A Dusy of a trail

Running the Dusy-Ershim Trail August 25-27, 2006

Report & Pictures By Chuck Seeger,

Trails Coordinator & Run Leader - Geared 4 Fun 4x4 Club

Getting to the Dusy Our drive to Fresno was pretty uneventful - we got up at 4 a.m. and got on the road by 5:30 so that we could get through LA Traffic without a hitch - that worked great. Driving my Jeep through
LA traffic with half doors and two racks full of gear was interesting - I kept thinking about that commercial where the guy bypasses traffic by wheeling up the hill - damn - I COULD do that! But alas we were waiting for some real wheeling up in the Sierra's.

The weather in the Central valley was perfect and as we climbed the foothills out of Fresno the scenery just got more spectacluar. We arrived in the town of Shaver Lake in the early afternoon and stopped at a bait store and topped off at the gas station .

On our way into Courtwright Resevoir we stopped off at the McKinley Grove of Giant Sequoia's - wow what a way to start our trip. Those trees are awesome. Some are over 2000 years old and the biggest measures hundreds of feet high and over 16' around.

We arrived at Courtwright after about an hour drive through the forest. Mike & Nora missed a turn and went to see another lake but luckily because we were all on 2M radios we could communicate with them and direct them back to the right road even though we were several miles apart.



Courtwright was beautiful, and while Steve and Nora went fishing....

Mike and Chuck couldn't wait to find the start of the Dusy-Ershim trail and see what the deal was with "Chicken Rock" We found the start of the Dusy trail about 2 miles down the trail to Voyager Rock...

Immediately we knew this was going to be a real Dusy (pardon the pun) the trail started with a boulder field as a "Gate Keeper" then went straight up the face of Voyager Rock - I understand why the also call this "Chicken Rock" one could easily chicken out when you see the steepness of the climb. The view from on top was incredible and made the climb even better.

We headed down to the shore of Courtwright to fish but didn't catch anything. So we headed back to camp to get ready for tomorrow.

Thompson Hill Our first real day of wheeling started easy enough, we posed for some shots atop Chicken Rock but then moved on to beat a huge group of Toyotas that were running the Dusy this same weekend.
The first thing that strikes you about the Dusy is the forest... it is so green - healthy and thick. The trail runs between the trees and is so narrow it is hard to imagine a fullsize truck getting through this trail. We came across our first real obstacle only a mile or so in - this really didn't seem like much but it was a great warm up. As we proceeded through the forest Mike was and Steve wanted to keep a bit of distance to keep the dust down - unfortunately Steve kept a bit too much distance and the Toyotas started to over take him. By the time Mike & I got to Thompson Hill, Steve had let at least 10 vehicles pass him... So since we were in good communication we headed up Thompson hill, after at the 8 mile mark according to my GPS... as we crested a ridge I radioed to Mike that we were done with Thompson and it really hadn't been bad at all....

- OOPS - I was wrong! Way wrong! The real challenge of Thompson hill is in the last 1/4 mile as the trail turned into an uphill boulder field where I suddenly had caught up to several rock buggies who were "challenged"... Knowing that Mike was playing on some obstacles because he thought the trail was done I radioed to him urgently that indeed the trail was NOT done - I think my exact line was " Mikey don't go looking for trouble because it is most certainly going to find you when you get to where I am!!!"
At this point I was stuck and pointing sideways on the hill after trying to climb between a huge boulder and a Tree - gravity pulling my front end off the rock and in the wrong direction. I knew I needed to use my Winch to pull the front end in the right direction up the hill. There was no way to go backwards or to the side as rocks had me blocked in. Luckily I could pull forward enough to get my Winch gear out of the back of my Jeep. Mike assisted and we pulled a text book winching session - complete with Tree Saver strap to extracate my rig from this pickle.

As we spoke to Steve on the radio and learned of a rollover that was keeping him held up we agreed to push on to Thompson Lake to get the good campsite - which really paid off as the Toyota guys swarmed around us 45 minutes after we got in.

Rubi enjoyed relaxing in the grass after wheelin' all day.

After getting to Thompson Lake went fishing and relaxing.

I learned not to come between Mikey & his Steak

Thompson to Ershim Lake Day 2 on the trail was probably the easiest as there were no huge obstacles to overcome. The forest was very tight in places, there was one fun part for Steve & Mike as they climbed a tough hill

and we got into Ershim lake around 1:30 pm with plenty of time for fishing and relaxing - again beating the group of Toyotas because we left camp at 8:30 a.m. as they were just awakeing.

Ershim Lake is really beautiful and the fishing turned out to be better than over at Thompson... at least for Nora & Uncle Fred.

In camp that night we learned just how much Mikey likes gasoline for starting fires - so I played Barbqueue by Eddie Murphy on my iPod over the Jeep's speakers...

... we all laughed at Mikey's impersonation of "Uncle Gus".

Ershim Lake was really spectacluar.

On Sunday morning we took our time hitting the trail so we wouldn't be right on the tail of the Trail Gear guys.

As we headed out on the 3rd day there were several challenging sections including this drop off that were fun.

There were lots of rocks and Trees to navigate through and over. Everyone who attended can say that they drove at least part of the Dusy-Ershim Trail

On the way out we stopped at Lakecamp Lake - another jaw-droppingly beautiful lake - this one with a creek feeding it that was so glassy it was unbelievable we had to take a few pictures (too bad I couldn't get the camera higher for the group picture.

Steve & Nora made for a great picture here.

Mike started experiencing mechanical issues a bit before Lakecamp Lake with his rear axle making weird noises - probably a broken spider gear. He engaged his rear ARB Locker and that seemed to be a good trail fix for the problem - we just needed to get 4 more miles to get to pavement.

As we climbed to the highest point of our trip - over 10,500' we felt like we were on top of the world ... the views in every direction were incredible - there was even still snow in the distance.

Mikey almost fell off the mountain -- hee hee

In the end thankfully we all made it all the way through the Dusy-Ershim Trail without serious incident and we all had a blast on what has to be one of the most scenic and challenging trails I've ever been on.

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