Mother’s Day Wheeling

On Sunday, after calling my mother and wishing her a happy Mother’s Day, a few of us headed up the Rubicon Trail.

Eric Agee, the new FOTR Placer side lead, wanted a quick tour of the Tahoe side. Two rigs and three people headed out of the staging area around 9:30am. Eric drove his Cruiser as I rode shotgun and talked about the trail. Paul followed in his CJ-7, just to have two rigs on the trip. Ham radios on a simplex frequency kept us in touch.

We stopped a lot along the way discussing different needs of the trail, which agency was responsible for what and what FOTR could do while Placer County did the proposed grant work.

The trail is still VERY wet and soft.  I would encourage anyone thinking about driving it to put off your trip for a week or two. There were a few snow drifts along the way and we only went as far as the old mud hole that FOTR drained and filled in years ago, just west of the Potato Patch.

With the snow fall from the day before, there was running water where the seasonal creeks cross the Rubicon. This allowed us to get a good idea of what was working well and what would need a tune-up.

Yeah, that snow storm. I was up helping the Hi-Lo’s do some maintenance work on the Twin Peaks Trail in South Tahoe on Saturday.  I decided to take the scenic route home up the west shore. Once I got to Tahoma, the snow started falling. By the time I got to Tahoe City it was a full blow snow storm. Unfortunately, my Jeep was only sporting a soft top with metal half doors and no uppers! And the back window was off. Needless to say I had a cold ride home.  The snow finally stopped at stateline on 80 but it did turn to rain. I was having to wipe down the INSIDE of my windshield.

The ‘weekly photo’ is from inside my Jeep when I pulled in to the Shell gas station in Tahoe City.

On the way out, Paul heard a strange clunking sound coming from underneath his rig.  We stopped and checked it out and the rear spring hanger on the right front leaf spring had been ripped off the frame.  Eric suggested using the winch cable to wrap around the frame and actually through the spring hanger. It worked.

You never know what going to happen on the Rubicon.