Looks like I might be too late to help you but...

My mom lives in the bass lake area and my stepdad has lived in that area his whole life. So I was just up there too for the 4th with my Rubicon for the first time and I was shocked at how much wheeling there is to be done in that area. I've only done 1 day trip so far our of bass lake and I've done one trail out of Huntington lake. Both very fun.

If you're in that area often I would reccommend a book called "High Sierra SUV Trails, Volume II The Western Slope" by Roger Mitchell. According to his book he is a local of that area and knows the trails well, the only negative to this book it's 7 years old.

So to get to the point. A good moderate (rated a 3 out of 6 with the rubicon being a 5/6) trail is Shuteye Peak. You start out of bass lake and end up at one of the fire lookout stations ~8700ft. You can see up to the John Muir wilderness area and down to North Fork and you can oversee Shaver, Bass, and Huntington lakes. I was able to do this in my stock Rubicon, never needed lockers but I did scratch my gas tank skid a little but no biggie.

The forest ranger manning the lookout said that this may be the last season that this trail is open so if you have the chance do this trail this year.

 

FlameRed,

That sounds like it would have been a ton of fun! Sorry I missed it.

Hopefully it'll still be open the next time I'm in the area. Thanks for the book recommendation as well. The area definitely has a TON of great trails and some beautiful destinations...too bad I'm in San Diego, oh well.

 

How do you find the cen-cal group? I've been looking around, but haven't found it, just North and South.

 

Honestly, I don't remember how I found it. I think I found it through the profile of another Cen-Cal member.

So on your own profile you'll see on the bottom right you'll see "join Social Groups". Click on that and then you'll see Cen-Cal.

Let me know if you havce any questions.