Dusy Triumph

Lost Coast 4x4's

Dusy-Ershim Trail

August 17th - 21st, 2000

We left Eureka Thursday morning after meeting at the Elk River park n ride for our adventure to the Dusy Ershim trail. We spent the night in Clovis, which is a little closer to the trailhead than Fresno. The weather was clear and it looked good for the run.

Friday morning we left Clovis around 09:30 am. Our first stop was at the park n ride where we planned on leaving the tow vehicles.

After unloading the rigs and repacking a few items, off we go for the trail. We started up the trail around 12:30. Arriving at Chicken Hill, we realized that the tape we watched was old and Jim Boyett had told us the truth. Leading up to Chicken Hill was a hill of loose, round boulders that had a habit of rolling out from under you with the characteristics of large marbles. John Ayres squeezed through the two large boulders at the top of the rubble with ease. I was next. Clawing my way over the rubble and mounting the two boulders my Jeep just dropped. It appears that some of the boulders under me decided to roll away leaving me high and dry. We ran a winch cable out thinking that this would be the quickest and easiest way to get over the top. This wasn't the best of ideas as I was hung up, both front and rear. Now it's time to decide another tactic. Back up and try again. This time the rig just wasn't handling right and didn't seem to have enough power. It does help to get it in the proper gear as 3rd is pretty high. After Loni (my passenger), stacked a couple of rocks, I went right over the top and drove up Chicken Hill. Now I had expected Chicken Hill to be a little spooky as I had heard that it was extremely steep. The hill was no problem at all. Next were the Bennetts. After a little bouncing around on the rubble they cruised up the hill.

I should say that there is a nice tow strap wrapped around a tree at the base of Chicken Hill that was inadvertently left after attempting the winching.

It was around the 5 or 6 mile mark that I noticed a clunking in the front end. It sounded like a locker loading and unloading. Then it got louder and regular. Time to check it out. Of course it was a universal on my left front axle. A bearing cup was missing and the universal was hanging out one side. As luck would have it, I had a spare. With the help of Loni, we had the axle pulled repaired and replaced in 45 minutes. This was pretty fast since it took us a half-hour to find all the tools we needed.

For the next couple of miles the trail was a rough, dirty, narrow and windy road. Then the next obstacle appeared. Tomson Hill. This looked simple enough. It was fairly steep and loose, very similar to the approach to Chicken Hill. Then we really noticed the difference. It just kept going and going and going. Parts of it turned into a combination of the Rubicon and Potato Salad Hill in Moab. It was downright rough. We were somewhere around 8500 to 9000 feet and the motors just didn't have much power. I think we may have been half way up the hill when I heard John Ayres on the radio (he was in the lead), saying something about being sideways on the trail. What a coincidence. Since none of us could see a specific line, we each took a little different route. At this point, we were all in a bit of a quandary, as I was trying to get through a tough area and was hung up, John and Judy were below me, high centered on a large boulder with John and Donna sideways somewhere above us. After getting ourselves going the Bennetts, Loni and I made it to the Ayres. John A. was right. He was definitely sideways on top of a large rock and would need some help to get off safely. The Bennetts made several hard runs up a tough line past the Ayres and finally made it. My turn came up and with the combination of the high altitude, a 4 banger, clutch slipping, a terrible line and extremely rough terrain, I finally made it. We managed to get John A. going again without much trouble. This hill has to be the roughest section of trail that I have ever attempted.

We arrived at Tomson Lake around 6:30 pm. We really made good time as we traveled around 9 miles that day. The campground was great since we seemed to be the only ones on the trail and we had the whole site to ourselves. After a huge meal and a lot of campfire gossip, we turned in.

The next morning, after a huge breakfast, we started off for the next section of trail around 11:30 am. (still close to being morning).

I think that I'll mention that there was another break down. Judy Bennett was not a happy camper (ha, ha) as she had expected to have a hot shower at each campsite. This would have been the case but John B's pump for they're on board shower quit working. I will admit that the shower would have been nice as this is one of the dustiest trails I've ever seen. The next section of trail was fairly easy. It was a rough dirt road with some short sections of rocky areas. What makes this section of trail tough is the extremely narrow areas with very tight turns. When I say tight, I mean tight. There were sections that I rubbed both sides of the Jeep and the top at the same time. This is not a trail for anything larger than a Jeep. There were spots that were tight for the Samurai. We made it to the next campground (Ershim Lake), in less than 4 hours. This is an even nicer spot for camping than Thompson Lake as this campground is right next to the lake.

It was here that we actually seen some signs of civilization. We had two other vehicles camping here that had come in from the back end of the trail. I need to mention that they didn't do the whole trail as they left the next morning and went back the way that they had came in. We, also had met a Mountain Biker, two ladies on horseback, one dirt bike and a couple of quads. The ladies on the horses had a couple of problems themselves. It seems that they had some pack mules along that decided to go off on their own. The man on the Mountain bike told us that while he was at Chicken Rock there were some Jeeps there trying to make it over the tough part. It seems that they gave up and turned back.

The next morning, after another huge breakfast we were off for the last stretch. This next stretch is a combination of everything we have already been through along with the addition of Rubicon size rock and slabs. This section of the trail was at 10,000 feet and higher and had some views that were unbelievable.

At this point, the trail got very interesting. There were spots where more than one line was available but the decision as to which one to take was tough. Each one had large rocks and extremely off camber turns while dropping off of or climbing the rocks.

We were doing just fine and had just run a gambit of tight turns, steep rocks, spooky off camber turns and were expecting more tough stuff and there it was. The back entrance and it was only 2:30. We were back at the tow vehicles just before 5:00 pm. We had completed the Dusey Ershim. It seems that we had made the trail in record time as everything that I had read or heard was that the trail takes a minimum of 3 hard days of driving. I think that our total time was around 17 hours. As far as total damage goes, I broke the universal on my left front axle, the Bennetts shower broke and the Ayres lost a CB antennae. There were minor dings and dents on all rigs but nothing major.

We had an excellent group on this trip. They all helped and spotted when needed and the run went as smooth as any I have ever been on. The ladies made sure that we all had plenty to eat and were great sports even though the shower broke.

What you need for this trail is a small vehicle with plenty of ground clearance and some lockers. I can attest that it would have been nice to have much lower gearing as with the altitude we were reaching, the smaller motors were really working due to lack of power.

If anyone has a chance to go on this trail as a passenger or a driver, I would highly recommend it. You aren't going to have a much tougher trail and any more scenery anywhere in the world.

My thanks to the Bennetts, the Ayres and Loni who helped to make this a great trip.

Carl Brandt

Below are some thumbnails of some action shot of the trip!