Just what the title says.

Anyone interested in running Rubicon mid-October?

This is not for the weak. Its an "extreme" trail requiring an extreme vehicle, spares, patience, friends, spares, patience, hard work, spares. You get the point.

Its in the NorCal area so its a 5 day trip. 1 day there, 3 days wheeling/camping, 1 day back not counting repairs and such.

Count me in

I'm by no means an expert on the Rubicon, but I just completed it a few weekends ago. It's really not a three day trek. Its only a 14 mile trail with two mandatory hard spots. The rest is optional. My group ran the trail from Loon Lake to Rubicon Springs in one day. We left Loon at 8am, got to the Springs at 4pm.

It takes 10 hours to get there from LA.

Here is a proposed itinerary:
Day 1: Drive up, camp at Loon Lake Dam trail head
Day 2: Take the trail to Buck Island Lake and camp for the night.
Day 3: Come down Big Sluice to Rubicon Springs, play in the water, relax, spend the night, or, if you on a schedule, Climb out via Cadillac Hill and head towards Lake Tahoe (a little over 3 hours from Rubicon Springs).
Day 4: Climb out Cadillac Hill. This takes an hour if no one gets stuck or breaks. Then it's another 2.5 hours or so to the west shore of Lake Tahoe along a dirt road.

I trailered my rig up to Ice House resort on day 1, we ran the whole trail in one day, camped at Rubicon Springs, spent the next day doing nothing but playing on the rope swing and floating in the water. Day 3 morning we headed up and out to Lake Tahoe, then all the way back on the 50 to Ice House Road and collected our rigs. We left Rubicon Springs at 7am, made it to Ice House at noon. Beautiful drive along south Lake Tahoe! Then it's the 10 hour drive back home from Ice House again. So you are driving from 7am to 10pm non-stop pretty much, but its not too bad.

Photos: www.nwoods.smugmug.com/gallery/8991992_QzZZ4#597825014_G9uM3

Old sluice is one optional +5 run, very difficult. We didn't do it. Little Sluice is not passable in anything short of a buggy. Big Sluice is mandatory, and pretty hard, but it's all down hill so gravity will help, even if your sheet metal and driveshafts protest. Cadillac is hard. Steep, narrow shelf road, lots of rocks, with a minor stream running down, just enough to keep your tires wet and a bit muddy. A Jeep on 33" tires, unlocked, pulling a trailer made it up, but he used his winch several times.

Nathan-

Thanks for the great Rubicon trip report.
And beautiful photos as always.

Just got back from doing the Rubicon. This is trail is extremely hard and you need to be beefed up, and I mean the works. I don't see anyone on 33's making it without a huge amount of rock stacking. 35's would be be ideal (as a minimum). Steering components, drivetrain, all need to be beefed up, including rockers, sliders, lockers. Body damage on Disco's, I can almost guarantee. The buddy of mine that I ran it with and runs the trail at least a couple of times a year, said that the best time to run it if we wanted to do it, would be June, when the dust is less, weather a bit cooler and you can still have campfires. We camped at Buck Lake Friday night and spent Saturday afternoon and night in Tahoe. Great Trail, very scenic, but even as a passenger, it was a tiring run. I will post up some pictures soon. More to come.

NCLR group just ran it with a bunch of 33" tires.