightly cold to stay out my sleeping bag for very long worrying about it. We brought them in the tent and went right back to bed. We got up in the morning and slipped on our cold and wet shoes and boots and got to work packing up. It was still raining out so we were all trying to pack up quick to get back into our jeeps and get going.
Within an hour we were all ready to roll. We started our way towards the final big obstacle of Cadillac Hill. I would be lying if I said I was not at least a little bit concerned about this obstacle. We had already talked about me possibly having to be towed up at some parts due to me not being locked in the rear and having some less than ideal tire tread. Not to mention the many times that the trail gets narrow and you can look straight down the drop off when you get out of your jeep. None the less as I like to say, “it is what it is”. And to our surprise, Cadillac Hill went well. The rain had somehow worked in our favor by washing all the dirt and dust off of the rock which gave really good traction. At no point during the climb did I do very much slipping.
It was all going great until the last quarter or so. I made the comment of how I was glad my jeep was handling the trail so well over the radio. Someone then actually said that that was a mistake and that I just jinxed myself. I laughed at the idea, not really being a believer in the jinx. Welp, boy was I wrong! About ten minutes later I realize that I have almost no steering to the right. This became a big problem on Cadillac hill with the steep hills and sharp turns. I got out and started looking at what could be wrong and we noticed that the bolts to my track bar were a little loose. We tightened those as good as we could and then got back on the trail. However, this did not help one bit. We get back out and look but we can’t figure out what’s wrong. We decided we might as well just keep going because we couldn’t be stuck on the steep mountainside forever. We finally conquered the last part of Cadillac Hill and started the long dirt road back to the trail end. Every single hole sounded like my jeep was about to fall apart. I was running through all the different things that I think would be wrong with it.
We finally make it to the trail end and onto pavement. I called over to Father Todd and told him to look at how little steering I had. I turned the steering wheel about a quarter of the way and my steering box bolt shooted out and almost nailed him the shin. (Looks like we found the problem!) My steering box bolts were loose for a while on Cadillac hill. We all felt like idiots for not catching this on the trail. And since we didn’t have any extra steering box bolts and a three-and-a-half-hour drive home, I was stuck. Luckily instead of having to drive back home and pick up a trailer we were able to use Triple A.
Although it ended a little rough it was an awesome trip. I felt good finally completing the famous Rubicon Trail in my own jeep and was proud of how well the “FlexJ” did! If you are thinking about this trail then I say grab some buddies and just go. There is plenty of other information online about this trail if you have any questions. Don’t fear to reach out to me or anyone else you know who has completed this trail for some more info! Now go out, be safe, and have some fun!