AZ to the 'Con...2010

howyadoin · June 17, 2010, 06:49:31 AM

Six of us loaded up for a few days on the 'Con last week. The furthest anyone had made it on the trail before we got there was to Little Sluice (according to Pirate and other sources)...we intended to go further. Our group consisted of five very well built Jeeps including 2 TJ's, 2 JK's (one 6.1 hemi), and one LJ...along with my "token Yota". $Beer Chug\'n$
Our first night was spent in the quarry as getting tow rigs to Loon was going to be a touch challenging with the 3-4 feet of snow just across the dam. We got an early start on day 1 and had little issues making it to Little Sluice. At Little Sluice, we caught another group of four trying to figure out the best strategy for getting up the slab above the Sluice. They opted to go straight up using a winch boulder on top. As they were going straight up, we opted to run the notch and venture into the untouched snow. Myself and Bill led and both got some body damage on the first pinch rock, but managed to navigate the notch with no assistance.
We then dropped down the stairs and hit some pretty substantial water crossings before arriving at another off-camber slab with a bunch of snow. The group in front of us opted to winch this section, but we decided to shovel a small path for our uphill tires a little higher, and used some throttle to get through the section. We then pushed on a little further until catching the other group on "the slabs", where they were struggling and winching quite a bit in the snow. It was getting cold and only a couple more hours of light forced us to backtrack back to Little Sluice where we camped for the second night.
The next morning was brutally cold and windy, so the tops stayed down, and the heaters stayed up. We pushed on down "the slabs" and ended up setting up camp at Buck. Hung out for a little while and decided to push on towards Rubicon Springs. Everything was going great as we dropped down the hill toward the bridge, then one of the TJ's cut both passenger side tires on a tree root at the same time. It was getting a little late, so we decided to go back up the hill after turning around right before the bridge. Spent a great night in camp and decided to "break" Old Sluice in the morning.
Old Sluice was definately the highlight of the trip for the three of us that hit it. Lots of water and a ton of snow on top made it relatively challenging. There were no tracks anywhere, including the snow, so I'm sure we were the first to run it this year.
We pushed on and ended up backtracking all the way to the "Y" between Loon and Wentworth Springs. No one in our group had ever been through Wentworth, and we had tons of time, so we decided to try that route. Really cool area including some cool waterfalls that we ran to add a little challenge.

After returning to the quarry, we decided that we'd load up and stay in South Tahoe to avoid yet another night in the cold and windy conditions. We ended up staying at the the Apex Inn which was very accomodating to our tow rigs and overall stench.

There was a great Italian restaurant across the street and they agreed to stay open past closing to feed us...awesome!
I ended up staying in Vegas on the way back to lose a little money at the Craps tables, and then made it home early the following day. We ended up towing 1630 miles round trip, and it was well worth it imho. We had a great group of wheelers and amazingly had zero carnage other than two tires and one bent panhard...easy fix. Probably the funnest wheeling trip I've ever had personally, and can't wait to make it back...maybe in August with buggies?

Here is a link to my photobucket with all the pics...warning, they are very large and there are well over 900 total. I'll resize some good ones and post them here, but wanted to leave the link for now.
http://s244.photobucket.com/albums/gg33/howyadoinaz/rubicon2010/