2006 Triple Trail Trek
From Gold Hills Posse 4x4 Club
July 28, 2006
Written by Rob
Our Triple Trail Trek is a two and a half day, three trail adventure. This year the group leaving Friday night to run Strawberry Trail ran into mechanical problems. Due to the nature of the problems and the amount of time spent getting the affected rig repaired, they chose to return home early Saturday morning.
A second group had planned to meet the first group late Saturday morning. Rob reported . . .
You guys missed a great run. Brendan and I met at around 10:00 at the camp ground. As we aired down, we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes. We ran into about 8 or 9 ATV's on the trail and about 8 or so rigs passed us coming in from the Hwy 4 side. The weather was in the upper 70's and the trail dust was almost non existent. You have to love those high elevation runs.
Nothing to technical and challenging, but a great day of sight seeing and enough obstacles to keep it fun. Brendan gave himself a new nick name, " Double Diff." Apparently on the Rubicon he managed to hang both diffs and suspend all four tires off the ground. Today, he manage to hang both diffs again, so he came up with the name himself.. I think that is now his official CB handle.
We had a great time. Sue rode with me and Brendan had a friend of his with him. We hit the trail around 10:45 and we were airing up at around 2 p.m. on Hwy 4. On the way back, Brendan was a great tour guide. We headed back via Hwy 50. Brendan pointed out some great fishing spots along the rivers off Hwy 4. Sue and I may try and head up there next week, so I can do some fishing.
Attendees:
- Brad & Family
- John & Family
- Lee & Pam
- Keane & Casey
- Alex & Heidi's Nephews.
Begin Time: 4:00pm
End Time: 4:00am
I met up with Keane at the Chevron gas station in Rancho Cordova. Keane filled up and we began our adventure. Traffic sucked. It took about 45 minutes to pass the El Dorado Hills Blvd exit! We had decided before we left Rancho that we would grab dinner at the In & Out in Placerville. When we finally arrived in Placerville I received a phone call from Heidi stating that I had forgotten the snacks and bread that I had planned to use for sandwiches on Saturday. So we had to make a quick stop at the nearest grocery store. Of course the checkout lines were obnoxious. What ever happened to 3's a crowd? At this point we thought we'd better get Keanes super squirrels out so we could make it to the Silverfork gas station before the rest of the group took off without us. So up the hill we went and boy did those squirrels perform. I could barely keep up.
We made it to the gas station with 10 minutes to spare before the 7:30 deadline. To our surprise there were no jeeps to be found. Could they have left us poor Toyota boys behind???? Noooooooo..... Keane and I both decided that there was no way that the Posse 4x4 President and VP would leave us behind. So after making a few phone calls and topping off our gas tanks we decided to wire up some rock lights for my 4runner while we waited. We did a heck of a job, Rancho Cordova Style!!!!
Finally the jeeps showed up. Apparently somebody's new job likes him so much that they couldn't let him go early. So Sad. So Sorry, but No Worries. After saying hi and figuring out what had happened we left the Silverfork gas station around 8:15ish? The trail head to Long Canyon was not very far from the gas station. We aired down almost in the dark. All the kids seemed to be getting along running around. Ahh, the kids, yes, that's a whole other story. So we aired down and the wheeling began.
Keane can confirm the elevation difference from start to finish (via GPS tracking) but all I have to say is Long Canyon is a steep 4x4 trail with plenty of bushes and turns. I'm glad somebody knew where we were going. I don't think I could find my way at night. There was an interesting moment during the run when I stalled the 4runner over this rock and I think tree stump on my right. I turned my wheels to try another line but I heard a confident voice on the CB. I think I remember the conversation over the CB radio like this......
Lee: Alex, straighten out your wheels and floor it!!!
Alex:10, 4 Good buddy.
So I floored it.
Keane: OMG your front wheels were like 4ft off the ground.
Alex: Lee said to floor it!!
Lee: I didn't say floor it.
Brad: I heard "floor it".
John: I heard "straighten the wheels and floor it".
Anyway, after that little miscommunication, we hit the top of the trail and proceeded down hill. We stopped for a moment to look at the billions of stars that were out that night. We even saw the Milky Way. Awesome, definitely worth the trip. After a small wish that Brad made on a shooting star, we proceeded a short distance to the Strawberry Trail head and got things rolling.
We went up over that big rock on the right at the beginning of the trail and a couple of woopy do's and pop! My right front tire went flat. I got out and thought I blew a bead. Then Keane got out and said, I don't think so dude. The 4 bolts that hold the lower ball joint to the lower a-arm had mysteriously disappeared. this caused a tear into my front tire and caused my cv-axle to pull apart. Damn.
We looked over the damage to see what would be the safest way to repair the truck. We ended up using the high lift to take the tire off, remove the damaged axle and screw in some temp bolts in place of those that were missing. By the way, Keane is awesome for carrying spare Toyota nuts and bolts. I think they were from the landcruiser but nonetheless he happened to have some that we could use.
I then went to take my spare tire off the bottom of my 4runner but I didn't realize that the spare tire remover attachment was missing a piece. damn. So I looked to my Toyota brother and borrowed his 37inch spare. Once again Keane to the rescue. My hero. Anyway we had a problem putting the 37 on because the high lift was maxed out. So this is when John, Keane, Lee and I lifted the 4runner while Brad tried to put the spare on. There was also a hard rock preventing us from being able to dig a hole to put the 37 on so we put the flat 35 back on and I drove a bit up the trail until we found a better location to put the spare on. We found the right location and were able to put the spare on with no problems. Did I mention that the truck looks awesome with a 37inch tire on! Hmmmm.
Anyway, after that everyone decided that they would turn around and go back to the trailhead with us, air up and head home. I believe some still camped out only there were flush toilets and a real nice shower within walking distance. AKA Brad's house. Not sure what time Brad, John and Lee got home but I think we ended our trip back in Rancho around 4:00 Saturday morning. Obviously we weren't able to meet up with the Sat. group but from the previous posts it sounds like they had a good time too.
Cheers.