By Mark Stoller

"My heart was pounding, and my right leg was shaking from pushing with everything that I had, to maintain a slight amount of control over our descent. At this point my only objectives were to keep us pointed downhill, avoiding a roll over, and to miss any obstacle that would have brought our descent to a sudden and potentially expensive stop."

The above is what took place on a trip through the “Rubicon Trail” with my brother, your website host, as we dropped into the Big Sluice with my 1960 CJ5 that was still sporting the original 9” drum brakes. If you have driven an early model Jeep with the factory, Coaster, Brakes, and 33” tires you understand exactly what the downhill portions of the trail were like for us. Throw in some water crossings, which completely eliminated all braking, and you can probably imagine the adrenal rush I was having. If you think that braking was our only problem on the trail, guess again. When your driving a Jeep that is 37 years old, and you don’t have a very clear concept of how your vehicle needs to be prepared for serious 4 wheeling, you are going to be in for a real adventure (I could insert “a clue” at this point but since its my story I won’t).

Our group of vehicles, 5 Jeeps and 2 Landcruisers, left California’s Central Valley and headed for the trailhead early on a Friday morning. I should have known that we were in for an adventure right out of the gate, when the temperature gauge read 225 degrees while we were attempting to keep up with the rest of our group. With 5.38 gears and long inclines, which required us to radio ahead and let the rest of the group know that we were backing off to avoid a serious problem. We arrived at the trailhead without any further problems.

On the very first obstacle we watched one of the Jeeps in front of us blow a locking hub approximately 35’ through the forest, and I broke the parking brake drum on the back of my transfer case in to a couple dozen pieces. This would not have been quite so bad if I hadn’t just gotten the parking brake working for the first time since I purchased my Jeep. Did I mention that we were only a few hundred yards into the trail?

  The next bit of excitement came as we were going through Granite Bowl and one of the Jeeps blew out a driveline. Out came the on board welder on one rig, a die grinder off another. After a couple of hours, the driveline had been welded together. I also had a little welding done on my clutch linkage during this break. The day was half gone and we were still within a quarter mile of the trailhead and I was really wondering what I have gotten myself into.

Things were going pretty well for us, other than the fact that the engine temperature was borderline until past the Little Sluice Box. We were in a narrow section of trail after Little Sluice Box and one of the cruisers popped a bead on a tire and as it turned out the spare did not fit. This completely blocked the trail.

During this time my battery decided to short out and die. As the sun was going down, we made the decision to pull the battery out of another Jeep, and put that battery in my Jeep to get it running. Then changed the battery back, after mine was started. This occurred because the trail was so tight and there would be no way to get it close enough for jumper cables with the rig having the broken bead between us.

Now the Jeep was running again but the trail was still blocked, so we would have to climb up and around the crippled cruiser if we were going to have a chance of getting to camp with my crippled rig. After a few tries and some winch usage we made it around and continued on toward camp in to the dark. Neither my brother, nor I knew exactly where camp was in the dark. As we were going down into the granite canyon, we were not sure of where the trail. This required my brother to walk in front with a flashlight looking for scrapes or oil spots on the granite to determine the direction of the trail. I did my best not to stall the Jeep, if I stalled I knew with my shorted battery we would never start my rig and we would have to make camp short of the rest of the group.

We made it into camp at Buck Island Lake after 10:00 PM. By this time the adult beverages in camp were more than welcome. A nice bath in Buck Island Lake was needed after a day of trail dust and dirt. We found out that one of the CJ’s that had gone ahead to make camp had been on its side. Another Jeep of our group got in around mid-night after rolling over completely over once. They had to upright the vehicle after hiking back up to the cruiser with the broken bead to borrow a High Lift jack. It was amazing no one was hurt after seeing the rollover damage.

On Saturday morning we found a spare for the one cruiser that had broken the bead up on the mountain. We sent one Jeep back up to take them the spare. An hour later they both where back in camp. I swapped batteries with one of the Jeeps that had dual optima batteries and we were on our way. Other than finding out we had filled the storage compartment under the seat at the water crossings, waiting in line at some of the tougher obstacles like Big Sluice Box because we were sharing the trail with the Annual Toyota Run, and the miscellaneous adrenalin rushes, as described at the start of the story, day two went pretty well.

While standing in front of the Jeep we discovered part of our overheating problem. The electric fan was wired backwards and was trying to blow the air outward. I never claimed to be a genius. 

The waterfalls at Rubicon Springs provided a very refreshing shower that was followed up by a barbeque with enough food for an army. We were out of ice and had to cook everything we had. We did hide just enough ice for my brother and me to have cocktails on the rocks!

In the morning we noticed that we had a visitor overnight. We had bear tracks going right through our campsite! After some miscellaneous vehicle repairs, we crossed the water again and headed for Cadillac Hill. This water crossing, of course, eliminated my brakes for the next few minutes, but they dried just in time to tackle Cadillac Hill. Cadillac Hill provided some exciting moments but no tragedies. The rest of the trip out to the asphalt was fairly uneventful. Upon reaching asphalt we aired up and headed for the Grand Auto Supply in South Lake Tahoe to Purchase a replacement battery, which we quickly installed for the drive home. The drive home was a shaking experience, due to what was left of the parking brake drum causing a driveline vibration that could loosen the fillings in you teeth.

For some reason, after going through all of this, I still have the Jeep and even attempt more of these adventures. This trip also caused my brother to purchase his own Jeep, it’s a YJ, but I try not to hold that against him. These adventures also inspired him to start this web site. This may prove that insanity can be hereditary.