Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Parking brake failed and/or not in gear:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R5cLghSWGQ

Fortunately the lady was ejected and survived with serious injuries.

I guess maybe you don't want to wear seat belts off road ???

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

The dog was found a couple days later with no injuries.
incredible.
I'll bet you could pick that Wrangler up cheap right now.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

My wife showed me that video the other day. One hell of a ride

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

There were actually two dogs: one they found right away and the other several days later.

There are some pictures of the Wrangler where it finally landed on the San Miguel Sheriff facebook page. It looks like it has already been crushed!

I never tried to go over Black Bear. I did drive up that way one evening after work after having had supper in town. I don't think it was one-way back then but I didn't want to get up too far where I couldn't turn around with my K/20 pickup. It was getting dark and my understanding back in those days was that even a jeep had to back up every other switchback. I guess I got enough "four-wheeling" just getting to work every day as a logger. There is or was a shortcut from the ski area down to the highway just west of town that was not rough but was pretty narrow and precipitous.

Now of course it is extremely popular. From the recent videos that I've seen I wouldn't be afraid to take my old K/20 down the switchbacks if I still had it. But the K2500 visibility is just so poor that I would hesitate even though it's really no bigger.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Does anyone have the back story on this? What started the roll?

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Wow, I've been over Black Bear a couple of times. I hope that woman recovers.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

I live about 2 hours south of black bear. From what I heard today, she left the hospital today. Pretty crazy stuff. I work with a couple of guys who used to be sheriffs deputies who are in the “know”.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Can she walk? I read that she had a spinal injury. I realize that this is technically private information.

Rumors can be nasty. My wife rolled her VW bug before we were married. I drove it home and parked it off in a corner at the resort where she worked. A couple days later I was gassing up my log truck and I heard a couple of tourist guys yammering about the car and that the girl driving it was paralyzed. I got mad and went over to them and informed them that she was my fiance and she was right over there hanging sheets on the clothesline :lol:

Strange thing is that I looked at the go fund me page a couple days ago and Suzie looks a lot like my wife did at that age!

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Gravity, apparently ;)

The known fact seems to be that the driver got out of the jeep and it started rolling. He tried to catch it but it went over the edge with his girlfriend and dogs still inside.

There was a fatality a few years ago on a property less than a mile down the road from our house. A lady parked her car and it started rolling and she tried to catch it but somehow it ran over her. I didn't know anything about it until we heard the chopper.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

That part I don’t know honestly

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

I've got a jeep buddy that is itching to do Black Bear and the other well known trails in the area. We'll probably go next summer/fall. I've got no problem taking the Blazer over it. It's not the only high mountain shelf road with switchbacks in this state, it's just the most famous. Local tour companies have used full size trucks for years taking tourists over the pass, so taking a K5 even with the camper over it is completely doable.

The trail itself is only one way from the summit down to bridal veil falls. It wasn't always, but it's been like that for a long time now.

I will say this, having a granny low 5-speed and 241 low range gives me a little more comfort than the 700r4 on the downhill runs. Hydroboost brakes is another plus. I did Red Cone Pass a couple years back and the last section off the summit was so steep I didn't have enough gear or brakes to comfortably come down it. I made it, but it took a week to pull the seat cover out of my kiester.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've been on some roads with my old K/20 that were as tight or tighter than Black Bear, but just not as spectacular or well known. Some probably not even on any maps! I had heard the stories about Black Bear years ago and figured I wasn't going to even think about trying that with a pickup. I don't know if it was narrower back then, but now that I've seen about a million videos of it on YT, I'm kind of sorry now that I didn't take a day off to go over it back in 1979 when I was logging at Telluride.

I figured out right away that the TH350 that I ordered in my new 1973 was not the best choice for off road contrary to what some people claimed. You sure need brakes even in L1 and low range coming down steep hills and better hope it's not slick! OTOH, I suppose it's an advantage to not have a clutch when backing up right next to those drop-offs.

There's a shelf road up above Tincup where back in the nearly wild west days folks would go pick rocks for fireplaces, etc. One day my boss sent me up there to get some stone in his 67/68 C/20 stepside with four speed. It is really narrow and a dead end to boot but there is a Y out there about a mile where you can turn around if you are really careful. I'm pretty sure that's as bad or worse than anything on Black Bear, and it is about 1500 feet of rock slide down to the bottom. I was up there in my pickup one time and had a flat tire!

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

I've been over Tincup a lot and I don't think you can go anywhere off of the summit than the trail itself now. At least in a vehicle that is. I know you can hike up to the peak, but nothing else.

Mt. Antero is a trail Larry and I did 13 years ago. Summit is at 13k and most of the trail is exposed shelf switchbacks well above timberline. Oh and its two way since the trail is a up and back type.
https://live.staticflickr.com/1097/1...599ce70b_c.jpg

That's my old K5 near the top crossing the scree field.
https://live.staticflickr.com/1295/1...e89baf1b_c.jpg

Here's an idea of the tightness of the trail itself and the elevation gain in the switchbacks alone.
https://live.staticflickr.com/1008/1...2dde488a_c.jpg

Red Cone is a little different to climb and come back down. It's different as it does not go up or down via switchbacks. It goes up and over following the spine of the mountain. So the bonus is great drop off views from BOTH sides of the truck. It's ok going up but coming down from the summit is three distinct straight downhill sections that get worse as you go. The last section is the worst as it is like coming down on marbles with a lumpy uneven surface. I had my hands full so I neglected to take shots coming down.
https://live.staticflickr.com/1790/4...9184b105_c.jpg

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Nice! I’ve never done black bear or tin cup but I have done a bunch of the trails around silverton. I need to go check out some of the trails up by telluride next year.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

I was talking about up above the town of Tincup. ;) Tincup Pass used to be real easy, just a rough dirt road, but I guess it has eroded and/or been tore up in the past 30 years. Summer of 1989* I took the wife and kids up there one evening in my 2wd pickup, and we met a young couple in a 69 Impala coming over from the east. That first little stretch down the west side was a bit rough for them.

I never went up Mt. Antero since we spent most of the time on the west side. Living and working up in the mountains you just get busy and don't really get out to play all that much. And I spent so much time being banged around on cats and skidders that 4 wheeling sort of lost its appeal for a long time. I preferred to just go for a hike. After my wife wrecked her Bug, for a while we used it as a dune buggy on jeep trails. It did practically everything but just couldn't climb the steep hills at high altitude. We couldn't get it up Flag Mt so we just drove back down to the saddle and hiked up Italian.


*PS: actually I think it was in 1989 when some kids rolled a jeep off a trail on the south side of Fairview Peak. There were fatalities. I didn't know them but I knew people who knew them.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Ah, the town of Tincup...Duh. Didn't think about the town as we usually drive through on the way to Taylor to hook up with Taylor pass or Reno Creek. Now the trail of Tincup at least to me is still pretty much rough dirt road. There are still some rougher parts, but for the most part a stock 4wd truck could handle it with a few scrapes on the underbelly. It's not for crossovers though. We came across a Mazda a couple of years ago within sight of the summit coming from the west side. We all laughed like hell when we saw it. Beat to hell is the best way to describe it.
https://live.staticflickr.com/851/43...cd328c13_c.jpg

Some guys in a Toyota ran into us at the summit and gave us the scoop. The driver was trying to get to Salida and some local in Taylor said Tincup pass was the most direct route (Cottonwood pass was closed then as they were paving it). He had walked to their campsite on the east side below the summit asking for help to get a call out to get a tow truck up there. I'm pretty sure he was going to be in for a very expensive tow out of there.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Hah! A little far to go for Matt's Off Road Recovery :lol:

I can't figure why they would keep going ???? Coming up the west side it gets worse and worse and they could turn around anytime they want. Those poor "kids" in the 69 Impala really did get a shock. They drove up the east side no problem at all and by the time they started down the west side they couldn't get back up again and just had to keep going. We met them somewhere above the switchback. Their car was all beat up and she was just about in tears. They were much relieved when I told them they were past the bad part and would be fine the rest of the way down. I think we have a picture somewhere of their car parked down by the store later that evening.

BTW, at that time we actually had a 4wd pickup with a camper but it was parked as part of our summer accommodations (or maybe just storage). So I thought nothing of taking the short stepside C/10 with the family for an evening drive up to the top of Tincup Pass and back.

The ridge between West and Middle Willow Creeks is just a maze of jeep trails, some just a woodsy 2-track and others more "interesting." Now I guess everybody just calls them "ATV trails" :rolleyes:

One time before I went to Alaska, I went out for a drive up there with a couple friends in my K/20 pickup. He was native to the area and used to take me and others all sorts of places in his CJ5. We were up there somewhere and he said that we could take a turn and go down to the creek and back down to the valley. So that was cool since I had never been down that way yet. We get about halfway down and there is this really tight switchback! "Oh, I forgot about this one," he says :lol: It was in the timber and not a long fall down but it was all on an angle, not mostly flat like the turns on Black Bear. Also it was almost dark by then. I backed up five or six times and we made it just fine :)

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Then theres that guy with the gps...
https://durangoherald.com/articles/3...-engineer-pass

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

GPS again - ha ha ha ha ha ha hah!

When I went over Engineer in the 1970s in my 73 K/20, there was a 47-55 2wd Chevy pickup following us and not having any trouble. ;)

So unless it's changed a lot, I would say it's one of the easiest backcountry roads in the area.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

The Mazda was far to beat to continue. All four tires were flat, wheels hammered on the rocks. The rocker panels were beaten to the point they were hitting the doors and making it hard to open. My buddy poked his head underneath and the entire underbelly was tore up, exhaust, fuel tank and engine cradle. It physically was done.

ATV's are the only thing I don't like about the area now. On any summer weekend it's crawling with side by sides and quads. The county made it legal to drive the ATV's on the roads/trails above St. Elmo. So one can park the trailer on the side of the road at St. Elmo and link up Hancock pass, Cumberland pass and Tincup for a complete loop of the area. Plus all the smaller trails outside of Taylor and Tincup. I'd be ok with it if most of them had even the slightest amount of trail etiquette. Sadly most of them don't, they come in from out of state and drive like maniacs because they can carry way more speed and get pissed when a bunch of full size trucks and Jeeps are taking it slow in the rough stuff.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Our friends in Colorado have a nice place just down the road from Tincup. Now it's summer only (mostly) since he retired and they have a more civilized winter place in Steamboat. Anyway he spent practically his whole life in TP and doesn't want to give it up, but he says that in the summer the ATVs and motorcycles scream up and down the valley all day long. :(

I haven't been back up there since we left 20++ years ago, and I don't know if I even want to because I want to remember it the way it was, though I'd like to visit them some summer/fall now that we have our pickup & topper. We did visit once at their place in Steamboat. They came up here once a few years ago and were amazed that we all could walk up the county road a mile and back and not have even a single car pass.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

The atv traffic is pretty ugly up there. Just how it is now. Sharing the trail is the reality.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

I'm glad I got in on the last few years of the good old days. Back then the equivalent of an "ATV" was a flat fender jeep, plus the "newer" Scouts, Broncos, Blazers, Wagoneers, and pickups. One time I went with some friends in their jeep into the basin up on Jenkins Mountain, but that is all locked up in the wilderness now.

I hauled logs over Cottonwood Pass before they rebuilt it. Well, they were working on the east side the last year or two before I quit. Spent a lot of time stopped waiting on construction. And that new paved road around the dam really changed the character of things. I remember when it was one narrow lane with only a few pulloffs. Now I hear it's pavement all the way from Gunnysack to Byooney ;)

We've got to go down to Monte Vista for an "errand" hopefully next year if the world doesn't fall apart. I suppose we will try to do a little visiting and sightseeing along the way. Maybe drive over Cumberland and stop in at our friends' cabin.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

I'm still getting out as long as I can. But we are branching out into other areas to explore so we can see other parts of the state. There's still so much to explore that I or the rest of my group hasn't seen yet.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

My guess she got close to the edge, to much speed, or a combo. I read up on the trail, and it is not for the faint hearted. When I used to bomb dirt roads a lot. I saw quite a few people who didn't know how to drive, and had no intentions of learning. I had taken my 2wd rcsb C10 with a posi, and off road tires high up into the hills. Every once in awhile I would see some idiot get stuck doing something dumb. Like taken a crew cab 4x4 lifted dually up dirt road switchbacks. Or people freeze from fear of heights.

The guy who caught it on the trail cam is lucky he didn't get t-boned there otherwise they may all of died. She was what 50 foot in front of him?

From the pics they appear to have the same vehicle, and judging by hers as it flew by she upgraded it. So she may of been as simple as she was hesitant to roll her tires against the mountain side.

Hopefully she is alright.

I change my opinion after reading further. Her dumb ass boynfriend needs to learn to drive, and get over scratching up his jeep.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Not sure what you're talking about ????

The jeep started rolling and went over the edge after the driver got out. Failure of parking brake and/or driver to properly secure vehicle before exiting the vehicle.

It could have happened almost anywhere but in this case the surroundings and thus the results were spectacular. A half mile down the road from us a lady parked and got out and the car started rolling and she tried to catch it and it ran over her with fatal results.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Also, there was a fatal plane crash in Ingram Basin a couple weeks before this jeep accident. They took off from Telluride Airport in a non-turbo Bonanza and tried to fly straight up over the pass without circling to gain altitude. Sad :(


Edit: actually, the plane crash was only five days before the red jeep accident. Time is all warped out of shape in 2020.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Really thought it was going to be the Jeep taking the video that was going over the edge. The red one caught me off guard!

That video was giving me the willies when things were going right! The conversation after between the driver and his GF was probably not all that great either.

Zoomad - "It's ok going up but coming down from the summit is three distinct straight downhill sections that get worse as you go. The last section is the worst as it is like coming down on marbles with a lumpy uneven surface. I had my hands full so I neglected to take shots coming down."

There isn't a bucket big enough to hold all of the "nopes" that I'd have for that! :lol: Just the thought of that downhill.... yeah, no way.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Old school tune about this trail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzWyZ-jM9Is

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Wow...I never heard that one zepp...!

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

You've been missing out!

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So I watched some YT videos and it looks like Webster Pass itself is pretty easy - mostly just a dirt road that a 2wd pickup could handle?

We've got a 2016 K2500Hd rclb with a Leer high roof topper set up for camping/sleeping. Based on previous experience, I think I could take it most places without much problem, but I don't want to beat it up too much nor scare my wife (even though we did lots of jeep trails long ago).

Since she still has family in C.S. I guess we will be wandering down there once a year or so (I'd rather just explore MT). So just cataloging some interesting excursions coming and going.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

I went into that one somewhat blind. I knew it was a steep climb and decent, but it was a little more than I expected. But here's a good video taken from my mirror mount. Still does not translate how steep the last section was. I was on the brake pedal with both feet, legs fully extended, sliding under my seat belt as I was a little shy of being vertical as the truck was going down. Even with both feet clamping down on the brake pedal the tires were still sliding on the loose dirt. I knew Hydroboost needed to be in my future from that point.
https://youtu.be/dEAWtOgqQ4A

Webster isn't bad, but it's not always open. You can see the junction with Webster in my video above near the end. There's always a snow bank right at the summit of Webster. Depending on the previous winter's snowfall and how the summer temps have been the snow may still be there until August. That video was taken in July. No chance we could have got through it as it was over 8 ft deep on the trail side down from the summit. It forced us to go all the way down to Breckenridge come back through Fairplay.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

That's why I hate automatics in 4wd. I figured that out about two weeks after I bought my brand new 1973 K20 with TH350. It's all okay until the wheels start locking up.

So now I have yet another one :rolleyes: but it had to be so my wife could also drive it. This 6 speed is different, though. I haven't had it off road, but just going down my driveway you can leave it in Drive and keep your foot off the gas and it will just idle down real slow, instead of running away like every other automatic we have or had. Same out on the road, take your foot off the gas going down most hills and it will slow right down almost like a manual. I'm almost liking it :)

Obviously many of those roads aren't open until July/August. First time I tried to go over Tincup Pass there was a drift like that right below the top so I had to drive back down to BV and go over Cottonwood like a sane person :lol:

Not "four wheeling" but the last logging/trucking job I did was up off of Old Cochetopa Pass. There was an insane logging road cut in there by the FS. It wound around nice and easy for miles and then suddenly went up this really steep loose rock hill. I couldn't load my trailer so going up empty was spin/catch spin/catch in 2nd gear all the way. The product was big green poles and coming down loaded in 1st gear I had to stand on the brakes with all my strength just to hold it back and stopping on the grade was out of the question. Just hoped I didn't meet some hunters insisting on uphill right of way! It was a contract job, so much per piece delivered, and the guy who had the timber sale couldn't understand why I didn't load more logs :rolleyes: Yeah, a diesel and a jake brake maybe ...

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Actually we would be more likely to take the "shortcut" over Mosquito Pass. I do NOT want to ever again go over Hoosier and through Breckenridge because of the crazy traffic.

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Actually, Hoosier wasn't bad when we came back off of Webster/Red Cone. It was certainly better than coming back out of Aspen over Independence Pass. I've driven many a pass on dirt that I'd rather go over than hit Indy again. Pretty, but the uppity Aspen people won't give an inch where it gets tight out of town.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

We were going down the 15mph switchbacks on Hoosier following a belly dump jake braking his way down the hill, when some jack-hole in a big SUV gets up right behind us - literally about two feet like he thought he was going to just make us drive right through that semi!

And then the weird zig-zagging through Brokenridge - what's up with that ???

That's another reason I traded off the little car and went back to a full size pickup for a travel outfit: people just try to run over you. Like "hey, you're not using all your lane so I will just use the rest of it!" At least in a pickup you get some respect.


I've never been over Independence and only been to Aspen once. One time a guy that I was working for at the time wanted to take his early 70's K20 over Taylor Pass and a bunch of us rode along. I had my 1980 K10 by then and there was no way I was going to risk tearing it up on those rocks. So we get over and took the ridge road down and by then he needed gas so we drove down into Aspen for fuel. Must have been quite a sight for those movie stars when they saw a bunch of dirty loggers riding in the back of that beat up old blue pickup :lol:

Coming back over to TP he put a big gouge in the side of the bed near the fuel cap.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

Taylor is a fun trail for sure. The snow levels and resulting melt changes that trail every year. I don't think I've seen it the same way any time we've tackled it. The climb out of the creek has been really easy one time and crazy hard the next. Last time we took it I let my then 17-year-old son take the wheel of my old '75 K5 over it. Only stalled it once at the hard spot and by some miracle, the body came out untouched.

We camped on the Aspen side of the pass that night. The next day we were on fumes and really needed some fuel. Only place to fill was right in Aspen. We got lots of nasty looks from the folks at the gas station. Admittedly, the K5 was pretty crusty and not quite up to the supercar levels of vehicle quality Aspen is known for. We boogied right out of there. Taking Indy out of Aspen is the quickest way home for us. We didn't realize that just outside of town the road is narrow enough two cars can barely pass by going in opposite directions. It's paved, but the road is cut out of the side of the mountain and for some reason, they couldn't go much wider. It's well marked to tell you it's narrow, but the upper crust types don't fall under those rules I guess. Our side was on the edge, with a guardrail that I was within inches of touching (the kid was watching for me) and spme lady coming the other way in a Range Rover was driving over the center line and into what little of a lane I had. She had the balls to deliver a crusty look my way like I was the one in the wrong.

Next time I do Taylor I'll go back via Pearl Pass to Crested Butte. At least it won't have any traffic over it.

Re: Jeep rolling off Black Bear Road
 

I guess it started a long time ago. We were coming home from shopping in Gunnison one winter while my wife was (not! :lol:) expecting the twins. Taylor Canyon was pretty clear so our K10 was in 2wd. Somebody coming down in a Wagoneer (the "Range Rover" of those days) with Texas plates came around a corner way over the center line and I had to dodge to avoid a head on collision. I tried to pull back out but without 4wd couldn't get steerage and got sucked in really deep in the ditch. Snow was up to the window on the passenger side. I dug and dug until my shovel handle broke and then some different folks in another Wagoneer came along and took us to their fancy house to warm up. That little rich subdivision (I'm sure you know where I mean ;) ) had a year round caretaker (a local guy) and he came and got us out with a K20 pickup. He had to chain the back of his pickup to a tree across the road and winch us out. It's a wonder some other idiot didn't come along and make a big wreck! All of this must have been before the big snow slide that winter and I wrecked my knee trying to get the tracks back on a dozer.

I tried to go up Taylor Pass in my brand new 1973 K20 early in the summer. The water was really high and I couldn't get traction to drive up the waterfall coming out of the creek crossing. It was impossible to even see the rocks to try to figure out where to steer. For some reason I never got around to trying it again, until fall 1980 when a bunch of us rode up there with Johnny Hale* in his "old" pickup (which maybe 5-7 yrs old at the time already looked like a wreck because he had used it so hard).

* long gone I'm sure so I feel free to post his name but no one here would probably have known of him anyway