workingdog
GOLD Star
Others should chime in, but somewhere in Georgetown or Auburn - where are you coming from? I left my rig at the Best Western in Auburn once for two months.
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I'm getting excited and trying to plan out my trip. Maybe a little early, but can you blame me?!? As a first-timer that is going to trailer his rig up, where would you recommend leaving it? My 4Runner does have plates, but it's not totally street legal (tires stick out past the fenders by a lot & no mud flaps). My thought was to see if a hotel would let me park there for a week, but I'm not sure which side I should be on. Does anyone have any recommendations?
If it's your first time, run it from Loon Lake to get the classic experience. Depending on how your returning from Tahoe when your done (which would depends on where you coming from), you'll need to find a spot either on 50 to the south or in Auburn on 80 to the north of the Rubicon. There are options on both sides.
Chad, you are more than welcome to park your trailer at my house in Garden Valley. Ice House Resort also offers trailer storage and since you will be going in via Loon, also a good option. If you want to park it on the Tahoe Side (where you will likely be exiting, we can usually find a few places to stash them.
Never to early!
If you go from Loon Lake and drop at Chad's or at Ice House and do the whole trail, you'll come out at Lake Tahoe and you'll have to drive around on highway 50 back to you rig. And you should expect no quarter from the Calif Highway Patrol. The other option is to run back out via Loon Lake. But I wouldn't drive a non road legal rig on a Calif highway. Off highway 50, driving Ice House Road or Wentworth Springs I think you're okay.
Wheel it! You can make some booty fab mud flaps for the rear if your worried about it. From my house, you could go up WWS to Loon and never hit the highway until the trip back down from Tahoe. Mine is on 37 and no mudflaps either.... or shoulder harness for that matter and never an issue. Besides, it's just a fix it ticket even then.I guess I should be more specific on the rig. It's street legal-ish. At least in Oregon, I would only get a ticket if the cop wanted to be a dick. It has all the appropriate lights, wipers, glass, plates, etc. It just violates the mud flap laws:
Wheel it! You can make some booty fab mud flaps for the rear if your worried about it. From my house, you could go up WWS to Loon and never hit the highway until the trip back down from Tahoe. Mine is on 37 and no mudflaps either.... or shoulder harness for that matter and never an issue. Besides, it's just a fix it ticket even then.
I leave my house way early on Tuesday morning and drop in from Tahoma, so no worries if you chose to park you stuff at the house. Heck, go up Monday night and stop at Uncle Tom's Cabin on the way up. As far as you are coming you might as well see all there is to enjoy!
I am planning on coming in Loon Lake. I'm just trying to see if there is a better option than leaving the tow rig at loon lake. I guess I will be driving the trail rig the same distance no matter where I park, though. I just need to decide if I'm driving longer before or after the event!
I appreciate that, Eric! I figured that you would be on the trail all ready by the time that I got there. Are the local cops accepting of wheelers on the roads? Maybe I am over-thinking this. LOL! I looked into Ice House Resort, but I think they charge $15 per day to park there. That would end up being another $90!
FWIW - I'm not any sort of expert. I've been there a grand total of once. My take is this: the parking is limited on the Tahoe side at the parking lot, but there is parking there for trailers. Just not a ton of them. If I were bringing my FJ40 - pretty similar to your crawler in capability I'd guess - I'd probably just park a trailer at Loon Lake. Go in from Loon all the way. Then just take a day on maybe Friday? and run up Cadillac hill and explore the trail out toward Tahoma. Maybe even explore a few other side trails out that way. And come back to the springs area that night again. Then drive back out on Sunday to your trailer at Loon via the trail. I'll be pretty close to point and shoot for you in that setup. And there will be at least a handful of other people doing the same thing. Plus you can skip the congestion on sunday morning at cadillac hill.
If I were going to drive the street around - then I'd want the trailer at the end, not at the beginning. It's a long day if you're wanting to drive out Sunday, load up, and drive home. Adding the distance from Tahoma all the way back to Loon, then turning around and driving back to south tahoe again would have added something like 3 more hours of driving to an already long day. I'd try to find somewhere on the tahoe side to leave the tow rig if you're going to go one way through.