Highway 80 road work
Posted: August 23, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentOff topic, but not off trail…
CA DOT is planning a few MAJOR projects along highway 80 between Sacramento and Truckee.
The plan is to raise the height of nine overpasses to allow taller rigs (16′ 6″) on the highway. This could effect your travel plans to the Rubicon if you’re traveling Highway 80. The highway will be open but you will probably face delays.
Placer to start work on Monday, August 25th!
Posted: August 22, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentPlacer County has announced that they (their contractor) will start working on the Rubicon Trail on Monday, August 25th. The report is they plan to work Monday through Friday for the first two weeks and then maybe Monday through Thursday and ten hour shifts after that.
There are several aspects to this work and the details of what is getting done and when that work is being done has not been released.
You’ve all seen the HUGE pile of fill dirt in the staging area. That dirt needs to be strained for large rock and then delivered to the low spots along the trail between Miller Lake and the turn at the intersection of the Rubicon and Barker Pass Road (Forest Road 03-04). This means there will be heavy equipment all along the trail. They might even be using Blackwood Canyon and Barker Pass Road (Forest Road 03-04) to access the Rubicon.
The contractor will also be creating 35 water features, rolling dips/water bars/drains, from Miller to the turn. These will need to be hardened with rock. Volunteers will be needed to place the rock on these features. The rock will be delivered by the contractor.
The contractor will be delivering rock to the Potato Patch and the old mud hole about a mile west of the intersection mentioned above. This will be done by the Mooroka tractor. That is a tracked, four yard, dump truck, on loan (lease?) from El Dorado County. Rumor has it, that operation (moving rock to fill the hole) will take a month on its own, with 3-4 trips a day.
Expect delays as the tractor above and the HUGE haul trucks will take up most of the trail. See more images in the Photojournal “Filling the Holes”. Please be patient as they work to help us keep our trail open.
I believe that the goal is to finish the work by October 15th.
100mph Meadow
Posted: August 5, 2014 Filed under: Travel | Tags: history, TNF Leave a commentLong before I started running the Rubicon (I first drove the Tahoe side in 1985) there were a few special spots along the Tahoe side that no longer exist today. In 1984 a tremendous amount of work was done by the FS and volunteers. Mud holes were filled in (bottom dollar hole), a bridge was built over McKinney Creek (eliminating the “Car Wash”), gabions were installed (users added a “pet rock prison” sign), etc. I’m not sure when the reroute happened but “100mph Meadow” went away.
100mph Meadow cut the corner of the intersection of the Rubicon and Barker Pass Road (Forest Road 03). The story goes, that after crawling up Cadillac at one mile per hour, the Jeeps would reach the ‘meadow’, switch in to high range and open up the throttle. The meadow floor was of such a consistency that it did not develop bumps and you could really clean out the carburetors.
Here is where the trail broke out of the forest and headed across the meadow. With the current S&G100 issues, I’ve learn a little about meadows. They have a built in way to ward off other plant/tree species. So when the Jeeps stopped driving on the trail the trees moved in. They didn’t move in to the meadow, which can protect itself, they moved on to the Jeep trail that had nothing living on it, it was dirt. So, the trees grew ON the trail from seeds probably left by Jeeps.
Here is a shot looking across the meadow and then south to Sourdough Hill:
The second half of the meadow and evidence that I was on the trail, an old Jeep rim.
Trees growing ON the trail on the east end of the meadow and the trail disappearing in to the forest.
It was cool to get out and walk around and check things out. I found another old logging road that would be cool to reopen but don’t hold your breath.
Who Decides?
Posted: July 26, 2014 Filed under: Maintenance Leave a commentWho Decides?
It has recently come to my attention that an alteration has been made to Cadillac Hill. Although I’m good with individuals and groups doing trail maintenance “as needed”, it should only be done “when needed”.
Although I have not seen it for myself, it is reported that the ‘alteration’ to Cadillac Hill was the removal of the rock in the middle of the trail just below V-Rock. This rock had caused the Sheriff’s, in their Razor, to negotiate the obstacle on the low side. Very dangerous as the soil is loose just off the trail and it’s a long way down if you go over. The rock in question is hidden in the shadow in the picture below.
The rock was tall enough that you would scrape your axle or get hung up if you straddled it. It was surrounded by smaller rock and thus had not grown over the years due to erosion. It had been there forever. Going up Cadillac Hill, the common line was to put your low (right) side tires on the rock and allow the left side to climb the granite slab. Those with narrow axles didn’t experience much lean. Those will full width axles had to climb further up the slab and would experience much more lean. This rock was part of Cadillac Hill and although not a ‘named’ obstacle it added to the experience that was Cadillac Hill and added to the ‘stories’ of Cadillac Hill being one of the tougher obstacles on the way out.
I’m disappointed that a group or individual made the decision to remove this rock. My concerns are how do we prevent this type of thing from happening in the future?
2nd Update (9/16)
Here is a good “before” photo:
UPDATE:
I was out there yesterday and took these photos.
It looks like they topped the rock and flipped the top over in to the middle of the trail. I guess this is better than pushing the entire rock of the edge of the trail but still not cool.
Last month, I came across a new bypass further up Cadillac Hill. It went around the tree at the rock out cropping / creek crossing with the log anchored to the ground as a water bar:
From a few conversations I’ve had, it was concluded that the side-by-sides didn’t like the clearance issues going over the step right about where my trailer hitch is in the pictures. So, they drove off trail, going around the tree and dropped back on to the trail above the tree.
I took the time to block the new illegal bypass:
I’m not holding my breath that this block will last. Volunteers will have to go back and drag some larger trees and either tie them together with bailing wire or anchor them to the ground with rebar.
It’s disappointing that there is still an educational gap. How do we educate those wanting to ‘help’ out on the trail before they make alterations? How do we prevent people from going rogue and pioneering new trails? With two counties, three forests and numerous 4wd organizations overseeing the Rubicon, who should be leading this effort? Can we get one organization to step up and lead?
I don’t know.
Trailers on the Rubicon
Posted: July 20, 2014 Filed under: Maintenance, Travel | Tags: recovery, Rubicon, trailer Leave a commentA few years ago, the Lake Tahoe Hi-Lo’s, working with FOTR, moved more than 70+ cubic yards of rock to fill “The Mud hole”.
Last weekend, a group of volunteers moved 16 cubic yards of gravel (with road base and a binder), up the Richardson Lake Trail. Many projects in between have used trailers.
Just about everything you can imagine have been hauled along the Rubicon with a trailer, okay, almost everything. Even people down the river…
Hi-Lo’s in the trailer races at Jeepers Jamboree!
Trailers are so important to the Rubicon and its maintenance that RTF used an OHV grant to buy six of them. They were featured in a previous post. (RTF Trailers)
Over the last few days, FOTR moved 90 bags of concrete to Cadillac Hill for a project they did this morning. I helped out a week earlier by taking a trailer load of concrete to just above Morris Rock.
The trip started okay. I stopped by Steve Morris’ cabin, where the concrete was being staged and loaded up 12 bags in to my trailer. I have an old highway lighting trailer that was gutted and sold at auction. I bought it from a guy who had a bunch of them from that auction. I cut down the front panel to match the sides and welded up and installed some channel tubing for a slide in tailgate. As pictured before, I used it to haul in the new sign for the Long Lake Trail (16E12).
Bringing the new trailhead sign in for TKS-11
After loading the trailer with 12 bags of concrete, I headed for the staging area. I thought it was going to be a quiet Thursday morning drive in to Morris Rock but it was Friday morning and the Auburn Jeep Club and the Dirty Dozen Jeep Club were both getting ready to hit the trial. I aired down as quick as I could to get in front of them. But some got out in front of me. It was a slow drive even for a guy hauling a trailer of concrete.
The drop went okay and I left the trailer and checked out the Long Lake Trail at the bottom of Cadillac Hill. Still a fun side trip. Coming back up Cadillac, I got hung up at the hairpin turn. Even with 35″ tires, there is an undercut just past the halfway point through the turn while you’re trying to climb on to the slab on the left while avoiding the stub of a rock sticking up on the right. I had to stack a few rocks but got through it.
I picked up my trailer and headed home. After getting to Observation I breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed another gear and speed up down the trail. That was a mistake. I wasn’t 50 yards past Observation and felt a good, quiet, tug on the Jeep. As I looked over my right shoulder, I saw the left tire of my trailer sticking straight up in the air. The trailer was on it’s way over and I couldn’t do anything about it. While the trailer was loaded, it towed fine. Unloaded, it was bouncing off every rock in sight. By speeding up, I was now applying enough force to flip the trailer. The left tire hit a rock and up and over it went.
Story to follow…
The point of the large rock in the picture put a small hole in the bed of the trailer and then broke out the tailgate as I couldn’t stop in time. I figured I didn’t have much time before someone was going to drive by so I had to get it righted and quick. Being alone, I had to double time it. I pulled my recovery gear bag, and the winch line.
A snatch block off the tree in front for a change in direction. And a second snatch block off the tree at the trailer to actually pull it back over.
A quick run of the winch and it was back to the rubber side down. I was able to get it righted before anyone came along.
Now I had to replace the tailgate before I was to haul gravel the next day. John Briggs helped me out by pulling out and old piece of plywood and 2×6 to get me back in the game for the Richardson Lake Trail project the next day.
Here I am pulling “doubles”. We had left the trailers at Miller Lake Saturday night. I had run up to Miller early Sunday morning and hauled both back to the staging area for Sunday’s effort. What a noisy run down that trail.
Lesson learned, don’t be in a hurry while towing a trailer on the Rubicon and always carry enough gear for a self recovery.
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The 'Other' Rubicon 