For lazy folks, here’s the short version.

-Lots of big rocks
-Damage? Huey: one small dent on the front passenger door, one large scratch/dent on the rear driver’s door, lots of dings, dents, a bent Calmini u-bolt on the rear diff skid, and scratches on every skid and front ARB bull bar. Dean: dents and scratches on the under carriage and front TJM bull bar, one very worn down rear diff drain plug, one rear light lens, and the possibility of a bent unibody.
-Long days that pushed into evenings
-Warm days and COLD nights
-Lots or hiking and rock stacking
-Four very cold, dirty, tired, but satisfied souls!!!

Day 1
Sat got off to a late start, something about Dean’s truck missing bolts that hold his drive shaft on. I didn’t want to question it, but I think getting those bolts on was a good idea. We met up in Pleasanton at around 8:30 and got off to a speedy start. A quick stop was made at Placerville for a fire permit and some gas and then we drove the last ~20 miles to Loon Lake. It was Dean and his buddy Tim in the Pathfinder and Matt and I in the silver sub.

We arrived at Loon at 12:30 and stopped for a quick lunch and to air down. There was a morbid decision by the group to “check out” the Gate Keeper for shits and giggles before taking the bypass. I followed Dean over and before I knew it he was climbing the first set of rocks on the Keeper. “Uh, Dean? Are you sure you want to go though the Gate Keeper? I thought we were just going to check it out?” Dean, “This is Gate Keeper?” It was too late, Dean had committed himself. So we went though it, and just when we thought it was over Squeeze Rock took a hold of us. After a 1 billion point turn in this tight section of large rocks we were out.

The Granite bowl was a relief to see. One large rock with trees growing out of it, very cool looking. We moved on ready to tackle what ever was next. After all we did Gate Keeper, we were unstoppable! Well I guess we let our guard down, because a tree reached out and took out Dean’s rear taillight just before we hit Walker Hill. Now mind you, even though if it isn’t a named obstacle on the Con, doesn’t automatically mean it’s flat and easy… as a matter of fact 90% of the unnamed stuff was grueling! Leaving hardly any flat spots where if you were lucky you could reach a whole 5 mph.

Walker hill proved to be as tough is it has been hyped up to be. Very large rocks on a 25* incline. It was tough to keep three wheels on the ground and Dean proved that 4 feet of air between his tire and the ground was ok, as long as you kept moving forward. With about five good size rocks in the way and one thrown in on the driver’s side ready to do body damage, not to mention the drop on the passenger side down the mountain, the last obstacle was to say the least hard, we had to winch though it. At this point a few Toyota and Jeep guys had caught up to us. As they drove by they stated that they were wandering who was on the con with “Street Tires”. They were very nice and wished us luck after they found out that we went through the Gate Keeper. The worst was behind us, or so we thought…

After Walker Hill we moved on, in hopes of reaching Spider Lake before night fall. The trail proved to be too much and it took quite a bit of work to get though the easy sections. We winded our way through the forest and climbed over more large rocks. By now it was getting late, and Spider Lake was no where near according to our GPS map. The sun was going down fast and we needed light to keep moving. We were tired, hungry, and could already use a shower after all the dirt, hiking, and rock stacking. This took a toll, I ended up high-centered on a rock facing 45* down hill, while Dean took a different line and was stuck between some very large rocks! We all took a deep breath and did our best and got out of our binds. The sun had already set and we were working with just the after glow of sunlight finally reaching the entrance to Little Sluice. This was good enough, and we decided to set camp for the night.

That night it was extremely windy. It was cold and the air was dry. We set up camp as fast as possible and started to cook dinner. After dinner it was a quick movie on Matt’s computer and we all retreated to our warm sleeping bags for the night. I fell asleep instantly only to be rudely awakened by a loud jeep making it’s way into the Con on a night run. Ok, no biggie, just a fellow wheeler getting to camp late, back to sleep I go. Then a bit later, time unknown, a much louder Jeep rolled though with it’s stereo blasting! Arrrrrrgggghhhh! Make it stop! Well it didn’t he came back every hour for the next few hours to “share” his music! Well there went out sleep…

Days two and three to come… maybe tomorrow.