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Well, just completed my major off-roading trip for 2020, out to Colorado and Utah with a return trip through Arizona and New Mexico. Pretty eventful, and I managed to complete some bucket list trails along the way, including Black Bear Pass near Telluride, CO. But to begin with, I spent a few months preparing the Wagon for the trip by purchasing a FrontRunner roof rack, roof top tent, and other 'good to have' items. I had to get creative with loading up the tent, since it weighs 130lbs and it's a long way up to the roof of the G:
Next, we headed out to southern Colorado and camped in the mountains at Cordova Pass Campground. It was chilly that night, around 45 degrees, but manageable. The next day was a drive to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Since it was a crazy $25 to get in, we just looked at it from a distance. OK, I'm a cheapskate.
Then came the fun stuff.... my buddy and I (he has a Jeep Rubicon) drove up to the Rio Grande National Forest and near Creede took Forest Road 520 out west and headed to Stony Pass. This road would take us to Silverton the 'back way', and boy did it turn out to be a doozy.
Once we passed the Rio Grande Reservoir and kept heading west, the road 'ran out'. You can't map that route on a GPS, since most GPS devices don't seem to think a road exists there. It does, but it's very rocky and not really meant for regular traffic. The vast majority of traffic (all headed the other way from us) were ATVs, and chatting to the drivers as we passed they either thought we were very brave, or very crazy.
Actually, we did see 2 other vehicles: an SUV that one ATV driver warned us was way out of his league, and a pickup truck. The pickup truck (1500, I think) was broken down and abandoned on a particularly rocky section of the trail, since he had blown his transmission. On this trail, we did have to stop a few times to scout out the terrain, and it was ROCKY. Here's some of the terrain we were dealing with, my buddy in the Jeep has just stopped since he's at an acute angle and wanted to make sure he didn't tip over:
Last edited by Limey Hooligan; 09-12-2020 at 07:07 PM.
Once we made it to Stony Pass, it was downhill from there (although many more rocks) to Silverton. The next day, we made our way up to Engineer Pass. It had just rained/snowed the previous night, so the going up was wet and slippery. However, we made it up, and my picture for that is in the "Post a Picture of Your G" thread.
The next day was the big one - we decided to do both Black Bear Pass and Imogene Pass. The weather was perfect, so off we went.
For those unfamiliar, Black Bear is a somewhat technical but sphincter-clenching pass that takes you from the Million Dollar Highway over to Telluride. There have been a few accidents on it lately and some discussion on closing it to the public. One major mistake, and it will cost you your vehicle and maybe your life....
Many vehicles have traversed Black Bear, including Jeeps, pickups and even a few Hummers. So, it's not super impossible but it's just the high risk involved if you don't calculate things correctly. The climb to the summit is two-way traffic, and not super hard.
On the trail descending into Telluride are the famous "stairs" next to the waterfall. Very rocky, very steep, and somewhat narrow. However, even before you get to the steps are a few challenges, with some off-camber rock descents and tricky switchbacks. Not having the wheel articulation of my fellow traveller, I had to be particularly choosy and careful on where I would put my wheels. I had one moment of skidding sideways towards the waterfall, but managed to keep control and the G on the trail.
Last edited by Limey Hooligan; 09-12-2020 at 08:52 PM.
And that was Black Bear.
We continued on to the Imogene Pass trail, which seemed like a wide freeway after this experience. Although, it was still narrow and I had an incident with my roof rack contacting another vehicle (I was leaned over at the time) but luckily there was very minor damage. I'll post up some more pics when I have some time.
We arrived in Ouray in the early evening, and headed out for Utah the next day. Making it to Halls Crossing, we took the Lake Powell ferry over to Bullfrog.
Last edited by Limey Hooligan; 09-13-2020 at 11:02 AM.
From Bullfrog, we took the Burr Trail over to Escalante. Although mostly paved, there were some interesting dirt road canyons and side roads that proved a little challenging before we arrived in Escalante.
Escalante was amazing, after a day we headed back offroad to the west side of Lake Powell to camp. Going down a little-used road that twisted through a river bed, it was amazing scenery along the way.
Descending from the mountains to the west of Lake Powell, we found just an excellent campsite. You needed a high-clearance vehicle and 4WD to get to this particular site, and there was only one other person camping within about 2 miles of our location.
Last edited by Limey Hooligan; 09-15-2020 at 08:15 PM.
The rest of the trip was a visit to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and a jaunt through Arizona to New Mexico. Once there, we had quite an adventure in the Gila National Forest, when I decided to take an un-used dirt road around the Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery. That road was some of the toughest off-roading I've done, and caused issues with my transfer case where I couldn't change from low to high without stopping and turning off the engine completely. Guess I should have heeded the sign....
Got a few scratches on the paint work, along with branches jammed in the roof rack... the price of adventure!
To add to the adventure, a strong thunderstorm came through during the night while camping, with heavy rain and high winds. It caused some flooding and several rock slides, one of which had us trapped in the Forest for a while until we went the long way out. I took a long, hard look, but even the G wouldn't make this one.
After all that, some minor flooding on the way home was a piece of cake.
That was my main offroad trip this year, fun, great views, hairy moments, and good memories. Hope you enjoy the pics.
Cheers!
Last edited by Limey Hooligan; 09-12-2020 at 09:58 PM.
09-12-2020, 06:14 PM
