The Rubicon Trail Day 2 September 10 2020, 19 Comments

Day 2 on the Rubicon Trail started with Ben, my youngest son,
asking me, "Why are you and Neil so excited for being on the Rubicon Trail?" Ben said, "It's fun but why are you so excited?" Unless you are an off roader it can be hard to understand the excitement.  

IT'S A JEEP THING, YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND!

We set up camp that first night on top of the obstacle Whale Bones. My boys, Dixie our dog, and I in the tent with Neil wrapped up in a hammock. Michael eventually slept in my Jeep. 




I made it up the obstacle with no winching, however my winch
was put to good use getting some of the other Jeeps up the rocky incline. Thanks to Quadratec for my winch. I was selected to be the proud owner of the new winch during a giveaway at a Women's Wheeling Event I attended at Rausch Creek in 2019. 

We left Whale Bones that morning with our bellies full. Angela brought breakfast burritos for all. The first half of the Rubicon Trail is through the Loon Lake interior and is mild to moderate. We were making pretty good time. 




The CJ5 was doing good as Neil traversed the trail with ease
that morning. We came to Walker Hill and Bumblee Bee made it up, however the U bolt gave out. Neil did his best trail fix until we could make it to camp that night. This little Jeep with Neil behind the wheel did way better on that obstacle then buggies that came thru. 

While Neil was fixing the Jeep, Dan and I had to spot the buggies up the hill. Some of course thought they were invincible and ended up having to reverse back down and listen to us. 

The fuel issue we were having was taking it's toll on the vintage Jeep. We had done everything we could do to try to remedy the situation. It was time to tow the poor little Jeep. It was unfortunate the metal gas cans a friend gave us were contaminated. Tough lesson to learn. The CJ5 needed to be towed because we couldn't get it started. 


It was a slow crawl the rest of the afternoon. Frustration levels were getting high, and a storm was approaching. We needed to get off the top of the mountain to lower ground as lighting was seen in those black storm clouds. 



At the bottom of Little Sluice was an awesome campground. We all made it down and set up camp for the night. Neil did double duty with cooking and trying to work on Bumblebee. 






The tension in the air was palpable as both Neil and I knew some hard decisions were going to be made the next day.