We were so excited about going four wheeling, we could hardly stand it. I wasn't sure I could wait until Saturday morning to get going! But of course, Lance and I both had to work Friday night, so that was impossible. Oh well, I guess we just needed to be patient.

Work was pretty much useless, I couldn't really concentrate on much, except for trying to think if I had forgotten anything for our trip. Lance and I had to work all night long, from 6pm Friday night, to 6am Saturday morning, so we were being pretty crazy going four wheeling after an all nighter at work.

6:00am rolled around, and we were finally on our way. We met Ron, Jeff, Gary, and Dean at the Waffle House in Placerville and ate. The weather was terrible, it was cold, foggy, and raining, to boot. Lance said it was going to be snowing like mad up the hill. I hope I brought enough warm clothes since we didn't have a top on our Land Cruiser. Yes, all we had was a bikini top, and soft doors. No heater or defroster, and one manually operated windshield wiper! Oh brother! What am I getting myself into here?!?

After breakfast, we went back outside to our rigs. Lance noticed the Land Cruiser was leaning to one side, and looked underneath. Sure enough, we already had a broken leaf spring! 3 of the six leaves in the pack were broke. We were off to a heck of a start! Lance said not to worry, he had brought a spare spring pack because we always break springs, so we decided to drive up on the lame spring, and change it at the trail head while everyone aired down.

By the time we hit Ice House Road, it was snowing. It was snowing hard, not just some wimpy stuff, but flakes the size of half dollars! I was staying nice and warm though, because the engine heat flowed through the floor and kept us nice and toasty on the ride up.

The forest service asked us not to take the Loon Lake entrance, because they were trying to keep the existing snow intact for the cross country skiers, so we opted to take the Wentworth Springs route. Wentworth Springs is the true beginning of the trail anyhow, and would make for some awesome wheeling in the snow! Once we got to the trail head, we jumped out and replaced our broken spring with amazing efficiency. YES, I helped Lance change the spring!! I am a Tom Boy, what can I say, I enjoy helping him work on the rig...

Once we all hit the trail, it really began to come down. I am talking a blizzard here, not your little dusting of white stuff. We estimated it was snowing at a rate of 1-2 inches of snow an hour at this point. It's a good thing that our rig and everyone else's rigs were extremely capable 4x4s. Lesser vehicles would have not made it 500 yards into the trail without needing to turn around. I felt comfortable in the ability of the Pirates to get us in and out safely. We were very prepared with all the essentials, including a connection to the outside world with our Ham radios. Radios are necessary since Cellular phones rarely work up there.

We were able to make contact of the rest of our group who had made the trip on Friday.  They were at Spider Lake waiting with a blazing fire, and a "tarp city" set up. I couldn't wait to get there, I was beginning to get a little cold, since I no longer had the engine heat blowing on me.

I could not believe the beauty of the trail. The scenery was simply breathtaking. I can't even describe it. Pictures are worth a thousand words. I got out of the Land Cruiser a few times to take some video for POR Volume 2, but the camera decided it did not like the cold weather and the snow. I only managed to get about 10 minutes of footage before it petered out on me. Oh well.

We all clawed and scraped our way along the trail, not having too much difficulty. I was suprised, because it was so slippery I could barely walk out there! It is amazing the traction a locked up front and rear Boggered vehicle has. That's a good thing, since Lance burned up the Warn 8274 winch over the summer winching someone out of Little Sluice. We were getting near our destination, when we came to an obstacle they call the "Soup Bowl." During the summer most people can not make it, and only very set up vehicles with good drivers can make it. It is a vertical stair step that looked impossible to make with snow on it. By now there was a good foot+ of snow on the ground. Lance eased up to it, and tried to idle up it. No luck. He couldn't even get his front tires up it! He backed up a few feet, and hit it with some momentum. The front tires popped up, but he didn't get much farther. It didn't look good.  He backed up a few times more, with a little more speed and wheel spin, but it just wasn't happening. He finally gave up, and went around. Of course everyone else wanted to give it a run too. Gary was determined to make it, he had new Boggers and thought he was invincible. Guess what? He was vincible! He tried and tried, but he couldn't get up it, although he did get farther than we did. Jeff gave it a noble run as well, but with no luck. Then Dean tried it, the only Non-Pirate in the clan, and guess what? The turkey made it! Of course he probably had it in 3rd gear and basically  flew over it, but he was the only one who made it, and instantly became the man of the hour.

We finally pulled into camp, and there was a huge fire inviting us to get warm and dry. Lance quickly warmed himself up, emptied the Land Cruiser, and motored off to Little Sluice! Nobody but Bobby was able to make it previously, so naturally he had to give  it a try. He crawled up to the first rock, but the ice and snow would not cooperate. The guys began to heckle him, and tell him to "haul ass!" He tried applying throttle, (I think he even hit 3rd gear!) but all he did was bash his rocker panel big time. He got out and tossed two softball sized rocks in the crack, and ended up crawling right through, no problem!!!

We headed back to camp, set up our tent, and partied into the night. When we retired to our tent, we used our propane stove to warm up the tent a little, since it was sooooooo cold! It snowed all night long, never letting up. When we woke up, there was a fresh foot of snow on the ground, and the Land Cruiser was buried!!! We hung out for a couple hours, and then packed up for the trek out. We had a bad situation, Dan had grenaded his rear CV, so he only had front wheel drive. This was not a good thing, since we couldn't even see our tracks from the day before. This was going to be a loooong day! Bob was voted to drag Dan out. We proceeded to head out, and about 50 feet into it, Jeff blew out his rear Lock Rite. Now things were beginning to get interesting! Jeff's rear end would work sometimes, but he was mostly on front wheel drive now as well. We would be his tow truck, and drag him out of any sticky situations. We towed, and dragged, and yanked our way out. It  turned out to be a chore towing the injured rigs. The fresh snow made the trail incredibly difficult. People have no idea of the difficulty of the Rubicon in the winter time. The trail is literally 10 times as difficult as it is during the summer. It really does separate the men from the boys! Lance won't even let me drive during the winter runs even though he does let me drive the entire trail during the summer. He said once I get enough experience, I can drive the winter runs. I don't put up too much protest, because I know there is more skill required on these runs.

We ended up making it to Ice House Road late in the afternoon. It was already dark, and still snowing. Our adventure wasn't over yet, however, there was a good foot and a half of snow on Ice House Road! We ended up towing Dan all the way down Ice House Road, past Ice House Resort before the snow was thin enough that he could get traction to drive himself. I was really looking forward to getting home, and taking a hot shower! We made it down to Pollock Pines and fueled up, and made tracks for that hot shower...

When we got home at Midnight,  we reminisced over the weekend's adventure. We agreed that it was a great time, and a serious adventure. We also agreed that we can only handle one trip like that a year!!!