For those of you who don't know about it- Its a 30 mile trail South of Yosemite and East of Fresno. It runs between the Dinkey Lakes and John Muir wilderness areas and most of it is between 9-10k feet elevation. Some of the surrounding peaks are over 13k. BEAUTIFUL!

http://home.4x4wire.com/erik/pics/dusyershim07/

[Edit]More pics from another trip participant here:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8YcOGbhq1dg

THANKS for those!

Great pictures, Erik! Looks like a very fun trip, and always nice to see kids catching fish and having fun exploring <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />. I've backpacked in that general area (John Muir Trail out of Florence Lake), and it is stunning. My recollection from studying up on the Dusy-Ershim trail was that the wheeling was fairly technical in spots, with some tight passages and some sections where you'd really want a crawler and/or front/rear lockers. Any comments on that? Kinda curious how hard a drive it is and what the minimum requirements are for clearance and gearing.

Thanks for posting the pictures -- good stuff <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

-Jeff

Georgeous!
'cept for that rig that looks like OOPS's <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Just kidding bud..

1 of these days.........I'll get around up there <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Well I'd say the pictures and vehicles on the trip pretty well speak to the trail difficulty. Looks like a GREAT trip. Thanks for posting them.

Did you see the stock H3's on the trail? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'd recommend more than that, but most of it isn't incredibly difficult. That was a group of H3's and a couple new Colorado's shipped out from the factory in the midwest just to run the trail to see how they did. Sounded like it took them all day to get the group up Thompson Hill, which is the toughest part.

Anyway, I'd say 33's and maybe a locker or LSD would be a pretty decent minimum setup. Crawler gears would be nice, but not mandatory. Aside from Thomson Hill (pretty steep with loose rocks), the trail isn't too bad. Mainly just lots of tight turns and trees and stuff. The hard part is that its LONG and you are FAR from help (even at each trailhead), so you really don't want to be under-prepared and break down. There aren't nearly as many people out there to help you if you have problems out there like on the Rubicon or something. We maybe saw a total of 20 other people out there in the 8 days we were there.

One guy we saw wheeled in by himself. Not long after he passed us the rear part of our group radioed that they'd come across him and he'd crushed his arm between a tree and his Jeep. They splinted his arm, got the H3 group to call an ambulance on their satellite phone to meet them at the trailhead (~6 hours away), and wheeled him and his jeep out. He might have been in pretty bad shape had he not happened to be near 2 well-prepared groups when it happened!

Great - thanks!



Holy crap! All kinds of lessons in that story.

Thanks again, Erik - great info and sounds like an awesome trip.

-Jeff

Hard in spots, beautiful, tight trail. The first time I ran it I had 33's, IFS 4" lift, 4:88 gears, Tru-Trak front, ARB rear, single gear drive T-case with 4:70's, and lots of skid plates underneath. Made it fairly easy with no body damage. It is the prettiest trail I have ever run and I do it at least once a year. It is the trail my truck got its name OOPS, every time we came down on a rock either my wife or I would say "OOPS" sort of like Will Smith in Independence Day!!!!!!!! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

On this trip we had eight rigs, seventeen people and one dog, two of the rigs, four people it was the first time on the trail, Erik and another person. Erik went crazy with his camera and got some beautiful pictures, I think he had a lot of fun and I got to see a side of Erik I have never seen!!!! He loves to play Shot Lawn Darts!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He has also developed a bit of a taste for Jõgermeister!!!!!

awsome, may have to do that one some day.

erok,

did you guys go backwards? start at the north end and end up at courtright?