AKA "The Rubicon Wrecking Crew"
By: Paul Weitlauf

The Wranglers:
		Mike & Anne Burns (Trailmaster)		'92 Jeep
Wrangler, 2.5L, 5 spd, dual opens, 33x12.50's, 4.56's
		Ann Typer and friend, Helen Lax		'95 Jeep
Wrangler, 2.5L, 5 spd, dual ARBs, 33x9.50's, 4.56's
		Cash Anderson, Jr. & Kathy		'93 Jeep
Wrangler, 4.0L, 5 spd, rear Trac-Lok, 33x12.50's, 3.54's
		Ed Tenney and kids, Grant & Kristi		'93 Jeep
Wrangler, 4.0L, 5 spd, dual opens, 285R85x16's, 3.07's
The CJ's:
		Dan & Julie Ostler			'5?* Jeep CJ-5,
350, SM420, dual lockers, 33x12.50's, 5.38's
		Steve Miller				'77 Jeep CJ-5,
304, T-18A, dual lockers, 33x12.50's, 4.10's
Token "Ford":
		Mark Stevens and sister, Katie		'4?* Ford GPW,
350, T-18A, dual lockers, 33x12.50's, 4.89's
Token Hardtop:
		Paul Weitlauf and daughter Alissa		'86 Jeep
Cherokee, 2.8L, auto, rear locker, 34x9.50's, 4.10's
Token Toyota:
		Frank & Pam Remley			'68 Toyota
FJ-40, 350, auto, rear locker, 33x12.50's, 4.11's

*Dan's Jeep is titled as a '52 CJ-2A, but appears to actually be a
M-38A1 frame with an early CJ-5 body.  Mark's flatfender is titled as a
'45 Willys CJ-2A, but is actually a Ford GPW.  Nobody ever claimed the
folks at DMV were experts at what the do...

Day 1  Everett - South
Friday, August 8, 1997

I woke up at 5:30 - late!  I was supposed to be at the rendezvous point
at 5:00.  Anne Burns called at 5:40 asking me where I was. (I was at
home... duh!)  She told me to meet them at the I-5 rest area south of
Olympia.  Alissa, my 13 year-old daughter, and I quickly loaded the last
few items with my wife's help and we pulled out of the driveway about
6:15.

Seattle traffic was unusually light for this time of day, so was Tacoma
and Olympia's.  We arrived at the rest area shortly after 8:00.  The
rest of the group was amazed at the good time we had made, but we were
still short one rig.  Ed Tenny had just left Clearview (~5 miles from my
house) minutes before I arrived.  Our convoy leaders, Mike & Anne Burns,
told him to catch up with us on the freeway since he was driving his rig
down and our convoy had two truck/trailered Jeep combinations.

We headed down the freeway to Centralia and stopped for a leisurely
breakfast then returned to the freeway for our southerly journey.  Ed
caught up with us in Kelso.  He was surprised he had caught up to us
before the Washington-Oregon border - but he didn't know about our nice
meal until after he caught up to us.

We cruised down the road right on the speed limit... until we came to
the Siskiyous.  The grades taxed Dan's tired, old 400M in his '79 F-350
dually, pulling a trailered early CJ-5.  The grades also taxed my '86
Cherokee.  The 34's turned by the little 2.8 V6 and 4.10 gears meant a
lot of second gear time for the A999 automatic.  Mike & Anne's 460
powered '94 F-350 effortlessly pulled its payload of a trailered '92 YJ
over the grades and they waited with Ed's six cylinder YJ for the slower
rigs at the top.  When Dan finally arrived at the top, he was
overheating a little bit.  He quickly fabricated an overflow recovery
system out of a 1 liter pop bottle and we were on the way again.

10:00 p.m. found us at Lakehead, California, on Lake Shasta.  Here we
stopped for a few hours of shut-eye.


Day 2  Reaching the Starting Point
Saturday, August 9, 1997

Waking up at 3:15, we continued on, making our way through the arid
flatlands between Redding and Sacramento before it got hot.  When we got
to Placerville the trailered rigs continued on to Georgetown and the
three "drivers" stopped for some last minute supplies.

We were fortunate that Anne Burns has an uncle with a ranch just outside
of Georgetown.  We were able to leave all of our trail non-essentials at
his place, such as sway bars, street tires and the trucks & trailers.

The other half of our party had arrived the day before and had taken a
little trip into Reno to enjoy the "Hot August Nights" mega-car show and
yards of Margaritas for $3 yd.  We spent the rest of the day making
final adjustments to our rigs and relaxing at the ranch.  Hot tubbing
was cut short when Ed's kids toasted each other with glasses of pop and
broke the glasses in the hot tub.  Mike and the kids drained and cleaned
the tub, but by then it was late so we all hit the sack.


Day 3  The Trail Begins
Sunday, August 10, 1997

We got a late start, leaving Georgetown ~10 a.m. and heading for the
Rubicon via Uncle Tom's Cabin, an old stage coach stop still serving
refreshments to travelers for over 120 years.  A short visit at this
rustic tavern in the woods was paid.  You just have to see the
wallpaper.  Thousands of $1 bills signed and stapled to the walls and
ceiling by the countless visitors.  Alissa and I added ours, before
heading off to Loon Lake.

Our group was split in half in Georgetown and the second half was
already having trouble with Mark Steven's flat fender.  We (the first
half) waited at the trailhead for over two hours before we finally
started out when we heard the second half was moving again.  While
waiting at Loon Lake, we got to watch the Jamboree USA crew load all
their cargo from their event as it was slinged in load by load by the
Skydance helicopter.

Just after dropping off the granite face and into the trees, there was a
nice left turn guarded by two large rocks on either side of the trail.
I thought a left line would get my XJ through best, but our spotter
insisted on a right hand line.  He had gotten his YJ through fine, but
the next two YJs smacked their left side nerf bars HARD - one so hard
that when the nerf came up and hit the body, it sheared four or five of
the rivets holding the diamond plating on.  My XJ suffered its first
damage of the day, hitting the left rocker panel, just below the back
door.  Before the next rig came through, we had a guy from "Adventure
USA" come up and help us get the rest of the group (who had now caught
up) through.  This guy advised the left line!  Everyone else took this
line and none of them received any damage.  We then pulled off to the
side to let the three Land Cruisers from "Adventure USA" head out.

Mark's GPW continued to have troubles with staying cool and we had to
stop frequently for him to cool down.  By the day's end, his flat fender
was sporting three electric fans, trying in vain to keep it cool... and
the temperatures weren't even as hot as we had expected.  A high of ~90
degrees (F) was all we had - we had expected to encounter 100-110.

Near the top of Walker Hill, Mike had to break out his winch when he
slid to the right and got stuck where he couldn't back up due to a 4'
boulder and couldn't get traction with his double-open diffs to go
forward.  After watching the line he chose, I decided to pick one a bit
further to the left.  My XJ slid to the right, just like Mike's YJ had
done, but my extra wheelbase was to my advantage and I made it through
easily.  Mike and I headed on to the beginning of Little Sluice to wait
for the others who were held up by Mark's overheating rig.

We decided to skip Little Sluice today and head straight for Spider
Lake.  Mike led most of the group the "hard" way, where he said there
was a possibility of a roll-over.  Not wanting to put the Chero on its
lid (it is my daily driver, after all) I chose to follow Frank's TLC on
the "easy" route.  If this was the easy way, I'm sure glad I didn't
choose the hard way!  This short little trail Frank led me down was
harder than anything we'd driven all day!  My XJ suffered abrasions to
the right rear flare as I squeezed between two house sized boulders.
The pay-off was the nice place on the lake's shore where we set up camp
and went for a swim before dinner.


Day 4  A Short Journey
Monday, August 11, 1997

Frank & Pam, Mark & Katie and Steve headed out for Buck Island Lake to
see if the spot the club used last year was available while the rest of
us stayed behind in case it was occupied, since we had a pretty nice
spot at Spider Lake we could use as a base camp if the Buck Island spot
was already taken.  We used this time to leisurely pack-up, clean-up and
let the kids go for a swim.  After a while, we got a radio call from
Frank that our Buck Island spot was ours, so we headed on down to Buck
Island Lake.

It took us about two hours to get our group to the new camp site that
we'd be calling home for the next three nights.  Along the way, I left a
little red paint from my left rear door on one of the rocks before
backing up, smacking my rear bumper on another rock (it was already bent
some from an old traffic accident) and choosing a new line.  During our
decent to Buck Island Lake, I kept hearing a clicking from the left
front during turns.  When we got into camp, just past the Old Sluice
(which we by-passed today), I looked the front end over carefully, but
couldn't find anything wrong.  We unloaded all of our gear and set up
our base camp.  We'd be running the three sluices from here and wouldn't
have to be carrying any cargo.

We had lunch, went for a swim and did some minor tweaking.  After dinner
there was the usual fireside camaraderie.  Generally, we just had a
relaxing day in camp - after all, this was a vacation.


Day 5  A Long, Jeepless Day
Tuesday, August 12, 1997

After breakfast, I went over to my Cherokee and looked its front end
over again.  This time with the wheels turned.  I noticed the left front
axle's U-joint was very stressed - with fresh gray metal showing below
the caps - but it had not yet broken.  I had intended to bring along a
front axle joint in my spares, but in the last-minute rush I forgot to
get one.  I figured with all the YJs we had along, there would be at
least one... but there wasn't.  I pulled the axle anyway, hoping one of
the spare joints the others were carrying would be the right size.
Alas, nothing we had would fit.  Driveshaft joints were close, but just
a hair too big - plus the driveshaft joints used external clips for
retention and axle joints use clips at the base of the joint's caps.

We decided to send a rig or two into Georgetown for my U-joint, ice and
more gasoline.  I rode with Mike and we strapped seven GI cans to his
jamboree rack.  Cash & Ed followed in their YJs which contained more
cans and coolers for the ice.

We made Spider Lake in less than 45 minutes.  Just after Spider we met a
group of 11 rigs, so we pulled over to let them by.  They told us we
should just wait there, since a convoy of 14 TJs from Chrysler was right
behind them.  We thought the Chrysler group might have the needed joint
in the mechanic's rig - which was at the end of their convoy.  When the
mechanic's rig finally got there, we learned that TJs use the same
U-joint in their front axle that they use in the driveshaft, so they
didn't have one that would fit my XJ.

We continued on into town, delayed by an hour from waiting for the 25
rigs.  We arrived at Loon Lake in only 45 more minutes.  Another hour
and a half on pavement and rough gravel had us back to Georgetown.  I
scored the last two axle U-joints that Georgetown's NAPA store had.  (I
was going to have a spare now!)  We then gassed up the rigs and cans,
picked up more ice and headed back to Buck Island Lake.

The trip in from Loon Lake to Buck Island Lake took two hours and
fifteen minutes.  We were back in camp before sunset.  It was amazing
how much faster you can travel the trail once you've been down it
before.  Between Spider & Buck Island Lakes we did have a moment of
excitement though.  We were traveling across the granite side hill at
about 27 degrees, when we came to a spot where we had to thread between
a couple of trees.  Mike's left rear tire slipped off a loose rock and
the right side got real light!  We slid sideways, down the rock face in
a hopping fashion.  The right side getting lighter with each hop.  We
could hear the left rims grinding on the rocks.  I was sure we were
going over and if we did, it would be a long way down!  Suddenly, Mike
nailed the throttle of the little four banger and we shot across the
face.  The hopping stopped and our hearts started pumping again.

While we made the trip into town, the others went out and ran Little
Sluice and Old Sluice.  Everyone made it through the sluices that tried,
but most not without leaving their marks on the rocks.


Day 6  The Big Sluice
Wednesday, August 13, 1997

After a breakfast of cereal and orange juice and the morning dose of
coffee, I installed the new joint easily.  Meanwhile, Frank decided to
check his right front Birfield, as it had been making noise the day
before on the sluices.  Upon disassembly, he found the Birfield had lost
all of its ball bearings.  Fortunately, frank had brought along a spare.
Unfortunately, it had a cracked housing, so it was an "emergency" spare,
so Frank & Pam decided to stay in camp today to keep the mileage low on
the spare.  While Frank worked on his Cruiser, everyone else replenished
vital fluids, like power steering fluid, motor oil and coffee.

Just as we were about to leave, an 11 rig convoy (Tri-County Gear &
friends) drove by our camp and stopped just on the other side, as one of
their CJ-5's had pretzeled its drag link.  We watched, as they bent it
back and got their group over the dam.  We gave them a few minutes to
get ahead of and for the last of our stragglers to catch up at the dam.

We passed the Tri-County group on the far side of Buck Island Lake at
the top of the hill before dropping down towards the Big Sluice when
they stopped for lunch.  Just after we drove by, they decided to follow
us down.  We managed to get our group through Big Sluice without any
breakage or major damage, though I did manage to gain another rocker
panel ding on the slab of rock at the top of Big Sluice.

We took a break on the far side of the Rubicon Bridge and planned to
wait for the Tri-County group to pass and then head back up, but as
their first few rigs came through, they informed us they had a rig
broken down in the middle of Big Sluice - the same rig that had broke
down outside our camp managed to completely break the drag link.  They
gave us an 1-1.5 hour estimate to get it fixed, so we headed on down to
Rubicon Springs to visit the famous axle fence and Jamboree party site.
The bar at Rubicon Springs was open, but we all decided it best to pass
on a drink, since we had to drive back to our base camp.

About ½ way back to the bridge we met up with the "broken" CJ and those
that had stayed back with him.  Just past the bridge, Cash managed to
snag a valve stem on a rock and tear it off, so we stopped and put on
his full sized spare.  Shortly after Cash's tire episode, Ed had some
trouble making it over a rock pile.  This was the first of three times
Ed's Warn 8274 would be called into service.

About ½ way up Big Sluice, Cash managed to find a big rock with his oil
pan, but managed to come to rest on it without damage.  We jacked up his
rig with his Hi-Lift on the driver's nerf bar and filled the areas under
his tires with rocks.  We wrapped a tree saver around the offending rock
and attached it to Ed's winch cable and drug it out of harm's way so
Cash could drive onward without damage.

While Ed tried to thread between a tree on his left and a large boulder
& tree combination on the right, he managed to slide to the right,
narrowly missing the tree.  With open diffs in both axles, he was unable
to make further progress, so out came the winch cable again.

After seeing Ed's trouble, I decided to try a different route, going to
the left of the boulder/tree combo, between it and the wall of the
trail.  While clawing my way through, a big hissing noise came from my
left front tire.  My spotters directed me to back off and take a
different line.  The tire had not come off the bead and there was no
hole.  A rock had just peeled the tire away from the rim enough to make
it leak.  This was the same spot that I had pulled the right front tire
off the bead on the way down.

While we were having all these problems - about an hour's worth - Mike
was up ahead of us trying to guide Ann's YJ around the big rocks at the
top of the sluice.  Mike ended up having to turn around and winch her
up.  Once she was finally through, Mike moved off to one side so the
rest of us could pass.  With the excellent spotting of Mark & Dan,
everyone else made it through without help from Mike's waiting cable.
Mike then had to turn around with a 1,000 point turn.

We made it on back to our base camp without a hitch.  When we arrived
back at camp, Frank, Pam and the folks that had stayed behind had a hot
dinner waiting for us.  It was great to have a hot meal waiting for our
tired bodies when we pulled up!


Day 7  Heading Out
Thursday, August 14, 1997

After breaking down camp and cleaning up, we broke into two groups.  A
group of three; Mike & Ann Burns, Ann Typer & friend Helen, and Alissa
and I, headed out the way we came in, while the others went out through
Rubicon Springs and Lake Tahoe.

Our group was just about to Spider Lake when we heard the others talking
about vehicle troubles... and they were still along the shores of Buck
Island Lake.

At the upper end of Little Sluice we waited for a group of ten or so
rigs headed for Warden's Buck Island shindig.  After the passed, we took
the by-pass around the sluice, since it was occupied by uphill traffic
and after hearing about how our bobtailed rigs had rubbed roll cages on
the rock in the middle, I wasn't set on rubbing my XJ's roof on it
anyway.  When we got to the bottom of the by-pass, we stopped and waited
again... this time for 17 TJs from Chrysler.  Once they were by, we made
it a few hundred yards before we had to pull over again for 25 more rigs
headed for the Warden's party.  It seemed like about half of the rigs in
this second Warden group were towing trailers.

We made it down Walker Hill with no troubles and after the sandy road
area we met up with Matt Osborn of the Jeep-List and his group as they
were working his YJ Sahara, a TJ and a YJ down the face of the big rock
at the end of our sandy "highway."  As we went up the face of this rock.
We noticed Ann's right front shackle had flipped backwards and in so
doing, bent her main leaf.  We tried to flip it back, but didn't have
the tools to make it happen, so we continued on.

The rest of the trip out was uneventful and even easy, after all we'd
been through - including that first obstacle we'd met on our way in,
which was much easier to negotiate going out.  Once we hit the pavement
at Loon Lake, we stopped at the campground so the ladies could use the
first "real restroom" in days.  As Helen got out of Ann's YJ, she
kneeled down and kissed the pavement!  We headed back into Georgetown,
stopping by Uncle Tom's Cabin for some cold refreshments before
finishing the drive into town.


Day 8  "No-Roading"
Friday, August 15, 1997

Our reason for not following the others out the Tahoe side was to go
white water rafting down the South Fork of the American River.  We put
in at Lotus and went down to Salmon Falls/Lake Folsom.  Water flow was a
little lower than what Mike had expected, but there was still some
exciting moments at places like Satan's Cesspool, Hospital Bar, Recovery
Room, Surprise, The Gorge and Bouncing Rock.  After a day of fun on the
river, we headed back to the ranch after stopping for pizza.

At 10:30 p.m. we got a call from Pam that Ed had lost his rear
driveshaft and tail cone housing on the highway near Susanville.  He was
going to wait until morning there and see if they had the parts he
needed.


Day 9  Leaving the Ranch
Saturday, August 16, 1997

We called Ed at 8:30, but his cell phone was out of service, so we left
a message.  About 15 minutes later, Ed called and let us know he'd
managed to band-aid the broken tail cone to keep the oil in the transfer
case and was heading home on his front axle.  He was going to meet up
with the Frank and Pam in Weed and convoy on home with them.
We loaded Mike's YJ onto his trailer along with Ann's weak jamboree
rack.  We then headed back to "the big city," after stopping by the
Jeepers Jamboree office to get our souvenir T-shirts.  We also stopped
in Auburn for lunch at their In-&-Out-Burger, so Ann T. could pick up
one of their T-shirts, too.

After lunch, I parted company with Mike & Anne and Ann & Helen.  They
headed on towards Seattle and I headed for the Bay area to visit my
sister and her family.

I had noticed a bit of vibration since hitting the pavement and had
figured it was from moving or losing wheel balance weights on the
Rubicon's rocks.  Around Livermore, I noticed the vibrations were
getting worse and thought to myself, "Wheel balance doesn't get worse
just driving down the freeway!"  I pulled off at the next exit to get
gas, so I decided to look at my U-joints while I was there.  I
discovered the U-joints were fine, but my rear driveshaft had a large
dent in it and the vibrations had caused the pinion bearings to start
self-destructing.  Since my sister was expecting us for dinner - and I
didn't want to rebuild the rear end in some mini-mart parking lot - I
went for the quick-fix and removed the rear drive shaft.  Fortunately, I
had remembered to bring along a plug to slide into the transfer case for
just such an occasion.  A quick test to be sure the plug was secure and
we were on our way again, making it to my sister's before dinner was too
cold.


Day 10  Heading for Home
Sunday, August 17, 1997

After going to church with my sister (she's the minister), we went out
to lunch.  On the way back, we stopped by a few auto parts stores to try
to find something to patch up my broken tail lights, so they wouldn't be
shining white light on following motorists.  On the third try, we
managed to find some red vinyl upholstery repair tape that would work.
I patched up the lights and we said our good-byes and headed for home on
US 101 - via the Redwoods.  Sundown found us at the southernmost end of
Redwood country, so we stopped for the night at Standish-Hickey State
Park.

The park attendant asked us if we wanted a spot by the river or not.  I
replied, "I don't care, we're just stopping to sleep before hitting the
road bright and early."  She gave us a spot near the river anyway and
the river spots were quite a ways from the entrance.  The river was a
mere trickle at this time of year -it would barely qualify as a creek at
home in Washington - though the river bed gave plenty of evidence that,
during other times of the year, a lot of water moves through here.

We pulled into our assigned spot, which was barely a wide spot in the
road, surrounded by a steep bank on three sides.  No place to put my
tent - even if I was willing to put it on the pavement of my parking
spot!  I was a little upset that I had just paid $16 for a parking
place, so we drove back across the bridge and up the long hill and asked
for a different spot.  She apologized and said something about how her
sheet says it's a roomy and level spot.  (She works there and doesn't
know the "good" and "bad" spots???)  She gave us a new spot in the
"upper" area, near the entrance... and the highway.  I was too tired to
care, as long as there was room for Alissa and I to pitch the tent.  We
were soon asleep, despite the whine of 18-wheelers interrupted by the
"BRRRRRRP!" of Jake Brakes on the downhill bound semi's.


Day 11  The Last Leg
Monday, August 18, 1997

We broke camp and hit the road at the first sign of light, since we had
a long drive ahead of us.  

I went to get off US 101 at an exit called "Redwood Drive," thinking
this was the scenic route through the Redwoods.  Applying brakes to make
the stop at the bottom of the off ramp proved to be exciting.  The brake
pedal went to the floor!  We were slowing down, but not fast enough to
halt before the stop sign and we rolled slowly through it.  Right in
front of a CHP car that had just exited from the southbound lanes.  We
finally got stopped about 30' on the other side of the intersection.
I'm thinking, "Great!  Not only do I have brake problems, but now I'm
gonna get a ticket for running a stop sign."  The CHP turned up the ramp
I was on, just like I knew he would, and then drove right on by!  While
I wasn't too happy about my brakes, I was happy that I didn't get a
ticket.

I got out and assessed the situation.  It turned out that the right
front brake hose had been riding on the edge of my rim until it had worn
through.  The quick-fix was to clamp a small pair of needle-nose Vice
Grips (tm) to the leaking hose and limp into Eureka with three-wheel
brakes.  Stopping distances were considerably longer and the pull to the
left severe, but it was better than the leaking hose.  Kragen's Auto
Parts in Eureka happened to have the hose in stock and Alissa pumped the
pedal to bleed the new hose.

>From here on home to Everett the trip was uneventful, though long,
pulling into the driveway at home at 11:04 p.m.  I had to go to work the
next day just to rest from my vacation.  ; )

Plans are already being formed for the club's 1998 trip.  :-)