Dusy Trouble

Trouble on the Dusy-Ershim Trail

August 1, 2000, I departed Fortuna in the evening with my Jeep on the Trailer and drove to Williams where I spent the night.

August 2, I drove on to Julie’s (my daughter) house in Cameron Park, where I waited for my son Jeff to get off work, as he was going on the Dusy Trail with me (have to have my ace spotter). Mike and Kat were in Sacramento the previous day and left for Shaver Lake this morning with a friend (Rodd) they had met in Moab at the Easter Jeep Safari earlier this year. Mike was trailering his Bronco and Rodd was driving his Bronco, with his wife and two children aboard. Needless to say, Mike and Kat were hauling most of Rodd’s gear.

At 5 PM, as Jeff and I were preparing to leave Cameron Park, Mike called and told us where they were camped at Shaver Lake and where he had parked his PU and trailer. Apparently Rodd had already had trouble on the way to Shaver Lake, his engine had quit on a steep grade, in a curve. Mike hooked his power-stroke Ford PU (and trailer) to Rodd’s yellow Bronco and flagged traffic while Kat towed the dead Bronco to a wide spot.

They thought it may have vapor locked in the 105 degree heat because it started up later and they continued on.

Jeff and I cruised down toward Fresno, enjoying my recently repaired air conditioner, stopping around Modesto for dinner. We took route 145 out of Madera and headed toward Shaver Lake. Luckily for me, Jeff was familiar with the area and took all the correct turns to get us into Shaver Lake around 11 PM. We had forgotten where Mike had left his trailer, but found the White Ford PU and empty trailer parked alongside the road in town. We parked alongside it and unloaded the Jeep from the trailer and headed for the campground.

(Note: turns out the PU and trailer were not Mike’s, but we left mine there anyway). We found the Bronco’s in camp, unloaded our sleeping bags on the ground and were soon asleep, got a few drops of rain during the night, (so they said) but it didn’t even wake me.

Well, it was a White Ford

August 3, We awoke, raring to hit the trail and drove into town, (Shaver Lake) where I loaded my Jeep with all the gear needed for 3 days on the trail. We picked up last minute items (ice) and took off on the one hour drive to Courtright Reservoir where the Dusy Trail would start. I’m not sure of the time we got to the trail, aired down, locked up and started the Dusy Trail, but it was around noon.

Courtright Dam Information

The first part of the trail was fairly easy with smaller boulders and several trees to wind around, past Voyager Rock and across a big granite rock before we reached the first obstacle, Chicken Rock! Chicken Rock is about a 70% grade or roughly 30 degrees, whichever you prefer. This is not the challenge! The challenge is getting over the last boulders, just before you get to Chicken Rock. These rocks have been placed by some group to make it more difficult, because they are not there in the Rick Russell video of the Dusy. However, with Jeff spotting us, we made it through with no problems. We then wound down through the boulders and trees along the east side of Courtright Reservoir reaching the camping spot beside Dusy Creek. We decided to have lunch here and enjoy the creek and meadow. It turned out to be the last thing we enjoyed on this trail! At this point, we were 4.8 miles into the trail.

Mike on some boulders Top of Chicken Rock

After a leisurely lunch, we started back up the trail through some big boulders about a 100 feet from where we had lunch when Rodd stopped and looked under the front of his rig and yelled that his steering box bracket had snapped, shearing all the grade 8 bolts, except one. Turns out the bracket had an old crack about halfway through, but couldn’t be seen as it was on the inside, next to the frame. This didn’t seem like too much of a problem since we had a welder, air compressors, etc, but no 6” long bolts! Except the welder wouldn’t keep the amps up after striking an arc. After isolating and fixing this problem, the engine kept dying, preventing us from welding! After about an hour, we kept it running long enough to weld, but it was now about 6 PM, so we decided to backtrack 100’ and camp for the night at Dusy creek. Rodd turned around and while coming back through the rocks, the repair on the bracket snapped again, we used his winch to steer it back into camp. We gave it up for the night after deciding that parts from town would be necessary for repairs.

Working on the Bronco Still working on the Bronco

August 4-After breakfast, Mike headed back toward civilization with Rodd as passenger, to get the necessary parts for repairing the Yellow Bronco. Jeff and I stayed at camp in case my Jeep was needed for any kind of emergency evacuation. Kat and I took advantage of the lull in activity to climb a nearby 9600’ dome, which is just north of Maxson Dome. The view of the surrounding area, including Courtright Reservoir was impressive!

While we were on the Dome, several members of the Grass Valley 4-Wheelers came through camp. I was aware of them being one day behind us, thanks to Tom Grancy of the Grass Valley 4-Wheelers whom I had been e-mailing before our planned trip.

View from the Dome Camp for 2 days

Mike and Rodd returned to camp about 3 PM with loads of parts, telling us of a group they had passed at Chicken Rock, who were having a difficult time with the Chicken Rock area. (They showed up in camp about 2 hours later)

We immediately started repairs, but trouble continued to plague the Yellow Bronco (this Bronco was featured in a past issue of 4-wheeler magazine). The computer on the fuel injection gave up and had to be bypassed, the trigger on the electric drill we were using to drill out the bolts gave up, forcing us to bypass the trigger and plug and unplug as necessary. Mike’s air compressor gave up after constant use of supplying air to Rodd’s system.

The final straw was the Forest fire the women noticed on the ridge to the east of us (apparently caused by lightning the day before). Now this was serious! As nighttime approached, the flames were visible and this was only about a quarter of mile from us and we still had a dead Bronco! We tried cell phones and CB radio’s over and over to no avail. The fire seemed to be burning up the ridge, but we decided we should keep a watch on it through the night, in case the wind shifted. Jeff and I were the last to turn in about midnight and the fire didn’t seem to be coming our way, so Jeff set a wristwatch alarm to check it again at 3 AM.

August 5-Morning brought a view of a lot of smoke, but the fire didn’t seem to be any closer to us. Rodd and Mike started working on the Bronco right away and it still took until noon to make the final repairs and wait for Rodd to get his family packed up and ready to go.

No trouble here Kat on the rocks

We finally hit the trail to go back out and the repairs seemed to be working, Rodd got high centered on a big boulder at a difficult stretch, where some mountain bikers had gathered to watch the crazy Jeepers as they called us. When we cleared a difficult location, they would race ahead to the next difficult location to watch us; they did this all the way back to Chicken Rock. They entertained us with rock jumps and standing their bikes on the front wheel as they descended some of the granite boulders (and they called us crazy). We made the 4.8 miles out to the Dam in about an hour, aired up drove to Shaver Lake, where we informed the Forestry Department of the fire and gave them the coordinates, we then loaded our rigs (Mike & I) and headed back to Sacramento. Jeff and I followed Mike and Kat as far as Modesto, where we stopped to eat.

Mike and Kat drove all the way back to Eureka, arriving at 4:30 AM. I spent the night at my daughter’s in Cameron Park and drove home the next day.

There aren’t many highlights on this trip, although Mike impressed the group he passed on Chicken Rock with the ease in which he made it. I know this because I talked with several of the group when they passed through camp and several of them made mention of the Blue Bronco!

NOTE: Several rigs from our club are doing the Dusy as I write this; maybe we can get their story, it had to be better than ours.

Jim Boyett