Great story from about 6 years ago:
Late october and I had friends in from Seattle and I wanted to take them into Little Sluice and back for a day run. I met up with the shady
guy we never wheeled with before and made a nice run to sluice, had lunch and then turned around and came back.
I let my friend drive back out and somewhere right after Walker Hill, he said "I can't steer". A quick inspection revealed that the three steering bolts had sheared off the frame. We had no way to fix this on the trail and it was about 5PM on a Friday. Our second group told us they would drive down to Pollock Pines and get us some bolts. Off they drove.
7PM came, sun set. It was getting cold. We had no cold weather clothing or camping gear. We has some food leftover from lunch. We had some drinks. 8PM, 9PM came and went. Around 10PM we saw another group come up the trail. and chatted with them. They set up camp near where we were stranded and built a fire. That was great. 11PM and we were pretty sure this shady guy wasn't coming back for us and we were going to spend the night. Another jeep came thru and lent us his spare tent. I was going to sleep in the tent and my buds in the XJ. It was cold. low 40s/high30s.
A little after 1AM, we see some flashlights bouncing up the trail and it turned out to be our new friend and my wife, Marni. Apparently, there were no bolts to be had in Polloc Pines nor placerville and our new friend called marni to a) let her know we wouldn't be going to the concert we had tickets for and b) could she find these bolts and bring them up the hill. Gary told her the size of the bolt and marni went to Home Depot and struck out. Then she went to Auto Zone and caught them as they were locking the doors. They went inside and got the bolts, just gave them to here as they were closing and she drove all the way up to the Loon Spillway with our new friend and they hiked the trail in to us.
We struggled with very cold numb fingers to get the steering box back on, which sucked. We finally got every thing buttoned up and wheeled out. I sent my friends to ride with Marni and drove home by myself. It's now about 3AM and I got to Icehouse and 50 and had to sleep for a few hours.
so the lessons learned here are:
1) Carry extra steering box bolts and check you steering box before every trip
2) Always be prepared for the worst when going in the back country. After Oct 1, the "worst" includes getting dumped on with snow, even when it's not raining in the Valley. a zero degree bag and non-cotton clothing along with food water and a way to make a safe fire are crucial.
3) never wheel alone. We saw almost nobody on the trail on a friday night.
by the way, I made a great friend that weekend. It was Gary Evans (GaryE). He saved our asses. It wasn't the last time we would have an eventful wheeling trip (the second story was even worse and involved a near-rollover death and medevac of my best friend Tom). You meet the best folks wheeling and I consider these folks my closest friends!
