FOTR Annual Meeting
Posted: March 15, 2014 Filed under: Maintenance | Tags: El Dorado County, Placer, Rubicon Leave a commentFOTR’s annual meeting will be held Saturday, May 3rd.
Posted on Pirate4x4.com by the Trail Boss, Jerry Reffner:
FOTR Annual Meeting
Its that time again, so we now have a date and place:
Saturday-May 3rd
Start Time: 9am
Place: Placerville Maintenance/Operations/ Construction, DOT Building
2441 Headington Road Placerville 95667The Annual meeting this year will be in Placerville. We are going to incorporate the Adopt-A-Trail training into this year’s meeting. This will also serve as a meet and greet as we will have a lot of new faces.
The plan is to have at least 2 to 3 representatives from each club/organization to go over trail work, the how’s and why’s and the paperwork.
El Dorado County will have their people there to show how to do specific projects and walk them through all the aspects of getting the program up and running.
All members of FOTR should go through this process also, the reason being so everyone will have the same training and in the advent of a club having to drop out FOTR volunteers can step in seamlessly.
There will be the usual discussions on what projects FOTR will be involved with this year both El Dorado County and Placer County, and please bring your ideas of any projects that you see the need for. This is a start of a brand new year, with a brand new Adopt A Trail Program! It should be another record breaking year.
A continental breakfast will be provided before and RTF is going to supply the lunch.
As we get closer to the date, more info will be sent out. And please if you have any questions/ideas or want to have some speaking time, the floor is always open.
Contact for the Adopt-A-Trail is:
Vickie Sanders
Parks Manager
County of El Dorado
Chief Administrative Office
530-621-7538Thanks and look forward to seeing everyone there.
Rubicon closed again
Posted: March 14, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentEl Dorado County sent out an email this afternoon stating that the Rubicon Trail is again closed from Wentworth Springs to the county line on the north edge of the Rubicon Springs private property.
The Ellis Creek tie is open from Loon Lake to the intersection with the Rubicon Trail.
County link:
Rubicon re-opened
Posted: March 13, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentThe Rubicon has been re-opened but there is another survey to be done on Friday.
http://www.edcgov.us/Goverment.aspx?id=6442454279
Stay tuned!
Rubicon Trail – CLOSED!
Posted: February 25, 2014 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentEl Dorado County has officially closed the Rubiocn Trail due to wet trail conditions. This is a temporary closure and will be lifted when the trail dries out.
From an email I received at 10:39am:
A TEMPORARY ROAD CLOSURE HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR THE RUBICON TRAIL FEBRUARY 25, 2014.
All three conditions of the monitoring protocol have been met and the Rubicon Trail is closed until further notice. Transportation crews will monitor and open the trail as soon as conditions allow.
This notice will also be posted to the County website.
Vickie Sanders
Parks Manager
County of El Dorado
Chief Administrative Office
FYI –
The three conditions are:
1) The soil is saturated to the point where water can no longer soak in
2) The depth of water greater than 8 inches (capable of rinsing contaminants from the bottom of a vehicle)
3) The water is flowing so that it can transport sediment.
New RTF Trailer for the Tahoe side
Posted: February 22, 2014 Filed under: Maintenance | Tags: grant, RTF, Rubicon Leave a commentChristmas came late!
John Briggs, the Placer County liaison for FOTR, just received a brand new trailer for maintenance efforts on the Tahoe side. It belongs to RTF (Trailer RTF-06), obtained through OHMVR grant funding, and is on a “permanent loan” to the Tahoe side. If it is needed on the Eldorado side, we’ll bring it over.
I got a chance to check it out today. It was made by Varozza 4×4 Outfitters (www.Varozza4x4.com) out of Diamond Springs, CA, just south of Placerville. The basics: 2/3 of a yard capacity with a built in dump feature (air/hydraulic); 360 degree “Lock N Roll” rotating hitch (all you need is a 2” receiver); two piece swing out tailgate all on 35” BFG Mud Terrain tires. Another feature is the offset axle. It is offset up about 4” between the leaf springs in order to gain more clearance.
There is a standard air chuck intake like you would find on an air tool. There is a valve on the trailer to control the lifting of the trailer. Supply air and the bed tilts up, in order to lower the bed, you need to use the orange handle to turn the release on the hydraulic jack under the trailer. There is a latch to hold down the bed. In case you are out of air, there is a manual override by using the orange handle on the side of the trailer to pump the hydraulic jack under the trailer; quite awkward.
The trailer weight is low enough that it does not require fenders, nice! And the trailer paperwork is in a holder on the front of the trailer to prove that to any officer that tries to ticket you.
Specifications:
- Hitch height – 24″
- Bed dimensions – 60″ long, 40″ wide, 12″ deep (16 cu. ft./0.62 yards)
- Overall width – 70″
- Wheel pattern – Toyota 6 lug (I think)
- Weight – 1100 pounds (empty)
- Electric brakes – (needs 7 prong RV connector)
The trailer now has a mounted 7 to 4 adaptor. So, you can use the 7 prong connector (if you have one) to get the benefit of trailer brakes or plug the 7 prong in to the adaptor and use the flat four connector to get lights only.
Operation:
Before tilting the bed, open the dual tailgate doors and secure them with the small chains on the sides of the trailer. The trailer has a small square tube on each side to hold the chain to prevent it swinging and being noisy and chipping the paint.
To dump the trailer, you need to supply it with compressed air. Before opening the valve to supply air the trailer with air, unlatch the tilt bed from the trailer frame at the front of the trailer, if you don’t the bed won’t go up. (Trust me on this one.) The air to hydraulic pump surges, it sounds and feels like it’s giving the jack small bursts of air. Empty, the bed bounces and jerks a little bit. This operation uses quite a bit of air to operate.
There is a support brace under the trailer if you need to have the bed up for an extended period of time. Jack up the bed, reach under the bed and hold up the brace while you lower the bed on to the brace. This will provide a safer means of working on the trailer.
Speaking of working on the trailer, along with adding the electrical adaptor, I purchased and swapped out the air line from the valve to the pump. The original hose was not on all the way, so I reattached it. Then it blew, three times! I went and bought a steal braided reinforced 4000psi hydraulic line with threaded connectors on both ends. The hose will not leak or blow.
An example of how this will be used on the Tahoe side would be to finish the culvert removal project John Briggs headed up last summer. We still need to rock line the seasonal crossing to prevent any erosion and this will save some backaches, at least during unloading.
The trailer will be stored in a central location with a combination lock so arrangements can be made to let groups doing maintenance access it as needed. I’ve purchased a combination lock and John Briggs donated some chain. We’ll lock the trailer and provide the combination when someone needs it. The combination lock has a changeable combination so we’ll change the combination with each use.
This will be a huge help toward keeping the Rubicon Trail maintained and thus open for year ‘round motorized public use.
Thank you RTF for getting the grant and sending a trailer to the ‘Other’ Rubicon.
The 'Other' Rubicon 