Once you’re at Snake Lake there are three options to get back out. We found a nice spot on the lake to have lunch in full view of the trail coming down the mountain. So the Power Wagon made it down to Snake lake with no problems. But there are still a few challenges in the short distance left before you get to Snake Lake. After the initial descent and challenges, the trail is less insanely steep and backs off to just pretty steep. But taking it slow and having a spotter makes it challenging but doable descent. Still a bad line could result in body damage or worse. The descent is a series of steep rocky sections of road without major obstacles, beyond the steep grade, and sometime loos substrate. Jeep JKU Flexing on the way to Snake Lake In fact, the distances involved in this whole trip are not that great at all, making it a great day trip. If you decide to back out here, it’s worth the short hike to get down to Snake Lake without your rig. If you’re at all apprehensive, walk the first hundred meters of so of trail. Here there is a sign for Snake Lake and the Snake Lake trail starts to head straight down the hill and things get hairy pretty quick. The start of the Snake Lake OHV Trailįrom Summit Lake the OHV Trail heads north through thick forest above Gold Lake without any real challenges until you arrive at Oakland Pond. If you look back at his jeep in the Prison Hill Video and the Deer Valley video you’ll see a lot of wheel lift. This is the first time I’ve seen him do that and it ended up making a pretty big difference. Brent unhooked the swaybar links on his jeep. Summit Lake is the first major intersection where you head right on a signed OHV Road, but it’s a good spot for a snack and taking care of any last minute trail prep. The trail is fairly well marked and obvious, so you can get by with a simple map, or just following turn by turn directions. Shawn mapped out the route with the Gaia GPS app, and it was easy to follow on the iPad. I’ve noticed in the past that the campground has been trashy with lots of surface poos. The campground has seen some renovation this last year and the bathrooms are a new addition. The sites have tables, fire rings and bear boxes. Soon you arrive at the Gold Lake OHV Campground which has bathrooms and a number of really nice tent camp sites. It’s a 4×4 trail, but a bold Subaru driver could do it, and any stock 4runner can do it. The first stretch of the trail just gets you down to the other end of Gold Lake and you catch awesome views of the lake through the forest. There’s still a surprise from the Jeep contingent, so stick around… Spoiler alert: The Jeep JKU is perfectly suited for this trail. We were joined by Brent, Rachel and Sam in their Modified Jeep JKU Sport. We finished the trimming and headed on down the trail with a fair bit of cautious anticipation. In fact a guy in the parking lot driving a Tacoma said he had a lot of trouble on the trail we were headed down. The battery powered saws-all also came in handy for trimming the Yakima bars short as we were anticipating some very tight trees. We were anticipating some high-clearance situations, and he wanted to trim the tail pipe back so it wouldn’t get crushed against the rear quarter panel of the Power Wagon and damage either. If you’re looking for a basecamp for off road excursions in Lakes Basin either by 4×4, ATV, bike or foot, this is a good one.īefore we got started on the trail of course, we aired down the tires, and Shawn took the time for a little last minute manscaping. The trailhead starts at the Gold Lake Boat Launch road and campground. Maybe in 2019…Īnyway, this time Shawn and I brought the little guys up for an adventurous day trip to Snake Lake. You could camp here every weekend for an entire season and never get bored. This is an area we’ve spend a bit of time over the years, but not nearly enough given how close it is to Reno. The Snake Lake Jeep trail starts at Gold Lake in the beautiful Lakes Basin California. The only other sound on the serene bluebird day in the mountains, far from highways and cell phone signal is the raucous cacophony of the two little boys in the back of a full size truck being piloted down a technical jeep trail, laughing, and carrying on and getting louder and more ridiculous with every excruciating bump. Each wheel placement critical, springs squeaking, rocks grinding under the tires, metal bits hanging low under the truck rasping over boulders in the trail telegraphing either minor scuffing or potentially catastrophic damage with every grinding jolt on the steep bedrock road down the mountain. It’s a tense moment piloting a full size truck down a technical jeep trail.
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