Sequoia National Forest, Ca


Sequoia National Forest, located in the Sierra/Nevada mountains right out of Fresno, CA. This was something I had never done before, and it was mostly fun. You will have to read on to find out what "mostly" means.

This area that we went to was a small trail. If you drive anything much bigger then a Jeep, you can almost forget it. We did see a Toyota 4-Runner out there and a few older Bronco's, but they had to do some extra maneuvers to get though a couple of spots. This is all managed by BLM, so there are no camping fees, however we did obtain a license to have a camp fire. The trail was about 50 minutes long, don't know what the distance was because you are only crawling. Having about 13 inches of lift helped out a lot when going over the rocks. I think being a rookie is what really hurt me, because about two thirds the way though, I was getting a loud clicking sound when I made turns. It ended up getting so bad that it was not worth continuing to the lake, which was our final destination. We ended up walking the rest of the way. As you can see it was worth it.

We cut the fishing short that day because we were not sure what it was going to take to get back to base camp with a crippled vehicle. Before we set back we basically determined that something broke in the rear end. I was able to baby it back most of the way in front wheel drive. There were a few spots that 4 wheel drive would have been nice. The worst spot was the last climb out of the canyon. Very soft dirt, large ruts, logs, rocks and sharp turns took the toll on the Jeep. After a few running starts at this hill, and spitting a gear tooth through the differential cover, big John had to go up above and help pull me up.

The next day we all rode in on John's Jeep and did some quality fishing. As for the rear end, I ended up breaking about 3/4 of the teeth off the spider gears. After cleaning all the teeth out, I put a screw though the hole in the cover and filled it with motor oil. Had to stop every 45 minutes or so to refill it. I ended up driving home in front wheel drive, and anyone who tailgated me got oil splattered on there window from the leaking hole. It ended up being a good thing that most the teeth were gone, no additional damage was done and I put a new limited slip Dana rear end in.