We swapped cars, as he picked up his ATV at the dealer after a service (more on THAT later).
Back home...it was a myriad of crap in piles for each quad. I barely knew where to begin. I filled all the flat packs, except Steve's (because I ran out of gas at home).
At 9PM, Steve finally came over....and began assembling his stuff. Because he wasn't there...I couldn't move the quads around to put all 3 on trailer. (more on that).
Somewhere around 1AM, we finally had everything strapped down. Only had to put the ATV's on the trailer. Since it was the wee hours...we headed over to an open space area near my court and loaded there. It was then, we noticed that with Steve's new 1" spacers...suddenly, his outside wheel, only had about 1/3 of the tire on the trailer...the rest hung over. Not ideal....but we cinched 'em down tight. It wasn't moving. Now, we needed to get some gas, to fill his flat pack. It's 1:30AM.
We drive over to the Arco, but we quickly realize that with all the gear, the trailer is out of balance. I had virtually NO tongue weight. Obviously, not good. You could hear it slapping on the ball on every bump.
So, we fill up and decide to head over to Safeway parking lot, and do it in the light. We felt like Doc Brown and Marty in Back To The Future unloading and loading in the empty parking lot in the wee hours. We unload his ATV from the back, move mine from the Middle back to the end...restrap. Unhook the trailer, load his ATV in the back of my truck. It's at this point, Steve realizes that his 4WD light on the speedo, isn't displaying. We try to induce 4WD in the parking lot to see if it's the light, or it's really not working. So, we load it and reattach trailer. Only now...his ATV weighs so much with gear, we had a hell of a time, getting the trailer hand wheel to move up. But a few good kicks, and it lifted.
We head back to my house....and it's now...3AM. We tighten his flat pack on to his box and clean up. I hit the pillow at 3:35AM and waited for the alarm to go off at 4:30AM.
We all wake up..bleary-eyed and head to 99. We were going to meet Jack and Larry in Madera, but we assumed the Bay Area was 1 hour farther to Madera. Turns out later, we realize it's only 3 miles farther.
So, they eat and we eventually meet near Millerton Dam.
We arrive at Courtright Lake, and Mr. Bill who left on Thursday is already waiting. We begin unloading and preparing...it's around 12:30PM. We then try to induce 4WD on Steve's ATV and unfortunately, it's NOT working. He sends his ATV in for a service with it working, and it comes out of the service...NOT working. So, we do some diagnosis and determine the power is leaving the switch and coming into the switch. So, using the SAT phone, we call the dealer and ask and he says it has to be the wire going to the front differential. Realizing, we weren't going far on this trail with 2WD only...Jack goes into McGyver mode. We had spare wire so Jack and Mr. Bill begin trying to trace the wires from the diff to the switch. At one point....the 4WD lights....and we believe we have acheived victory. But when we try to route the wire more directly, it doesn't work again. It's then, we realize we have the ground bypassed, but not the power wire. So, Jack wants the small access area under the Pod light opened...so we remove all the gear Steve packed. Jack grabs the wire to follow the trace, when I notice a wire just fall out of a plug....GOT IT! We get our wire and make the connection....BINGO...4WD. We make the connections and finish up...it's after 3PM. Really late.
We finally head out on the trail and about 10 min...we hit Chicken Rock. yeah...it's a 50 Deg steep rock....but it wasn't any big deal on the quads. Definitely anti-climatic.
We wind our way to Dusy Creek...and cross a bunch of log bridges over the creek built by I believe, a local Fresno 4WD club. The Dusy trail is DEFINITELY very well maintained and clean.
Around 5PM-5:30, we hit Thompson Hill. Definitely, the hardest spot on the trail. It's ONE LONG...long steep up hill with boulders, loose rock and dirt. We had some near mishaps...but we all safely make it. According to most guides, the 11 miles from Thompson Lake to Ershim Lake (our goal) was supposed to be easy....and it was. But what it didn't have alot of...is smooth dirt to go fast. As it turned dark, the trail seemed to go on from one rock to another and it dropped in temps from the low 60's to upper 30's...pretty quickly.
Just as it grew dark, around East Lake...Matt Duffy (Dan's son) got a puncture and the popped the bead on his tire. Definitely, not what we were hoping for at that time. Fortunately, we were able to pull the tire off the quad...get the tire close to the rim and blast it with C02 and the bead reset. Whew!
At first...we didn't think Matt had a hole...but sometime later...it was flat again(But the bead held). So Matt had to stop every so often and pump since it was dark, cold and nobody really had the energy to find a hole in the tire...so we decided to wait till Saturday in camp.
The last 7 miles....were simply....exhausting. It was just amazingly dusty...most of us, had sunglasses, not expecting to ride at night. That is the LAST TIME, I leave my goggles in the truck.
With about 2 miles to go....Steve starts to run out of gas. Amazingly, the EFI ran out first???? Although, after putting in his 3.2 gallon flat pack, it nearly filled the tank. So he had about 3/4 of a gallon when his gauge started flashing....
At 10PM or so....completely numb, cold, tired and hungry...we pulled into camp. Most of us, had headaches...symptom of Altitude sickness. We had gone from 8300 to nearly 10,000ft and now we were at 9,108 ft and we felt like it. We hurriedly put our camp up, ate some jerky and went to bed. Despite the low 30 temps.....we all were prepared and his a good night sleep.
With Steve running out of gas so soon, and our complete disdain for ATV's at this point, going the 11 miles to the end and the 11 miles back to camp on Saturday is not only distasteful at this point, but impossible with the gas situation. We had calculated 8 gallons to do the 66 miles. But with the constant climbing for the first 22 miles, it would take much more than that. So...Saturday we sat around....gassed up for Sunday and cleaned air filters.
Sunday, came too soon. But we had to get out by at the latest Noon, otherwise we had the potential to be riding again at night. Not going to happen.
The start of the ride, was the last 7 miles from Friday night. The views were a lot better and amazingly...the trail didn't seem as brutal. Clearly, we were punch drunk 2 nights earlier.
We gobbled up the first 7 miles in 1 hour. The same 7 miles that took nearly 2 hours 2 nights previous.
At the 7-8 mile mark, we got a flat...but we plugged it quickly and we were on our way.
At the 10 mile mark, just before Thompson Hill, we had our most challenging moment on any ride. On a flat, sandy part of the trail, just before the Thompson decent....Jack's forward bolt on his right rear A-Arm worked it way loose and Jack suddenly found his tire wedge at an angle in his wheel well. It was UGLY.
We all stopped and began to access the problem. We still had the bolt and most of the threads were still good. The problem was, the top of the A-arm, was now tweaked at a 20 deg angle instead of straight.
First order of business was take the A-arm apart. So we winched the quad up and began disassembling it. When we tried to put the bolt back in, it was extremely difficult to line up the hole and the bolt wouldn't catch. Presumeably, because the first few threads were buggered up. So we took it off, and WD-40'd the hole and worked the bolt in slowly...hoping to straighten out the threads. It worked. We were able to line it up and get the bolt back in.
But problem #2 loomed....the top bolt that goes through...the whole bracket was bent. So we put the bolt through alone and used it with some pry bars (for tire beads) that Jack had, but couldn't figure out how to get it straight. When Bill came up with an ingenious criss cross with the bars and with some muscle....the bracket was straight. Back in business.
We reassembled the rest of the A-arm and decided this was a good time for lunch.
1 hour and 40 minutes later after the near miraculous repair, we were on our way. Downhill...Thompson Hill was a snap....and in a couple hours, we were back at the tip of Courtright Lake. We remembered on Friday, that these locals told us, because the Lake was down, we could skirt the lake and go around Chicken Rock and save us "an hour". Obviously in a Jeep maybe...but in a Quad...more like 10 minutes. But since we had done Chicken Rock the "hard way" up, we decided...lets do the lake!
So....we found ourselves...just jamming in the sand...weaving around rocks and logs....for the next 2 miles. What a blast and something you don't get to do often.
Just before 6PM, we got back to the trucks. We loaded up and headed over to the camp grounds near the dam. We busted out our MRE's and played MRE's smorgesborg.
We headed out in 2 groups and made it home this afternoon.
This was a fact finding trip more than anything else...we had never done, and only Jack and Dan had seen the first 10 miles. The rest was a mystery.
What we found is...the Dusy-Ershim is a LONG long trail that simply wears you out! It's so draining...and while it's not as hard as the Rubicon and not NEARLY as hard as the Fordyce Creek trail...it's length and consistency of rocks is an ASS KICKER.
Overall damage on the trail....2 flat tires, 1 bead break, 1 A-Arm break and 2 ATV with full through frame cracks. Not counting the 2 hours to fix the 4WD on Steve's ATV.
