Day 2 (Saturday, October 25):

8:00am: Rise and shine, boys! We ran out of water to wash dishes with, so Huey, Matt, and I hiked over to Spider Lake (1/4 mile) while scouting the bypass to Little Sluice. After filling up our 5-gallon jug we returned to camp, where Huey whipped up some yummy scrambled eggs and sausage!

By 10:00am we were packed up and picking our way along the Little Sluice Bypass. There are actually several different bypasses around Little Sluice. We selected a route that appeared to be the easiest (but it was still rather challenging!) Shortly after Little Sluice is a somewhat steep rocky drop-off that required some very careful tire placement and brake modulation. Huey nearly blew a bead on a front tire after sidewalling it on the way down the ledge.

We finally reached "The Slabs", basically the bypass around Old Big Sluice, around 12:45pm, and continued down towards Buck Island Lake. The view looking down into the valley below was breathtaking.

Forty-five minutes later we were skirting the eastern shore of Buck Island Lake, dodging boulder after boulder, each snatching mercilessly at our rocker panels. One particularly grumpy boulder managed to get inflict some pain on the rear left door of the Silver Sub.

Around 3:30, we finally reached the gradual downhill switchbacks of the Big Sluice, which I personally think should really be renamed to "Long Sluice" because, well, it just goes on and on and on...!!! The hardest part of Big Sluice is the first switchback, in which the only safe line is to drive the front tires off a 3-foot high boulder, and use the rock sliders to let the rest of the truck follow.

Much to our dismay, that was just the beginning of Big Sluice. That first obstacle might as well have been called "Big Sluice Gatekeeper" because the rest of the descent was riddled with pumpkin-grabbing, rocker-panel-eating boulders, several of which forced us to break out the winch cables to free ourselves.

By the time we finished Big Sluice, it was about 5:00, and we blazed towards Rubicon Springs. After Big Sluice, even 1-foot-high rocks looked like asphalt pavement, and were a welcome sight!

We finally reached Rubicon Springs as daylight was fading, surveyed the well-appointed facilities, complete with picnic tables and portable toilets, and quickly set up camp.

Having mostly skipped lunch to facilitate forward progress, we were famished by day's end, so we feasted on grilled chicken legs and rice with sausage, all the while watching another DVD on Matt's laptop. We camp in style, I tell you!

We slept deeply and soundly that night, and, thanks to the end of daylight savings time, we took advantage of that extra hour!