September's trip was scheduled to be a nice and easy run to close out the summer 'wheeling season. After having the Rubicon for the previous month's trip, we were ready for a new trail that we could take it easy on. I'd heard a lot of good things about Deer Valley, which is just down the road from Kirkwood along highway 88 and about 30 miles from the south tip of Tahoe. The trail takes you from highway 88 south to highway 4 near Alpine Lake. 

Participants:

The Trip:

 The original plan was to caravan up early Saturday morning to meet up with Dan and Conrad, Mike, Kenny, Rob and Leslie. Instead, Dave and I met up with Bill after he got his 36" tires mounted on his truck as two of the 37"er's bought the farm on the Dusy trail. 

It was a good fit as we didn't have to hear the tires do any 'self-clearanceing' like the did on the Rubicon trip. Dave, Bill and I left Bill's house in Bay Point at 6 PM on Friday afternoon to meet up with Kenny in Byron. After linking up with Kenny, we headed out to Lodi and got on Highway 12 which took us to Highway 88 for the ascent into the Sierras. By the time we started climbing west, it was nearing 9 pm and the road was nearly ours as we traveled further west.

They brought their tent over from the Middle Campground and we waited for the others over breakfast. Brian Beeler was the first to show up around 8:30. near 10 AM we heard Rob and Leslie on the radio and we directed them to camp. Mike was still missing by the time Rob and Leslie got their tent set up, so we headed for the trail figuring him as a no-show. On the road outside of camp we met up with Mike and his father and they fell into line as we headed for the southern end of Lower Blue Lake.

As we wound our we down to the trail head, I was glad we hooked up with Dan as this area was a maze of woodcutting spurs and service roads. After passing through the campsite that we were supposed to meet at the previous night, we got on the Deer Valley trail. It was not too bumpy and you didn't need four wheel drive at first, but we'd find out that everything would change soon enough. Dan led the way with Bill behind him. I followed Bill so I could get to see what line Bill took on some of the obstacles.

The first obstacle was a little off-camber section that let you drop down from where the rocks where into a little dirt depression. You can see Conrad in the photo, who jumped out to spot people through. We figured someone would give him a ride as we continued on to the stream crossing. Apparently no one gave him a lift in the rear of the pack so he had to hoof it down the trail to catch up with us. Whoops!

 After getting everyone lined up for a group photo, we made our way across the nice meadow stream that is the most photographed aspect of the trail. 

After everyone cruised across, Dan informed me the trail gets tougher after this point. I was behind Mike at this point and commented to my girlfriend that his tires seemed to be aired down awfully low... We entered more trees and there were some washed out sections but everything was pretty tame. I was behind Mike and saw air escaping from the rim as he skirted around a  rock. The bead started to come off, but seemed to reseat itself after he got around the basketball-sized rock.

Kenny came around and Dave was out with a small tug. We entered the tree line for the last time and made our way to the bottom of a steep and rocky climb to the top of the pass at 9,300 feet. Our campsite was at 8,500 feet, by the way.