The Dusy Ershim Trip!

So it all starts out with a phone call from my friend Matt Williams at Recycled Toyotas telling me he’s just gotten out of a forest service and 4-wheel-drive club meeting where the forest service asked who would like to be responsible for closing the Dusy Ershim trail this year. Mind you that one club had been doing it every year for several years prior, so when Matt finally looked around to see that no one had put their hand up, he raised his and said “I can put together a crew”

So that’s the call I get, and next thing I knew I had 2 months to get my truck ready to go through the Dusy Ershim trail (30 miles officially, but I think we counted 36 pavement to pavement), which I would come to find to be a reasonably mild but still strenuous trail.

And so there we were on the first straight away of the trail when my power steering decided to start leaking like it was left completely undone, which it was. We had just left the campsite we set up at the trail head the night before and had the whole day ahead of us to get past Ershim lake. And so off we went after we got the power steering adjustment bolty boi tightened correctly on top of the power steering box.

About 45 minutes before we made it to our first camping spot on the trail, and maybe 6-7 hours of wheeling behind us, Matt chimes in on the CB saying “Stop dude, Something is leaking! There’s a trail of oil back here”.
So I stop and get out and sure enough there’s a pretty thick trail of oil behind me. Matt pops up over the hill carrying the drain plug for my rear diff, which had apparently been slowly unscrewed a half dozen rocks I managed to drag that axle on (right on the drain plug of all places!). So with the help of a very big hammer, we got it “screwed” back into place, and then proceeded to drain some oil out of each of our transfer cases, transmissions, engines, and diffs so that we could put Something back in my rear diff. I really have no good excuse as to why I wasn’t Carrying gear oil, other than that I didn’t expect to lose any in such a way that I would be able to Put it back in!

So we finally make it to the first campground by nightfall, after also stopping and admiring Ershim lake and the benches made there some years prior. Absolutely beautiful, and would love to go back. We have our sanctioned HAM radio with us and check in with the forest service to tell them where we’ve made it to and that we’re bedding down. Proceed to have some great food and a Very Cold night under the most stars I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Mind you we’re on the opposite side of the mountain from any city now, and nearing 9k feet.

Breakfast is had and we’re off again, stopping to take pictures and admire the small lakes as we pass them. We eventually come to Thompson hill, which is well known for it’s medium to small sized rocks and loose gravel. And so here we are driving down it (Since we decided to do the trail backwards from the norm) and it’s not too difficult but Goodness Gracious it’s Bumpy! So bumpy, as I find later, that it’s slowly undoing and then shearing each of the twelve bolts that connect the hubs to the axle shafts. As I’m ready to go up a rock after the end of the 45 minute drop, I am getting nowhere and come to find that my hubs are spinning but Not my Wheels! And so out comes the strap to tug me over. Which went as well as it could for a while.

Don’t forget that we are meant to be Closing this trail, meaning that we locked the gate behind us and carry a responsibility to turn anybody on the trail around and head the same direction as us so as not to get locked in (or snowed in, snow is expected any minute at this point).

So here we are stopped thinking about what to do after I’ve scrambled up a few very steep very gravely hills, when I notice something dripping onto my front axle. As it turns out the giant industrial Zip Tie I used to hold my battery in (:face_palm:) had failed, and the battery had slid right into the motor and the motor proceeded to shred it to pieces and spray battery acid… Everywhere.

Right around this time Matts alternator has given up and so we are there with one good alternator and one good battery but two trucks. We talk this through and make the decision to soldier on, as long as Matt’s truck is running mine can charge his battery (which is ratchet strapped into my truck now).

We also decided, after much deliberation, that we ought to take to the beach of Courtright Reservoir despite that there may be people on the trail for the few miles we have left now. But we can’t afford to get stuck with my now 2-wheel-drive truck. And so we hope we’ll see or hear anybody from the main trail, which isn’t too far away now.

We roll into the campground that guards the main trailhead, and low and behold there is One vehicle, a Toyota Highlander that has some various light equipment in it, like a cooler, maps, some camping chairs. And needless to say we are concerned! Together we climbed back up Chicken Rock and let out some shouts and some general scouting, meanwhile deciding whether we stay in the campground tonight and hope whoever it is comes back or we take off and leave them to wonder.

Consider for a moment that the trail has been “Closed” for 2 weeks now, so nobody Should be here anyways but for the gates still being open. And we’re on the radio with the Forest Service trying to decide what to do. They’ve given us the green light to do what we feel is best, including dummy locking the gate so that this person has a chance to leave if they can get through the inevitable snow.

We decide to stay, and we parked our trucks and setup tarps and tents such that we were protected from the wind, and started cutting firewood. We had barely put the last tent stake down when one man comes walking out of the eastern forest and walks right up to this one vehicle, his Highlander. We start a conversation with him and come to find out that he’s been backpacking for eleven days now and is just done with his trip. We are of course a bit baffled that he had managed to plan an 11 day backpacking trip, no small endeavor, that would begin shortly after the area is officially closed.

But no matter. He parts ways and we proceed to have an absolutely beautiful night with a great big campfire at the center of our little circle. I slept with my tent door open that night, one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had to this day.

The trek home at this point took us most of the following day. It wasn’t too troublesome, but we were tired, and moving slow for the sake of the trucks. And by the time I parked the poor truck in the front yard, I was ready to take the longest shower of my life.

What I certainly should have done was wash my front axle and engine bay with a little soap and water before it sat there rusting and deteriorating for years to come. Which is why the truck is in the state of disarray you may have seen in posts prior to this one.

Dusy Ershim proved to me that day that “Hard” and “Brutal” are not necessarily the same thing. My little truck with some medium modifications, and 33″ tires did fine with even the hardest of obstacles on the trail. I was woefully underprepared, however, for how much the trail would shake my truck loose. I’m glad I made it through, and Ershim is at the top of my list of places to visit again. But I don’t have any interest in doing the entire trail again.