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I was having lunch on Thursday August 29 when I received an email from CA4WD about their High Sierra Poker Run event on labor day weekend. I went to their event page and I was interested. I found Mike's report from a few years ago and the trail looked fun. I signed up Thursday afternoon and started packing after work.
I left La Habra at 11am on Friday August 30. Google said 300 miles and 5 hours to Shaver Lake. With a lunch stop and gas it took me 6 hours to get to Shaver Lake. From Shaver Lake I had directions from CA4WD.
I found Dinkey Creek easy enough and reset my odometer to zero. About 12 miles turned into 9 miles. I drove past the turn off but I saw it. Now all I had to do was find a place to turn around a 50' rig. I got back to 9S09 Rock Creek Rd and headed North. 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, 4 miles....no tee. I turned around again. As I was heading down I met a group going up and they said turn around and follow them. My 3rd U turn and this one took out the lights on the trailer as I backed into some Manzanita. It ended up being 5.8 miles to the tee. It was mostly paved but there were some serious potholes. More about those later. I rolled into camp around 7pm. I found a spot not too far from the main part of camp and got set up. On the run the next day there were 5 other people who were at the event for the first time and they all struggled with the directions. 2 of them were coming in after dark and ended up setting up camp elsewhere and found camp on Saturday morning. I talked with Clayton "cweed here on MJR" and he stated that he knew about the poor directions but hadn't had a chance to fix them yet.
My little slice of heaven
After getting camp set up I headed over to the registration area.
There were multiple runs. The run I was interested in was the overnight run to Swamp Lake. It had a drivers meeting at 8am and was leaving camp at 8:30am on Saturday. I took the Black Pearl to tech, passed tech, and headed back to the camper. Dinner and then the new John Grisham book and I was out by 9pm.
Rigs started lining up at 7:30am on Saturday and it looked like we had 14 rigs. Jesse, the run leader, called the driver's meeting at 8:15am. Jesse talked about some of the obstacles we would come across: Sharktooth, Razorback, Chainsaw, Rooster Rock, etc. Jesse told us we would be camping at Grouse Lake and that turned out to be a fantastic camp. Jesse told us we would be running the trail from North to South. We headed out of camp at 8:30am and had only gone a few hundred yards when we had 2 rigs on trailers pass us headed for camp. They were new folks who camped elsewhere Friday night and had just found base camp. We waited for them to unload and picked up 1 more late addition for a total of 17 rigs. On 9S10 we picked up 1 more really late addition. They were the medic team.
We were at the trailhead about 9:30am and started our adventure. Less than 1 mile in one of the CJs lost fuel pressure. It was the pump and they didn't have a spare. A couple of other folks had spares but they were for fuel injection and had too much psi for a carb. This was the solution and they ran the whole trail with this fix.
Not 1/2 mile after we started in the rocks the medic team, also in a CJ, busted open their front pumpkin. I never saw them again so I assume they limped back to camp?
Tail Gunner Charlie, also in a CJ was having intermittent fuel problems. We had 3 long stops before ever getting 1/2 way to camp.
Below are some pics from the Saturday portion of the Swamp Lake Trail.
High centered
Group photo at the cabin near Swamp Meadow
Swamp Lake (the haze is smoke from the Rim Fire. It was with us all day Saturday)
I found a root sticking out of the side of the trail
We got to camp at Grouse Lake at 4pm
Most of us fished at some point. This was Steve.
It was pretty much a fish every cast. Small Brook Trout and a few Golden Trout. Most 6"-7" I deep hooked 2 and kept them for dinner.
I cleaned up and was in bed by 8pm.
to be continued.....
I left La Habra at 11am on Friday August 30. Google said 300 miles and 5 hours to Shaver Lake. With a lunch stop and gas it took me 6 hours to get to Shaver Lake. From Shaver Lake I had directions from CA4WD.
I found Dinkey Creek easy enough and reset my odometer to zero. About 12 miles turned into 9 miles. I drove past the turn off but I saw it. Now all I had to do was find a place to turn around a 50' rig. I got back to 9S09 Rock Creek Rd and headed North. 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, 4 miles....no tee. I turned around again. As I was heading down I met a group going up and they said turn around and follow them. My 3rd U turn and this one took out the lights on the trailer as I backed into some Manzanita. It ended up being 5.8 miles to the tee. It was mostly paved but there were some serious potholes. More about those later. I rolled into camp around 7pm. I found a spot not too far from the main part of camp and got set up. On the run the next day there were 5 other people who were at the event for the first time and they all struggled with the directions. 2 of them were coming in after dark and ended up setting up camp elsewhere and found camp on Saturday morning. I talked with Clayton "cweed here on MJR" and he stated that he knew about the poor directions but hadn't had a chance to fix them yet.
My little slice of heaven
After getting camp set up I headed over to the registration area.
There were multiple runs. The run I was interested in was the overnight run to Swamp Lake. It had a drivers meeting at 8am and was leaving camp at 8:30am on Saturday. I took the Black Pearl to tech, passed tech, and headed back to the camper. Dinner and then the new John Grisham book and I was out by 9pm.
Rigs started lining up at 7:30am on Saturday and it looked like we had 14 rigs. Jesse, the run leader, called the driver's meeting at 8:15am. Jesse talked about some of the obstacles we would come across: Sharktooth, Razorback, Chainsaw, Rooster Rock, etc. Jesse told us we would be camping at Grouse Lake and that turned out to be a fantastic camp. Jesse told us we would be running the trail from North to South. We headed out of camp at 8:30am and had only gone a few hundred yards when we had 2 rigs on trailers pass us headed for camp. They were new folks who camped elsewhere Friday night and had just found base camp. We waited for them to unload and picked up 1 more late addition for a total of 17 rigs. On 9S10 we picked up 1 more really late addition. They were the medic team.
We were at the trailhead about 9:30am and started our adventure. Less than 1 mile in one of the CJs lost fuel pressure. It was the pump and they didn't have a spare. A couple of other folks had spares but they were for fuel injection and had too much psi for a carb. This was the solution and they ran the whole trail with this fix.
Not 1/2 mile after we started in the rocks the medic team, also in a CJ, busted open their front pumpkin. I never saw them again so I assume they limped back to camp?
Tail Gunner Charlie, also in a CJ was having intermittent fuel problems. We had 3 long stops before ever getting 1/2 way to camp.
Below are some pics from the Saturday portion of the Swamp Lake Trail.
High centered
Group photo at the cabin near Swamp Meadow
Swamp Lake (the haze is smoke from the Rim Fire. It was with us all day Saturday)
I found a root sticking out of the side of the trail
We got to camp at Grouse Lake at 4pm
Most of us fished at some point. This was Steve.
It was pretty much a fish every cast. Small Brook Trout and a few Golden Trout. Most 6"-7" I deep hooked 2 and kept them for dinner.
I cleaned up and was in bed by 8pm.
to be continued.....
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