Trip Report - 11.APR.1998:

A group of 5 trucks met in Angel's Camp for a snow run down to the Sour Grass Trail. In the group were:

• Terry Johnson from Pleasanton, CA driving an '89 Xtra Cab, 33x12.50" BFG M/Ts, locked F/R.
• Kevin driving a nicely equipped Defender 90 with 31x12.50" Swamper Boggers, ARBs front/rear.
  • He has an ARB front bumper and a custom rear bumper:
    • Both bumpers sport Warn winches and HiLift jacks (yes 2 of each!) and two full-size spares to boot!.
  • Besides a rear-mounted full-sized spare tire, there's another inside the cab.
• Mike Conti from Hollister driving a white Tacoma with Lock Rite in rear.
• Terry Bachle driving a black T100, stock.
• And your's truly wheeling my '85 4Runner, 33x9.50" BFG M/Ts, TrueTrac/Detroit

We headed up Hwy. 4 to the Boards Crossing Road and a heavy snow shower, hit what appeared to be the snow line, aired down, locked up and after 1/4 mile of somewhat tricky snow were back on wet pavement. Snow turned to rain as we drove down to the new bridge to find it still closed.

So we headed back up the hill to the turn-off to the old bridge. The exit from the downhill direction is a tight 180 degree turn. Down a muddy narrow road we got the the old single lane bridge, then climbed steeply up the hill to meet the paved road across the river.

Finally, at the opposite side of the new bridge, the Sour Grass trail proper begins right next to the restroom. Within a few hundred yards, you hit a tricky rock ledge with several steps about 100 feet long. To the left you can S-turn around the steps and boulders, to the right is a nice crack to straddle. As soon as you crest this ledge is another shorter rockier ledge. Here Terry follows Mike around the left side of the ledge. You can also straddle the crack to the right.

Several small stream crossings, some narrow dark sections through the trees finally led to the main creek crossing about 1 mile into the trail. The spring runoff was in full flow, there were a few 3-4' deep holes on one side of the stream. In the snow and cold, nobody felt like wading across to test the depth and Kevin's clutch was acting up, so we turned around and headed out to try and find some snow to drive in. We stopped to air up Kevin's front Boggers that were nearly flat after loosing air over the rocks.

Back to Hwy. 4, R-1 chain control was in effect. Kevin and Mike headed back home, while the rest of us went up 4. Past Camp Connell, R-2 chain control was up and we saw several cars turning back. We plowed ahead and tried a few Forest Service roads. Unfortunately, immense piles of snow had been pushed onto the roads by the snow plow crews.

Finally we found a road lower down that looked promising. Up a short hill, with a deep muddy rut, Terry ran across two J**ps stuck in the snow. Once they were clear, first Terry then I tried to get up on top of the crusty layer on the 3' snow pack. I got about 1 car length farther than the rest but was buried to the frame in a granular snow that set up hard around everything. Some persistent shovel work and finally a tug from Terry popped me out. We called it a day and headed home.