We got to the staging area and a sea of brand-new 2007 Jeep Wranglers overwhelmed the lot where our crew of ten Toyota rigs were waiting. Two-doors, four-doors, two-door Unlimiteds, stock, Rubicon-edition, pea green, Ferrari-red, soft tops, hard tops; the only thing they forgot was the kitchen sink. Having owned three 4Runners and a pickup over the years, I am a die-hard Toyota guy, and I know this may be an act of heresy, but the new 2007 Jeeps are boss – especially the four-door Rubicon Unlimited.

Toyota, you guys got one-upped on the FJ Cruiser. If I was in the market for a new 4x4 and had to choose between the FJ and the new four-door Jeep Rubicon Unlimited, I hate to say it, but I’d seriously consider the Heep. It’s that nice. 

Factory 4:1 transfer case, air lockers, solid front axle, coil sprung, 32 inch MTRs, three-and-a-half inches wider, removable hard top, enough space in the back to actually put gear and even sleep in, but I digress. Fact is, Jeep still insist on using those ridiculously weak u-joint retainer clips on the driveshafts which snap more enthusiastically than the outrageous “Men on Film” duo of Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier.

Because of that tiny but critical detail, and the fact that Chrysler components pale in comparison to Toyota in durability, I’m still in the Toyota camp. But seriously, Toyota needs to just suck it up and put a removable top and solid axle under the FJ. That’s all it needs to blow the Heep out of the running for the “bossest from factory” award. Anyway, back to the trail.

At the trailhead were the usual suspects: Patrick in his white 1985 Extra-Cab, Art in his “CON RIG” 4Runner, Dave AKA “OOPS” in his 1991 Extra-Cab Flatbed, Rick and Kathy Murray in their 1984 4Runner, Brian and Lisa Gallus in their 1985 Extra-Cab, Josh in his 1985 4Runner, and of course our fearless leader, Terry in his 1989 Extra-Cab.

We departed from the sea of Jeeps and began to bang and slam our way to the Observation Point above Rubicon Springs. Just before we reached the point and thought our encounter with 2007 Jeeps were over, a convoy of twenty brand new rigs came at us. After talking with a few of the spotters, it turned out that the Jeeps were taken into Rubicon Springs for journalists from different magazines to drive out and review.      

Although a couple were dented and scratched, with visibly irritated Jeep executives in the passenger seat, the journalists seemed to have made it up Cadillac Hill in unaltered factory rigs with nary a flop or rollover – which is more that I can say for our group of fully built Toyotas. After the convoy passed, we continued to Observation Point, got the obligatory group shot and continued on down Cadillac Hill, until I heard a thunderous crash from above. 

Mike and I had already come down the off-camber part of Cadillac and made it around the sharp left-hand turn when I looked up the hill to see cans of Rockstar energy drink, toilet paper and peanut tins rolling down the steep drop-off in a miniature consumables landslide. At first, I thought Patrick had hit a boulder with his rock sliders, but when I saw his entire pickup bed looking right at me, I knew he had flopped it.

Although people rushed to see if he was okay, I didn’t fret. This wasn’t Patrick’s first flop. Oh no, his virgin flop was far more embarrassing than Cadillac Hill. Two years prior, in the staging area, er, parking lot, of Fordyce Trail, Patrick was getting antsy to hit the trailhead and started testing his truck’s RTI score on a boulder, until he went too far up and flopped onto his right side, blowing out the passenger window and handsomely mashing up the fender.

Once I made it around the bend and up the hill a piece and saw that this time he had flopped it on his driver’s side, I was relieved.

“Well, at least you evened out your front fenders!” I shouted to him as his co-pilot looked at me sideways in sheer horror.

Thankfully, Art, Patrick’s brother-in-law, was bringing up the rear in his CON RIG – as evidenced by his vanity plates – and had a winch in which to right him. After a few battery-powered tugs on the Warn 9000 and a few bodies aiding in the process, Patrick was back on all fours. We scampered down the steep drop-off, cleaned up his inadvertent yard sale and were on our way with little more than a dented fender and ego, but not without some due heckling from Art, of course. Fortunately for Patrick, he would get his opportunity to return the favor just before we arrived at Buck Island.

We stopped for lunch at Rubicon Springs and had a few hours to relax and soak in the sun which had warmed the air enough for shorts and a short sleeve. My co-pilot Mike couldn’t stop marveling at the abilities of our rigs. He had never seen anything like it, but still hadn’t admitted to me that the adrenaline rush was equal to triple-digits on a two-wheeled contraption with no protection beyond a helmet and leather suit.

As we continued our perilous journey towards Buck Island, we climbed Big Sluice. Challenging enough going down it, Big Sluice proved to be a formidable opponent to a few of our rigs, with our trail boss Terry picking up a memorable keepsake right behind his driver door.

Although Brian’s black Extra-Cab had body protection, crossover steering and a single 4:1 transfer case, he was running open differentials and 33 inch BF Goodrich All-Terrain tires. Of our entire crew, his rig was the most stock, but Brian proved beyond a doubt that it isn’t the rig; it’s the driver. Not once during our entire weekend trip did we need to tug, rescue or rock-stack for Brian. Although it occasionally took a few attempts, Brian made it through every obstacle under his own power.

We crawled over the top of Big Sluice and were making short time to Buck Island Lake where we would camp Friday night. Rick Murray was leading the group down to camp with Mike and I right behind. We passed a tricky spot very close to the lake where two years prior, a Jeeper in our group did two complete rolls off the trail and luckily landed on his wheels without injury. Although the Jeep sustained significant damage, we were still able to get the truck started and off the trail.

Right in the midst of sharing that harrowing tale with Mike, we were interrupted by Terry breaking in over the CB.

“Art has rolled his rig.”

Mike and I looked at one another in disbelief. Did I just jinx that poor guy? Art’s CON RIG was the most built and capable of all the trucks in our group. With every Toyota rock crawler gadget known to man on his red and black decal-clad machine, the irony of him rolling was unbelievable – until we turned around and saw the damage.

Mashed fenders, destroyed windshield, broken glass everywhere, and a hood which looked more like a Pringles potato chip, Art’s truck suffered considerable damage. In addition, he somehow poked a hole in his radiator and got coolant into the cylinders. After an hour of cleaning up the mess, eliminating the hydro-lock and patching up the radiator as well as Art’s nerves, we helped him limp his rig the last half-mile to camp.

The sun disappeared behind the mountains of granite above Buck Island Lake, and we sat beneath the canopy of bright sparkling stars recounting the days events. As Mike and I dug into our simple but lip-smacking combo of sausage and baked beans, Patrick pointed to me in warning.

“You almost rolled too, Kurt. In the same spot Art did. I saw you.”   

“What? No way, dude. I never once felt tippy.”

“Neither did I, man,” chimed in Art. “Until I was drinking a Rockstar with it still in the damn cupholder.”

After snorting up a few beans in laughter, I got to thinking. What kept me from rolling over? Was it that I had a lower center of gravity with less lift and no hard top? Maybe it was that I took the seemingly benign drop-in dead straight ahead, whereas Art came in wide at a slight angle, causing him to tip towards the driver side and off into the brush. Either way, I blew a rogue bean out my nose, thanked the rock Gods and retired to my tent for a well-deserved night of rest.

Although I always get some of the best nights of sleep on an air mattress in the cold, crisp air of the Sierras, I can still subconsciously hear what is happening outside that thin piece of nylon separating my dome of slumber from the untamed wilderness. Hearing the whooshing sound of frigid, powerful wind reverberating across the granite slabs of the Rubicon sends a chill down my spine even from inside the warmth of my cozy down sleeping bag.

The wind-stripped trees, massive boulders and knee-high shrubs are all reminiscent of the barren, cold and unforgiving conditions which exist on the Rubicon Trail during those long and lonesome months of winter. Then suddenly, the whooshing stops for a moment to catch its breath, and all is silent. Silent as a city street right after a paralyzing snowstorm. Silent as a 22RE with a bad igniter pack. Silence which is so silent, that it begins to hurt the ears. But the silence only lasts for a moment before the distant sound of wind builds its crescendo and arrives outside my tent.

The second day was rather uneventful beyond my attempt to get Mike to admit that rock crawling is every bit as an endorphin kick as doing triple digits on a motorcycle. The crew left Buck Island, and we came to the decisive split in the trail; left went up the Old Sluice Box, and right was the granite slab bypass. Mike and I were the last in line of our all-Toyota convoy, and one after another decided to opt out of the Box and take the bypass. Finally, Mike and I were by ourselves.

“Are we going right?” asked Mike. I looked at him with a stone face.

“And you think you can’t get an adrenaline rush out of going slow. Nonsense!”

I yanked the wheel left and began crawling up the Old Sluice Box. If anything on the Rubicon Trail was going to get Mike’s adrenaline going, short of the Little Sluice Box of course, it would be Old Sluice. With a baby head boulder-strewn run-up to a series of strategically placed boulders – one of which is called VW Rock, for good reason – Old Sluice would prove to be a mild challenge for me, but surely a hair-raising experience for Mike.

We got to VW Rock, which stands about as high as the roof of a Beetle, and I lined the passenger tire up to the rock, reached over to engage the electric lockers and shifted into double low. I looked over at Mike and he looked at me half-smiling but half-concerned.

“We’re going up that?”

“Not only are we going up that, we’re going over that.”

My twenty year-old Toyota inched its way up the boulder, and suddenly Mike found himself being pushed towards me courtesy of gravity. I looked up at him as he grabbed a firm hold on the “oh shit” handle and braced himself from sliding out of his seat and into my lap. I stopped the truck right at the precipitous part of VW Rock. With front suspension fully flexed, the rear passenger wheel three feet up in the air and the truck only a firm push away from flopping, Mike looked down at me with his unchanged half-and-half demeanor. I put my hand under my chin in deep thought.

“So you still think you can’t get as big an adrenaline rush, eh?” Mike let out an uncomfortable chuckle.

“Dude, just get me the hell off this rock in one piece, okay?”

We crawled over the remainder of VW Rock and up the rest of Old Sluice. Besides suffering a pinched valve stem just past exiting the box, carnage was kept to a minimum.

Mike and I caught up to the rest of the crew who were hanging out at the Little Sluice watching an ill-fated contestant try his hand at conquering the box. As Mike and I decided instead to watch a shirtless tattooed guy with black jeans and cowboy boots play with a miniature remote-controlled Jeep rock crawler right alongside the real thing, I asked him one more time.

"So are you convinced, buddy?” Mike laughed, took a bite of his salami sandwich, turned to look at me with a bulging left cheek and talked while chewing. 

“Dude, let’s just say I checked my Jockey’s after the Old Sluice.”

That was all I needed to hear. Mission accomplished. Another successful Nocibur run for the books.

Nocibur – Rubicon spelled backwards. Every other year a small congregation of Toyotas gather on the Lake Tahoe side of the legendary Rubicon trail to run the granddaddy of all 4x4 trails backwards. Although the more traditional way is to run the trail from Loon Lake to Tahoe, running the Rubicon backwards turns an all-too-familiar trail into a new experience. In addition, by doing it Nocibur style, you get to knock out the most boring and annoying part of the Rubicon first; the section of trail between Tahoma and Cadillac Hill which is too rocky to go fast, but too wide open to go slow. 

My buddy Mike Matthews and I met the trail boss Terry Johnson at Heidi’s, a highly recommended Swiss chalet-type breakfast joint, in South Lake Tahoe at seven o’clock on a cloudless and beautiful Friday morning in late August. Mike, having never been on a rock crawling adventure before in his life, was more accustomed to racing bored-out Beetles, blown Hemis and screaming along Skyline Boulevard on his 1200cc Aprilia. Velocity is in Mike’s blood. He runs fast, rides fast, drives even faster, and when excited, talks with more rapidity than a drug commercial voice-over trying to cram two paragraphs of side-effects into a thirty second spot.

When I told him that he would get an adrenaline charge every bit as intense doing one-quarter mile per hour on the Rubicon as he would doing one hundred and a quarter on his crotch rocket at Laguna Seca, he didn’t believe me. Therefore, I brought Mike along in order to prove that crawling in double low can get the epinephrine going every bit as much as doing a sub-eleven second quarter mile in a hollowed out Bug.

After breakfast, we headed North on Highway 89 past the breathtaking Emerald Bay to the tune of buzzing MTRs. The air was still crisp and cold at eight in the morning as we rolled to the trailhead in Tahoma. With the hardtop removed from my 4Runner, we blasted the heater as Mike rubbed his hands together in front of the anemic Japanese vent ducts. On the way to the trailhead we passed an auto transport hauler with numerous 2007 Jeeps in the back. We pulled over to investigate.

"Oh, they’re doing some big-fangled Jeep thing this weekend,” said the driver as his breath formed a cloud in the cold summer morning air. “You’ll see them at the trailhead. There’s about forty of ‘em.