Congratulations to all the participants of the Hummer Club Rubicon '97 trip.! 
We had 8 Rubicon first-timers and 5 with at least 1 Rubicon trip under their belt. My hat is off to the first-timers who wanted to make the trip in spite of the warnings. There were 4 who had very little off-road experience. A lot of credit for an almost trouble-free crossing goes to all the people who jumped out of their vehicles to help when we needed some work done to the trail or someone needed guiding over the abundant obstacles. 
It was a great group. Thanks to John and Pam Sweeney and the Hummer Club for a job well done! 

Hummer Adventures article in the Summer/Fall 1997 Issue

RUBICON ’97     by Ron Bomhoff

 The Hummer Club hosted their third annual Hummer Club Rubicon crossing. It was held on August 27-29, 1997. This was the largest and most successful. Thanks to John Sweeney, Hummer Club Pres., and his wife Pam for organizing the largest ever Hummer Rubicon trip. We had 13 trucks and, for the first time, we started at Wentworth Springs instead of Loon Lake.
 The meeting place was the Wentworth Springs campground. Seven Hummers arrived on Tuesday the 26th and got an early start on the fun. The rest of group arrived early the next morning. We assembled for a drivers meeting and got underway about 9 AM. Whoever was in charge of weather and scenery did a fantastic job. The Sierra mountains was the perfect setting for the long line of 13 Hummers moving slowly over it's giant granite boulders. The pace was slow but the results were good. Everyone arrived at Buck Island Lake with a new appreciation for rock-crawling. That night John Sweeney provided a hot shower for all takers. The next day we tackled The Big Sluice. For the owners who were doing the Rubicon for the first time, I'm sure that the first day seemed like a warm-up for this section of the trail. Where we had driven all of 7 miles the prior day, we made 2 miles this day. You have to gauge this trail in obstacles per mile not miles per hour. There were ample obstacles to negotiate plus a lot of rocks to be stacked. We even had to winch a 4 foot boulder over about 6" for a little more clearance. We were all happy to reach camp at Rubicon Springs that night. The river crossing just before the campsite helped wash off the trail dust and after dinner everyone enjoyed the traditional nightly ceremonial fire.  Some special trail skills that the new Rubicon drivers learned  were road building, nail biting and patience as they waited their
turn to drive the next obstacle. On the Rubicon Trail your guide is part of your team. You depend on them to help you keep your tires on the right set of rocks and to make turns that you can't see. In some places you have to make several exact turns in one length of the vehicle.  The success of the crossing was due in a large part to the willingness of members to help in whatever way they could. Experienced driver were guiding others around them, everyone would stack rocks when necessary and there was a spirit of total cooperation from everyone. The eight Rubicon first-time Hummer owners can
now say "been there, done that"!

Well had to tell everyone that the Hummer club outing to the Rubicon was a blast !!!! It was a very well run event and my wife and I had more fun than a week in Jamaica. 

13 Hummers made the trip and we had 2 tire failures that had to be fixed on the trial and I have a slice in mine that made it home thanks to a plug job by Brandon. I love the CTIS as I ran 3 days with the tire slice and just  pumped it up every once in a while. I also broke off a CTIS T at the outlet but had it fixed in 10 minutes as I had just got spare parts from Lynch (see Bobby in parts) before the trip. 

The only other broken parts were 2 halfshalfs and I was told they were the old style. But they were fixed fast as John Klatte was along from AMG to help with repairs. This trip is one tough challenge for a 4 WD vehicle and the Hummers did great !! It was so great to see the new (rookies) like me learn how to drive our trucks and by the end of the 3 days we were no longer beginners. 

John and Pam Sweeney did a fantastic job organizing this event and if you do not belong to the Hummer Club you should join. They just started with a full color newsletter and if all their trips are like this you will not be disappointed. 

Ron Bomhoff and Tim Bonadies from AMG were also on hand to help on the trail. They were either guiding or answering questions about our trucks. It was very assuring to have 3 people from AMG on this trip to help out and it gave us all more confidence that they were there. 

More later about these 5 great people (John, Pam, Ron, John and Tim) who made this trip great. The type of people on this trip was another great thing that makes me proud to be part of the Hummer owner family. Everyone was so nice and helpful and with no attitudes or egos. It was funny to see 10 people all pitching in to fill a trail with rocks to help in some spots. You would see the women and men working side by side and this demonstrated the best teamwork I have ever seen. 

My wife Star and I arrived at the Wentworth Springs campground on Tuesday around 6 pm. We meet up with Ron, Kathy, Tim and John at a gas station near Pollock Pines and followed then in to the campgrounds. Already at the campgrounds were Paul and Sonia who have been here for a day already and ran the trail from Loon Lake to Wentworth springs earlier. 
Later that evening Mike and Dorothy, Doug, Pat and Craig showed up and we had a nice campfire with everyone wondering what the next day will bring. Late that night a few more trucks showed up as the sound of a Hummer coming down the road is hard to sleep through. Continue with our Rubicon journey by selecting a page below. 
 
Day 1 Trip Report  Wentworth Springs to Buck Island Lake
Day 2 Trip Report   Buck Island Lake  to Rubicon Springs
Day 3 Trip Report  Rubicon Springs to Lake Tahoe
Main Rubicon Picture Page
 

If you were on this trip and want to write AM General to thank them for having 3 people on the trip to help us with repairs and to lead us over the ruff stuff. Here is the address to write them. 

Jim Armour, Pres. & CEO 
AM General Corp. 
105 North Niles 
South Bend, IN  46634-7025 

Bill Thompson         (Tim Bonadies & John Klatte's Boss) 
AM General Corp. 
408 So. Byrkit Ave. Mishawaka, IN 
46546-0728 

Lee Woodward, Mgr. Marketing Communications 
(lwoodward@am-general.com) 
AM General Corp. 
100 E. Wayne St.  #300 
South Bend, IN  46601 

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