Gold Mountain and John Bull Trail in the LR3

I’ve been doing a considerable amount of four wheeling lately with my good buddy Scott. We’ve grown to really appreciate the activity and look forward to doing it just about every opportunity we get. We ordered and subsequently installed a set of Rover Specialties Stage I rock sliders, a Rasta 4x4 transfer case plate, and a Mantec sump guard over the course of the past month. We planned a trip to Gold Mountain and the John Bull trail to help break them in. We’d heard many people warning us as to the difficulty of the John Bull trail, little did we know just how much of an adventure it would turn out to be.

We set out on a cool Saturday morning with our friends Megan and Hany riding along with us in the LR3 and another offroading compadre chasing in his outfitted Tacoma. The drive seemed to take especially long and after stopping for the prerequisite breakfast burrito and fuel it was 10:30 before we arrived at the Gold Mountain trailhead. Once we arrived, Scott and I realized that this was the same trail we had done a few weeks prior with Land Rover Newport Beach. We were confident we’d blast through it and be on our way to the more difficult trail in no time. We were doing Gold Mountain just to warm up the tires, so-to-speak.

Gold Mountain was, by and large, much more challenging this time than when we went out with the Land Rover dealer. We even reached an obstacle in the beginning that left us wondering if we were even on the trail, let alone the right one! Nevertheless we studied the first obstacle of the day, took a line, and made it up and over with nary a scrape. We find ourselves consistently underestimating this vehicle, especially in the beginning of any trip before we reaffirm our beliefs in this fine Land Rover.

We did discover there was a bypass for the famous rock garden that we had apparently taken when out with the group on the prior trip. This time we got to go through this part of the trail and it was a lot of fun. While waiting for some Jeepers to attempt the most difficult lines in the garden we quenched our thirst with some cold beer and satiated our hunger with some turkey sandwiches. At this point we knew we were behind schedule but still had five or six hours of daylight left to wrap up the last mile or so of this trail and then conquer John Bull.

We reached the end of the Gold Mountain trail about 12:30. We did a quick inspection of the vehicle between trails and noticed that there was a good slice in the sidewall of one of the LR3’s Cooper Zeon’s. While still holding air we thought it best to swap out instead of risking a blowout in a precarious situation on the much more difficult trail that was to follow. We stopped alongside the Holcomb Valley trail and did a tire change. Little did we know that this trail was equivalent to the 405 in terms of through traffic. We had to stop what we were doing ten or more times to let a vehicle pass. Once done we tossed the sliced tire in the back and headed on our way. Scott suggested we might call it a day now that it was 1:30 and try the JB another day. We all thought not, and continued on. I’d remember that fine idea later that night…

We followed the wise advice of the Land Rover forum and decided to run the trail in the easier direction, West to East. We were fine with taking it “easy” on our first pass, and thought it would leave us a nice challenge to try again someday. Throughout the duration of the trail however, not one person passed running it East to West, EVERYONE was going our way.

From the onset of the trail we knew we were in for a challenge. Again the LR3 proved itself and made easy work out of the most difficult challenges along the way. Jeep after Jeep came by saying “you got THAT up here?!?!?” We impressed a lot of people taking a shiny new SUV up the trail. Scott and I had been working on our communication and hand signals between trips and that was making a demonstrative difference in how efficiently we got up the hill. I don’t recall a single miscommunication along the way.

Now the real fun starts. We get to a relatively tame obstacle and take a bad line. We slip and hit a control arm on rock and then drag on the weak factory fuel tank skid a bit. It didn’t seem that hard and we weren’t concerned that we had damaged anything. We back the car up, take a fresh line, and crawl right up and over the obstacle without a touch. We pull off a few hundred yards down the trail and have the definite smell of fuel. It’s strong in the cabin and stronger outside. We presume it’s from one of the dirt bikes that had just gone by, and we choose to press on.

At the next pit stop just a few minutes later we still smell gas, and it’s still strong. What’s worse is we seem to have lost an 1/8^th of a tank of gas in the last 10 minutes. We crawl under the truck and see nothing wet and certainly no leaks of fuel coming from the  fuel tank skid plate. We can’t see any fuel lines other than the fuel filler that goes to the fuel cap. It’s dry but the smell is strongest near the fuel door. We decide to let the car sit for 20 minutes and see if any fuel at all pools up on the ground. Twenty minutes goes by and nary a drop is to be found, also it appears the smell has dissipated a bit at this point. Also the fuel level is back to where it was when we first smelled gas, leaving us to believe we simply checked the fuel level with the vehicle at two different angles. Onward we go.

At this point the sun has set, it’s dipping into the high 40’s in temp, and headlights are starting to provide more assistance. Against my strongest suggestion, almost nobody in our party headed my advice and brought extra warming layers. At this point I’m not too concerned as we think we’re about 30 minutes from the end. How wrong we were.

As we reach the apex of the climb and start our descent we head into our first downhill obstacle. Nothing too crazy, iPhone lev-o-meter showing a 22 degree decline, nothing we haven’t done 100 times. Just as we drop in to give it a go, the car sputters and  stalls. It won’t start no matter how many times we try. We think that even though this car is built for 45 degree angles that it might have had something to do with the angle so we decide to roll, unpowered, down the rest of this immediate obstacle thinking it will help us get started. No dice, again and again the car won’t start. We decide it’s time to start a recovery while we have the last 30 minutes of daylight remaining.

Ramiro pulls his Tacoma up behind us and we get into position to commence the recovery. The Tacoma probably weighs nearly half what the LR3 weighs so we strap the Tacoma into a tree from behind to anchor. Very slowly, albeit successfully, the winch  gets the LR3 not only up the hill but up and over a few good sized rocks. The winch earned it’s keep at that point without question as we didn’t have a good line to do a snatch recovery.

Now on level ground we continue to have no luck starting and have about 5 Jeeps behind us trying to pitch their ideas. Our final idea to get started is to hope it’s some sort of computer problem that might clear itself out so we disconnect the battery for 15 minutes. Much to our disappointment, the moment we reconnect it the vehicle lowers itself to access height. The problem with this is it precludes us from being able to roll down the mountain which at this point we thought was a viable solution.

At this point the Jeep group has departed and we are left to decide what we are going to do for the night. After a bit of discussion and weighing the pro’s and con’s of various options we determine that Ramiro will have to shuttle Hany and Megan down the mountain and then return for Scott and I. Hany and Meagan would head back to OC with Ramiro and Scott and I would grab a hotel in town for the night and figure out in the morning how to get the disabled Rover down the mountain. Just as we are locking up the vehicle Hany gives the engine one more go and VROOM she fires to life! We are all unsure we’re really seeing this as we’d all just succumbed to the length of the day, the cold, and the depressing realism that we’d have a much longer night ahead of us than planned.

We take two more minutes to deliberate whether or not we should risk leaving our safe spot out of the way of the trail and try again. We’re fearful that we’ll break down in a spot where we can’t possibly move out of the way for anyone else coming through. We decide it’s worth a shot to get down only if the car is really ok. We turn the car off, and then attempt to start again and again, it fires right up. Seems she was just resting after a hard day all this time! Scott and I determine that our strongest configuration is him  driving with me spotting and so it is. Onward we go in total darkness now to do the most difficult part of the trail. After a few relatively difficult passes we get to a large field of boulders unlike any obstacle we had tried that day. Thirty minutes, a scratched wheel and some sweat later we are through it.

At this point we are done, all difficult parts behind us and nothing but flat forest road out to town. We stop to stare at one of the prettiest starry skies I can recall for just a few minutes and then press on. About 9pm we are back in town and extremely hungry. The second we get cell service out come the iPhones in search of a meal suitable for a day like today.

Just as I start to read good reviews on Yelp we drive by a place called Madlon’s. Parking lot is full, good sign. We’re dusty and tired but if this fine dining French restaurant will have us, we’d be oh so happy to dine with them. As luck would have it then sit us right down and for the next hour we enjoy some of the best food and wine I’ve had.

We knew going in that this trip was going to be long and hard, but nobody expected us to be home after dark let alone not even off the trail. I reaffirmed by belief that you should never do a difficult trail alone as not having Ramiro as a rescue option would have been ugly. Likewise I think everyone in the group (except Scott the proud Marine) will probably heed my advice and bring extra warming layers and some good boots. I also realized how fortunate I am to have friends like these. You can’t buy a day we had, but we were all smiles all the way through and every one of us was critical to getting through the day.