89silverpu

Me and a few buddies from my local 4WD club went up to Eagle lakes to do some relatively easy 4wheeling. There was gunna be 5 rigs total but a buddy of two of the guys broke his axle shafts on fordyce so they went up Fordyce early to rescue their buddy and then were gunna meet up with us at Eagle Lakes.

So just the three of us went together while the other two were on the rescue mission. To make a long story really short we ended up going from a 5 rated trail (Eagle Lakes) to the first creek crossing of a 10 rated trail (Fordyce) which is about 1.2 miles or so. It took us a good 2 hours to get there. I was in my Yota which as you can see in the sig is very stock and my two buddies were both in YJ's one with 33's one with 35's and both had rear ARB lockers and both had winches. To run this trail with the norcal TTORA you are required to have at least 33's and a locker and even then it is still difficult.

To get to Fordyce you must go up Eagle Lakes and then take a turn off the trail to it. There is on really difficult obstacle on Eagle Lakes called Driveshaft Hill, you can probably imagine why lol I made it up the right side where it is a little bit easier but still not a cake walk. Anyways, on to the important stuff...the pictures:

Eagle Lakes-Driveshaft Hill




















Fordyce Creek







I didn't get many pictures while on Fordyce because there was no time, this trail was HARD especially in a stock yota. This trail shows how important armor is on a stock truck....my sliders have like no paint left on the bottom and my brand new MC rear bumper has already done its job many times Without the protection my truck would have been toast. My crossmember gave me quite a bit of trouble though, I got high centered twice and it got caught up numerous other times.

But in the end there was no carnage minus a little rock rash, I was winched twice heading out of Fordyce because it was impassible with 31's and no locker.

And one last thing...a big thanks to the spotters Doug and Jeff

norcalsvx

your crazy to try and run fordyce nice pics,

89silverpu

haha I almost crapped my pants a couple of times...at one point both my rear tires were up in the air as I was going forwards...I tell you what though armor is a must on this trail

AxleIke

Great pics.

I gotta get out to California before gas gets much higher.

89silverpu

Let me know if you do I'll show you around...

89silverpu

If you got some rock sliders you could make it easier than I did, the only thing that would be a problem would be that don't extra cabs have longer wheel bases? An extra 10 inches would make it way easy to get high centered, but then again do you have the stock crossmember or a budbuilt? I'm definately gunna look into one of those!

norcalsvx

yea thats my problem i got a extra cab (get high centered a lot) and my budbuilts get a workout out in that area, have you gone out in the bowan lake area yet? (lots of trails out there)

89silverpu

Nope, I don't know where that is, where is that in proximity to the Eagle Lakes/Truckee area? What kinda wheelin is it difficulty wise?

norcalsvx

it starts in north bloomfield at graniteville rd(malakoff diggans area) and there are trails all the way to verdi ,nv (henness pass rd), it goes to meadow lake (backside of fordyce) a lot of it is old dirt roads w/ snow and mud with some side trails to harder stuff.

89silverpu

Oh ok, I have an idea where its at...actually I think we may have headed up that way on accident on the begining of our trip...we took a wrong turn cause none of us had been on any of those trails before and the lead guy read the sign wrong to eagle lakes and we went left instead of right to Eagle Lakes...is that it?

Also here's some more pics I forgot about...

Airing up after the trip...kinda shows how smokey it was because of all the wildfires in Cali



My buddy Chad's 4runner: 60 rear, 44 front, dual cases, Detroits, yadadada every cool thing you can think of lol

YeloSub7

Nice trail ride! Looks like fun...

Anymore info on chad's 4runner? Thats a sweet 3rd gen!

89silverpu

He's actually a member on the board (Cougarfreak) however he doesn't post often...here's the discription from his sig line...he did the fab work himself...

'97 4Runner, cstm Cougarfreak Exo n traction bar, Hi steer, SAS'ed w/ '81 Waggy D44 (superjoints, Chromos, and Chevy outters, n 4.56's) rear Ford D60 (35sp chromos, detroit n 4.56's), 35" BFG Muds, YJ rear springs military wrapped w/ waggy main in front, Chevy 63" springs rear, King air bumps, King 2.5" res. shocks, Marlin 2.28 dual, twin stick.

Volcom

Same here! I want to make a week trip of the Rubicon and Fordyce someday.

Nice pics.

89silverpu

That would be a looooong week lol the two hardest trails in Northern Cali, bring your spare parts!!