The 10th Colorado Jeep-CJ Trail Report

[BusaDave9]

I have received the permits for our group to run Black Bear Pass in the reverse direction. The permits are only good for Sunday morning August 8th.

Saturday I brought a sign a to the Black Bear Pass trail head on highway 550. This sign warns anyone expecting to go up the pass the normal direction that we'll have the trail blocked. Ben and Jessie met me there in his pickup.

After putting up the sign we went to Purgatory (formerly Durango Mountain Resort). From there we took the 4x4 trails to the west.

This dumped us out on highway 145. We stayed in Rico for the night.



Sunday August 8th
Black Bear Pass, the reverse direction

Early the next morning we drove into Telluride to meet up with everyone.



We had 11 vehicles in the group as we headed up the trail.



It seemed like a whole new trail going this direction.







Some switch backs were worse than ever. The edge was narrower in places due to erosion.



Another advantage to the permits is we owned the trail for the day. We were the only group with permits for Sunday. When we wanted to stop we just turned off the engines. There was no worry about blocking traffic.
Well ... there was a minor problem with a few people that ignored our sign but they got out of our way.







After Black Bear Pass we continued on to Porphyry Gulch before calling it a day.

Anyone that participated in the week of trail rides can post here or start your own thread. Either way is fine with me.

To be continued ...

 

[007]

Here’s Shooby…






BusaDave9





MrIPlayBass and OldJeepLady



And here’s a video…

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[CJ]

Looks good so far!

Who is this brave soul?

 

[BusaDave9]

Looks good so far!

Who is this brave soul?

That's Ben. Jessie is usually his passenger but here she's out taking pictures. This switchback was one of the worst. It's narrow due to erosion and Ben's left rear tire is in a dip.
Oh and to really complicate things Ben has open differentials.

 

[CJ]

Nice, bet there was a sigh of relief once at the top.

 

[Belizean]

Nice pictures and video.

 

[BusaDave9]

Nice, bet there was a sigh of relief once at the top.

This trail is harder going up, especially if you don't have lockers. We encountered one challenge after another. Ben kept asking how the trail was up ahead. I'd always tell him we past the worse but then we'd encounter another challenge. He stopped listening to me. Actually I think the worst for him was on the switchbacks. Those were easy for us in the jeeps. Then at the top we had to cross some ledges that tipped our CJs quite a bit. These were challenging for the jeeps but Ben walked right up them with his long pickup.

What's hard? What's easy? It all depends on what you are driving.

 

[BusaDave9]

Monday August 9th

Here's a GPS map of the whole week of trail rides in Colorado:
https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/e5dd-e9edb5a-7985/view

On Monday we drove the Million Dollar Highway to the trailhead for Lower Engineer Pass.



Here we locked our hubs.
We turned onto the Poughkeepsie Gulch trail.



This brought us to The Wall. This has always been a fun challenge.



The above picture is @Posi taking a line much further to the left than the usual route.



@BillD



@mriplaybass & @oldjeeplady



This is me but my carburetor flooded and I couldn't get the engine started on that slope. They winched me up the last little bit.

After Poughkeepsie Gulch we came down Hurricane Pass.


At that point some headed back into town. A few of us headed up Prospect Gulch. This next picture is from the top looking at Red Mountain.


That was it for the day.

To be continued ...

 

[007]

Here’s me in a Rental doing the left side of the wall like I did last time.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[CJ]

LOL! Making it look easy... Gotta love the rentals.

 

[BusaDave9]

Tuesday August 10th

Today we climbed Kendall Mountain with our jeeps. This mountain is right next to Silverton.

As we neared the top we stopped at this notch to take a group photo of our jeeps.



David Roybal and 007 are not in the picture.

From here the trail is very narrow. I wanted to make sure there wasn't anyone trying to come down.

From the top we looked down on highway 550 headed down to Durango (in the next picture.


At the end of the jeep trail a few of us hiked the rest of the way to the top.

This is Silverton viewed from the top of Kendall Mountain.



This next picture is the Animas River Canyon north of Silverton. It's a U shaped valley created from a large glacier.



While we were on the top of the mountain Ben called me on my phone. (There's a cell tower on top of the mountain so reception was great). I was told there was a Gladiator that was about to roll down on top of our jeeps and we had to come down right away.



The Jeep Gladiator tried to go higher than the jeep trail by continuing on the foot trail. It looked like some quads have taken the trail but it's much too small for full sized jeeps. The rocks are very loose and when he started to slip he tried to backup and went off the trail.



He tied a strap from his rear bumper to a rock then tried to backup.



He made matters worse and his nose ended up pointing downhill.

He had his family up there with him. They were in another pickup and quads. His wife and daughter were very upset with him to say the least. His wife called 911.

We headed down and met the vehicle recovery team on thier way up. I told them the situation and where the Gladiator was. They were only coming to make a plan. I was told they'd probably come back the next day with a bulldozer. That's exactly what happened.

We still had time left so we headed into Deer Park south of Kendall Mountain.





Marmot on a rock.



To be continued ...

 

[jfmcj7]

That looks like an awesome trip. Great pictures and report. Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[BusaDave9]

Wednesday August 11th

Today we headed up Arrastra Gulch.





We explored the Black Prince Mine



Then we when higher, above the tree line, into the Little Giant Basin.



Then we explored another trail on Kendall Mountain.



As we returned to Silverton we had to cross the Animas River.





To be continued ...

 

[CJ]

Tuesday August 10th

While we were on the top of the mountain Ben called me on my phone. There's a cell tower on top of the mountain so reception was great). I was told there was a Gladiator that was about to roll down on top of our jeeps and we had to come down right away.



The Jeep Gladiator tried to go higher than the jeep trail by continuing on the foot trail. It looked like some quads have taken the trail but it's much too small for full sized jeeps. The rocks are very loose and when he started to slip he tried to backup and went off the trail.



He tied a strap from his rear bumper to a rock then tried to backup.



He made matters worse and his nose ended up pointing downhill.

He had his family up there with him. They were in another pickup and quads. His wife and daughter were very upset with him to say the least. His wife called 911.

We headed down and met the vehicle recovery team on thier way up. I told them the situation and where the Gladiator was. They were only coming to make a plan. I was told they'd probably come back the next day with a bulldozer. That's exactly what happened.

That was one screwy situation. So glad you all had some safe fun!

 

[JR74CJ5]

Nice photos!

Dave, my crew is interested in 2022 trip out there. In-laws bought a newer trail ride jeep, no rough stuff. Hope to see you out there this next year.

 

[BusaDave9]

Nice photos!

Dave, my crew is interested in 2022 trip out there. In-laws bought a newer trail ride jeep, no rough stuff. Hope to see you out there this next year.

If you're in the area I'd like to meet up with you JR but I have been thinking to skip next year ... no Colorado Jeep trail ride in 2022 unless Bill or someone else has one.

 

[Posi]

Dave, thanks so much for another fantastic trail ride, and thanks for all the work to acquire the proper permits to run BB in reverse. Once in a lifetime comes to mind!

We will be running a Central Colorado Trail ride in mid August once again. This does not, in no way, replace Dave's Trail Run.

 

[JR74CJ5]

If you're in the area I'd like to meet up with you JR but I have been thinking to skip next year ... no Colorado Jeep trail ride in 2022 unless Bill or someone else has one.

Sounds great - I wouldn't mind running them through a few we've done with you out there and relaxing in the beautiful towns a bit too. I'll let you know what we decide on dates. If I remember right, Early / Mid August seems to be the best time normally, so will probably shoot for around then, late July, or early September.

 

[BusaDave9]

Sounds great - I wouldn't mind running them through a few we've done with you out there and relaxing in the beautiful towns a bit too. I'll let you know what we decide on dates. If I remember right, Early / Mid August seems to be the best time normally, so will probably shoot for around then, late July, or early September.

Yea, early August would be a good time. Keep in touch.