Trailhead Update

Posted: January 21, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Unfortunately, no new snow. And there’s nothing in the forecast.

Not much there. Lots of evidence that people are out playing.

Yes, that’s my new 2021 Colorado. ZR2. I was a single vehicle, so I didn’t venture out.

Just past the entrance, there are many holes. It looks like people without lockers are getting stuck and spinning tires and digging holes.

I love the couple of logs in the snow that people used to try and get unstuck. Obviously, something worked to get them unstuck.

50 feet in and you’re on a nice hardpack, icy road.

New truck means the old one is for sale…

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/881684494350512/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3Ad804ee0d-057c-4306-a48f-75b809e455d4

Pray for snow!

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Rubicon Ronin

No Snow

Posted: December 11, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Okay, there was a little bit of snow and some ice. Actually, lots of ice. I’ve been waiting for a good dump of snow to be able to go play in a foot of snow, but it hasn’t come. I haven’t waxed my skis and I have yet to get out the snowblower and prep it for the season.

On the road in, it’s back down to pavement. But beware, the bathrooms are locked. They should be open as long as users can easily drive in to the staging area.

The first climb out of the staging area was ice covered but a simple enough climb. I didn’t bother airing down because I was only doing a short trip in to Miller Lake.

Pooling water was frozen over in some places, not in others.

As I said, ice.

Here’s where it got interesting. Just before the end of the trail you see below, in the shade, the TJ slipped a few times. It actually got a little sideways. Locked the rear, locked the front, shifted to the side to get off the ice and on the rocks. No problem.

Here’s a picture coming back out. Lowest gear, very slowly.

I had my nephew with me from Oregon, so we played tourist, took 89 around Emerald Bay, 50 over to Carson City and drove up to Virginia City from the Dayton side. Call us tourists, parked in front of the Bucket of Blood Saloon.

If the snow ever comes, remember, there is ice underneath. Although there is no snow in the foreseeable future, it will come. If you go out, be prepared to spend the night in below freezing temperatures.

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Rubicon Ronin

Good News, Bad News

Posted: June 4, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

The good news is that the gate on Forest Road 03 has been opened. That’s the first gate off Highway 89 going up Blackwood Canyon. The gate was supposed to be opened on the 1st but was not. I’m not sure when it opened.

The bad news is that the gate on our OHV trail 15N38, the Middle Fork Trail, is still closed. This gate should have been opened for use of the trail on June 1st.

So, change of plans, I headed out to the Rubicon in search of another side trail. I headed up the Buck Lake Trail, 14N40. It’s not an overly difficult trail except for one short, but steep, section.

I wasn’t the first, but I was the first since a significant snow melt.

There was one tree across the Trail. Now you see it…

Now you don’t…

I did drop into the Buck Lake campground area. There are a few trees down blocking the campground. Sorry, but I didn’t take the time to clear them.

Here’s the difficult section. There is a winch post installed above this section because it is that difficult.

Have I mentioned the great views from this trail?

Here’s where my travels ended today. I tried it slow. I tried it fast. But I kept getting pushed off to the right. I could have winched through it but I figured someone was trying to tell me to turn around. I imagine there are more snow drifts along the Ellis trails.

With that snow drift shortening my day, I decided to drive home through South Lake Tahoe and stop at the Forest Service office and ask why the Middle Fork Trail is closed.

Maybe another day.

I did send an email on Monday asking about the gates still closed after their opening dates. I will send out another tonight.

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Rubicon Ronin

Side Trail Conditions…

Posted: June 2, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , | Leave a comment

I was asked about side trails: Buck Lake, Richardson Lake (Sourdough Hill), Ellis, etc. I have not personally been out on those yet.

The people I referred to in the last post about locals getting out in the side-by-sides and clearing trees said they had been on and had “cleared” all of the side trails. Sourdough will have one or two sections with nasty side hills. They said Buck does have a very side hill section before the rocky climb just above the lake. Ellis always has snow later in the season.

Some of the “clearing” they had done was before the last big snow melt. That melt exposed tress we cleared out yesterday. Who knows what’s out there. This time of year you should carry a saw , of some kind, and be prepared to winch trees out of the way.

“Turn Around, Don’t Go Around!”

They were in a well-built set of side-by-sides. I would expect that a street legal rig would have a much more difficult time traversing the snow, especially a side hill snow drift.

The snow will melt very fast. Two weeks will make a HUGE difference.

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Rubicon Ronin

There’s Still Snow!

Posted: June 1, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

The plan was to go in through Blackwood Canyon and up the Middle Fork Trail (15N38) and clear trees to the summit. If we had time, we were going to head down the Red Cabin Trail (upper hobbit/Barker Meadow OHV Trail, 16E79) and then down the actual Hobbit Trail (16E76).

Well, the gate at the bottom of Forest Service Road 03 was still locked. Long story for later. So, we headed over to the Rubicon to go around the back way.

When we got to the intersection of the Rubicon and Forest Road 03-04, we took 03-04 toward Barker Pass. It wasn’t too long before we found trees that needed attention. This is actually the third tree we removed. The first was on the Rubicon and people had stacked rocks to get over it!

Some were so rotten, we just pulled them to the side. So many times I forgot to get out the camera.

This one took some rigging for the winch to be able to pull it to the side.

As we got around the north side of Ellis Peak, the snow became deeper. The snow wheeling was actually pretty fun. The snow kept traction as long as you were going stupid slow.

We made it past Bear Lake but the northern aspect protected the snow and it was becoming quite a side hill.

Here is the guy in front of me dropping down the last hill we went down.

We finally came to a downhill section we decided we didn’t want to crawl back up. We turned around and headed home. The side hill was pretty steep right here but it doesn’t show.

We never made it over to any of the three trails we were trying to get to. I will be looking into the situation with the locked gates.

On the way out, We stopped at the Rubicon intersection and met two side-by-sides going out 03-04. They were locals who had been clearing trees on a bunch of side trails for the last three weeks! Awesome.

I need to thank Stan and John for hanging out today. Always safer with others. Maybe we’ll get out next week and clear more trails.

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Rubicon Ronin

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