Colorado High Altitude Wheeling

[Zoomad75]

All I can say now is that I can breathe again. Last Friday, a group of 5 of us took off into the high country above Salida, CO. It was me, my boy, DirtyLarry, his nieghbor Pete and our co-worker Mark. DirtyLarry had his 78 K10 Locked and loaded with Mark riding shotgun. I had my 75 K5 with Pete and my boy. First trail was Mount Antero, a nice twisty mountain shelf road that tops out above 13,000 ft of altitude. It's got more switchbacks than I could remember with the trail covered in granite chunks. Just wide enough for our portly Chebbies to fit on. We saw an old flatfender Heep coming down and found one of the only wide points to wait to let him and his 14 other heep buddies come down.

Another few switchbacks and we were on top. Quick Photo op and it's downhill to our campsite at Brown's lake. Nestled between Mt. Antero and Mt. White, the lake is very secluded and quiet. No other campers here! We hit the lake and strike out fishing, but it didn't bother us. We got steaks grilling. We feast on meat and potato's and wash it down with some frosted barley pops. With the campfire roaring have a few more. Next morning awake to an a clear warm morning and I start up the griddle on the campstove while Pete and Larry hit the lake. Our fish count came up to two. Pancakes, bacon and eggs is on the menu (minus syrup I forgot). We break camp and head back over and down Mt. Antero.

Continued....

[Zoomad75]

After getting back down, we double back down the canyon to the Mt. Princeton general store for some much needed fuel, beer and syrup. After getting bent over for $3.70 a gallon gas we shoot straigt back up to head up to Hancock lake. The main part of this trail is wide and easy, but did give up some cool mining relics to check out. One side trip was to the beginning of the Grizzly lake trail. Larry's made it up there by himself before so we though to give the main obsticle a try. Since I'm in front I hit it first. Me thinks it got worse since Larry did it. It's got two rock steps to climb as you just cross a creek. I think it looks like a friggen wall, no way. Feeling bold I try it anyway. Frist step is easy. But as my front tires approch the 2nd step my rear tires are hitting the first. My left rear gets swallowed up by a massive hole and the left side frame is sitting on a rock. Houston we have a problem...I'm stuck. Good. Larry breaks out the trusty Hickey Sidwinder winch and with a couple of quick tugs I'm free. Carnage was my t/case cross member getting ripped up. I'm not sure but I think it was the first time the winch was used in a recovery in 20 years or more. Old stuff rocks!


We figure without stacking rocks it's not worth it so we proceed on up to the turn for the lake. Now the trail gets more rocky, but no narrow shelf. It rains a little bit, but we aren't worried. We pull up to the dead end of the trail to find a lone atv and tent at the end. We got a nieghbor this time, but he's a pretty cool guy and very knowledgeable of the area. Mark and I pitch the tent and we split to find more wood to burn while Larry and Pete hit the lake. Now it really starts pouring. We get our wet wood and truck it back to camp. In a moment of dryness we take the tarp from under the tent and jerry-rig it between the two trucks for shelter to stand and cook in. good thing because it started pouring again. We cook in the rain, eat in the trucks. Warm food did take some of the misery out of a wet night outlook. Lucky for us the rain stopped sometime after sundown. Mark (aka the pyro) uses a half a can of lighter fluid to get the fire going. We can finally dry out. Cool thing was listening to the coyote's up the canyon yipping away in the dark. After we went to bed, we hear the coyote's get within 50ft of camp.

More to come....

[Bishops Trucks]

That looks like a lot of fun.

[Zoomad75]

We wake up sunday to clear sky's again. We can see 4 deer up on the side of the mountain grazing. Mark, Larry and Pete go fishing and I fire up the stove again. Another mess of pancakes (with syrup!), eggs and bacon and our bellies are fueled up for the push home.

We got three more Mountain passes to cover to get to Hwy 50. First up is Hancock pass. Steep, rocky, but not too narrow. We even see a VW powered dune buggy going up. We park at the top to a bunch of heeps and the dune buggy. We talk to them and tell them where we plan on going. First off they don't think we can make it down the south side of Hancock due to one seriously tight turn. We plod on anyway. We creep our way down to the nasty turn. Mark spots us both and we pull through with 2pt turns each.

We can now see our next target, Tomichi Pass. 1 mile up over a VERY narrow shelf. We do see a neat mine before we start. It occurs to Mark quickly that he'd be more comfortable outside spotting than looking down the edge of the mountain. This trail would be tight for a Heep, our fat trucks are scratching for traction on off camber side of the trail and a loose edge. Pete's watching rocks fall down as we roll over them. Pucker factor to the 10th power. It's steep enough we can't see over the billboard hoods so it's up to Mark and Pete to spot us up the trail. About halfway the trail widens breifly to come across a peat bog. Lined with railroad ties half of it looks easy. the other half is rutted and sloppy. With our tires aired down we walk right through it. More narrow shelf... Plus we got an audience of more heeps videoing us climbing towords them. Pete and I spy a rotted hulk of a truck that didn't make it at the bottom. Not helpful.

More coming..

[62 short step]

Thats awesome! Nice looking country!

[Zoomad75]

We talked to the heeps at the top and I'm sure they were shocked that we even attempted Tomichi. The book and the heeps tell us than the south side is much easier. Liars! We make it down a ways on a little wider shelf road. Pete and I watch Larry take on a what looks to be a slight washout on the edge of the trail. right at the edge is a nice hole that swallows 35" tires. We watch and wonder why Larry's heading with his right sideright for the hole. Larry's truck pitches horribly to the downhill side as the right rear tire goes into the hole. Mark's out spotting and Larry makes it. Pete, myself and my boy are spooked so bad we couldn't take a picture! Now what? Larry and Mark both spot us through. My k5 lists to the right lifting the left front tire in the air. I'm so puckered I couldn't pass an atom, but we make it. After all the shelf roads we were on, this one washout spooked us the worse of all.

Goodnews, it's a walk in the forest from here. We make our way down and hook up to Old Monarch Pass. This was 9 mile run on wide graded dirt road to 11,375ft. After a short hop down we are on Hwy 50 airing up our tires for the sprint home.

Carnage report:

DirtyLarry: One Window crank handle (I had a spare!) and an inop onboard air compressor.
Rob: Torn t-case x-member, rear axle cover peeled at the bottom and a split front diff breather hose. I lost a fishing pole too.

We drove up and drove back, no trailers. All in all an excellent run!

[Zoomad75]

Heres a few more pics.

[DirtyLarry]

Yeah, it was a fun trip

Here are some of the scenery.

[CrashEd]

Wow that looks like a fun trip. cool!

[jamie72]

looks cool wish we had places like that around here to wheel..

[DirtyLarry]

These trails didn’t have as much technically as we would have liked but the pucker factor was sure there in the elevation, cliffs and ledges department. After a close incident a few years ago on a nearby trail (Grizzly Lake), I am now extremely spooked when scaling these narrow and high ledges. At least these trails were pretty beat down and free of loose large boulders. That little hiatus on Tomichi with the rutted cliff hanger trail scared the hell out of me though when it felt like was going over and straight down. Even Mark the spotter’s eyes got real BIG as he watch me through. Add large loose boulders, steeper grade, narrower trail and a lot of rain to that and you would have Grizzly Lake.

Pictures do not serve justice to how scary these ledges and especially the 2 and 3 point turns on a grade at 12,000 ft + elevation where carbureted engines will not idle and your junk dies every time you step in on the clutch to shift the trans. That is scary, I don't care who you are.

[DirtyLarry]

The first night’s camp at Brown’s Lake was probably one of the best we have ever had. Talk about beautiful, perfect weather, and isolated (I bet the 4 hour trip at 3 MPH in 4 low to this spot helps with the seclusion). Catching a few more fish would have been nice. The weather was so warm we had to lay the steaks under the hood of the truck for a while to thaw out.

We can’t say that for Saturday night at Hancock Lake. You can only describe that as cold and wet = sucktastic. Got ripped off fishing there too. Lost two lures on that damn lake. I still want to know what that red fish that I saw was. It looked almost like a Coy.

[DirtyLarry]

Handcock Lake lodging. Cold and wet.

[jaros44sr]

Thanks for the pics. and description, way cool trip. Hate that narrow feeling, and steep inclines. You made it feel like I was almost there.

How'd you lose a fishing pole? Looks like yous guys had a great trip and thanks again for the report and great pics. J.

BTW that's what wheelin' is about

[Yukon Jack]

What a great way to start my morning, reading about your great adventure. What beautiful country, not sure what more you could ask for.

[Burt4x4]

I am SOOOO jelous!
That looks great!
Who cares about weather the trail was hard or not that is some beautiful country right there
YJ said it! Great way to start the morning!
Thanks
Burt

[Zoomad75]

How did I loose a fishing pole? Well, in the wet brush leading out from the lake. It was just a collapsible pole I stuffed into my pocket. My boy had just relaized what we had been talking about all day about altitude sickness. He was bouncing down the trail to the lake (as he was earlier at 13,000 ft) running like a rabbit. He hadn't drank enough water and pushed too hard. As they say, he could feel the chunks rising...So I get to carry all the fishing gear back up to camp. It was all he could do to walk through brush taller than he was. I didn't realize it was gone until we were out of the brush.

My boy did learn some stuff though. Listen to others when we say drink as much water as possible. He got better after dinner. He also learned when we say don't goof around the fire or you'll get burned. He admitted it was pretty stupid to try and pick up a rock lining the fire ring. Two little blisters on his fingers were a nice reminder of that. To illustrate how wet things were the second night, Robbie was trying to dry out his shoes at our now late night campfire. He proceeded to burn the bottom of his shoe. It made us all laugh pretty good. Then again, Mark darn near did the same thing with his shoes. All in all his goofyness was pretty harmless, but I think he'll listen a little better now!

I'm glad everybody enjoyed our report. It was a blast to drive and take in the scenery and history of the area.

[jaros44sr]

Yeah, kids are cool, but they tend to learn the hard way. It's not like we didn't do it before them I raised four, so I kinda know what your going thru. Nice to see Father Son trips.

I really don't think I would have done some of those trails you descibed, was there a way to turn around? J.

Hope the boys feeling better, barfing and burns, could it get any worse?

[johnnywagon]

Above the tree line!!! Too cool.

[DieselEater]

Wicked Cool trip fella's........

Here in the Sangre's, we only have two public jeep trails that are open for motorized vehicles. They are not technical either, but well worth it for the views. If you guys ever hit Mt. Blanca near Alamosa, give me a heads up. They're supposed to have some wicked stuff over there.

A........

[Zoomad75]

Originally Posted by jaros44sr

Yeah, kids are cool, but they tend to learn the hard way. It's not like we didn't do it before them I raised four, so I kinda know what your going thru. Nice to see Father Son trips.

I really don't think I would have done some of those trails you descibed, was there a way to turn around? J.

Hope the boys feeling better, barfing and burns, could it get any worse?

The boy was fine by Saturday. He must have learned as he was constantly sucking down gatorade the rest of the weekend. He sure has no fear though. He thought it was funny to tell me not to roll it down the mountain a couple of times.

As far as turning around once it got hairy, not a chance. You were committed once you got onto the shelf. You can back your way down, but that's twice as scary. It's not really that hard as long as you pay attention to what's going on. Having granny low 4 speeds helps. Stuff it in granny and let the truck idle along while you concentrate on keeping it on the trail. Having a second set of eyes from the passenger watching the edge is helpful. We also dropped the tire pressure down to around 15 psi to let the tires flex and conform to the surface for better traction. Watching Larry's swampers it looked like the sidewalls wrinkled up like a drag slick. Larry saw the same thing on my dunlops. One heeper on street tires coming up the lower portion of the Antero trail noticed my bulging sidewalls and he said I had a low tire. No kidding, I did it on purpose.

Slow and easy and don't look down.

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by DieselEater

Wicked Cool trip fella's........

Here in the Sangre's, we only have two public jeep trails that are open for motorized vehicles. They are not technical either, but well worth it for the views. If you guys ever hit Mt. Blanca near Alamosa, give me a heads up. They're supposed to have some wicked stuff over there.

A........

When we were actually planning this trip, I looked at headed south to Blanca to fish at Lake Como but a buddy of mine reminded me of a friend of his sister’s that died on the “Jaws 2” obstacle a few years ago. I think he was driving an old box Bronco. My rig was very close to slipping off the Grizzly Lake trail a while back so after looking at the pictures of Blanca….no thank you for now. A few people died in a Suburban on the Grizzly Lake trail in the late 90's as well.

Traildamage.com linky to Blanca… http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=112

[Zoomad75]

Blanca is one of the states toughest if not THE toughest as far as mountain trails go. It's got all the steepness of some of the stuff we were on, but with the added pleasure of some giant slabs of rocks to crawl over. Some of them force the truck to pitch to the downhill side.

Most I've read says to even attempt it means you need lockers on both ends. I'm not so I'm not going anytime soon.

Outside of Grizzly and Iron Chest, we've hit just about all you can up the canyon from Mt. Princeton/St. Elmo. We might have to look further north to Mosquito pass, Holy Cross and other's in the Leadville/Buena Vista area.

[JayG]

An excellent adventure and your writing is very good. Pics are great! Sure makes me want to haula$$ outa this cube at work!