Jeep Trip to Colorado

[Downs]

Took my dad and the XJ out to Colorado for almost a week. Ran a bunch of passes, visited a few Basins and camped a lot, all but one day, we rented a room in Ouray for a night to shower and do laundry.

Northern NM near Raton.

Near Cordova pass. A dead end trail at 11,400 feet we found a nice campsite at. We decided to camp lower due to altitude. We had no acclimation at this point and were feeling the effects of altitude here after coming from less than 1000 feet of elevation.

Veteran's Memoria in Fort Garland, Co.

The start of the west side of Hayden's Pass. We were headed east over the mountains via this pass instead of paved roads to link up with a group of guys from the "Jeep Talk Show" somewhere along Medano Pass.

The top of Hayden Pass. THis pass had long steep climbs and decents and lots of loose rock.

The next day we hit up Monarch and Old Monarch Passes and the proceeded to hit lots of pavement to get on a trail that will lead to Stony Pass.

I took this photo off of the road heading towards our second night camp and Stony Pass. Figured this would have made a great advert in the 90s for the TJ.

The next day on Stony Pass

My dad and I on a poser rock on Stony Pass

Headed to Kite Lake. An out and back trail that ends at a very nice alpine lake with some very blue and clear water with a waterfall coming in from the top. The water from this lake was flowing down the trail to Kite Lake, making for a wet climb to the lake.

Kite Lake

Stony Pass summit

During our run on Stony Pass my vacuum booster failed so the next day we made a run to Montrose and replaced it in an Oriley's Parking lot. I picked some random roads going back towards Telluride and wound up on "Last Dollar Road" going to Last Dollar Mountain, where I would end up coming into the south end of Telluride.

Spotted this herd of Elk during a hill climb.

Last Dollar Mountain. We found some nice campsites up here. Was a good spot for lunch, we watched small jets fly in and out of Telluride Regional airport, which would be just to the left of this photo behind that mountain.

We skipped visiting Telluride for this day and went straight to Imogene Pass. During this whole trip you could tell the XJ was gasping for air and way under powered but, it did well and kept eating up the miles and altitude.

At the top of Imogene Pass

People were clogging up the area around the sign so we just pulled down the road a bit and took a long range photo.

After coming off of Imogene we hit the road back into Ouray to meet up with the group, we spent the day split up since I had to deal with the blown Vacuum booster. After perusing the maps a bit I located a spot just north of town that might have a campsite so we went and explored it and found a few spots left at the very end of the trail about 20 mins from the Ouray.

The next day we hit up Black Bear with the group and had lunch in Telluride. I did a little gift shopping for the kids then while the group ran Imogene which we already did we ran Ophir back to the Million Dollar HIghway and met up with the group as they were coming off of Imogene and ran up to Yankee Boy Basin. My dad and I did Silver Basin on the way back.

Headed for Yankee Boy Basin

Yankee Boy Basin itself

Silver Basin.

After saying goodbye to the group in Ouray we went and jumped on the County Road that would link us into Engineer pass. WE found this campsite by chance and a 30 second hike from the campsite would take us on top of a rock that had a view of a water fall and down a valley.

The next morning we woke up for our last little bit of time in Colorado and Ran Engineer Pass.

Odom Point

Capitol City

That's it for the pictures. We rolled the dice and headed for Las Vegas, NM hoping to camp in the Santa Fe but all the National Forests down there are still closed down due to wild fire recovery. We wound up at a KOA for then night which isn't my favorite but we were able to get showers at least.

The next morning we booked it back to Texas.

 

[Jeff S]

Stunning photography. Looks like an amazing trip!

 

[kickstand~prophet]

What he said. There so much beauty to photograph out west. I hope to do a few trails hopefully next year. Next time eat at the True Grit Cafe in Ridgeway. It will go good with the Lewis Ranch. That is a huge tent. What brand is it? When you camped did you cook out?

 

[Downs]

What he said. There so much beauty to photograph out west. I hope to do a few trails hopefully next year. Next time eat at the True Grit Cafe in Ridgeway. It will go good with the Lewis Ranch. That is a huge tent. What brand is it? When you camped did you cook out?

It's a Gazelle T4. Takes about 2 mins to setup and less to take down. IT's a big cube tent similar to a pop-up ice fishing tent. We cooked most times, we ate lunch with the group a few times and did fast food on the way out and back on the highway to save time.

We were moving every day (avg 8-9ish hours a day) and would hit a grocery store daily in the mornings to pickup lunch dinner and breakfast, lunch was typically something like a Wal Mart bakery sandwich, we had a few MREs and canned goods for backup use just incase. Usually we had enough breakfast stuff to last a few days, but would get dinner daily to cook in camp. I ran a smaller 21 quart 12 volt refrigerator for the trip running it off of a lithium-ion battery pack (Jackery 300), during the day the battery would charge off of the Jeep and when we stopped for the day I would unhook it and run it just on the battery.

Cooking was done on a dual burner propane stove with a cast iron griddle on top to even out the heat.

 

[Rydah]

Great write up; thanks for sharing. I've been blessed to have ridden the Ouray region passes in the past, and still consider that area the most beautiful part of the country that I've seen so far. You can litterally just stick a camera out the window, shoot, and come back with a poster worthy picture. Every time I've gone though has been on DS bikes, but will hopefully be up there in my Tacoma maybe next year. My wife and I have been doing some light offroading, and have been perfecting our camping setup for future trips. She's never been up in that area, and I keep telling her that words can't describe it, you just have to see it in person. Overlanding seems to be a great "evolution" from dual sport riding, but the transition will be slow, lol. Welcome back to (what another member here called) the furnace!

 

[gixxerjasen]

Great stuff. Two broken image links that I can see, first one early on starts with an /img so it is just a bunch of text. Second one just seems like the link isn't correct.

That's an awesome tent. I picked one up this past year and we love it. The only downside is the packed size which folks can see because it looks like yours rides on the roof. I just met up with some friends and they brought their small tents and I popped up the Taj Mahal for just me. Hilarious but very nice to have especially if you've got some bad weather to deal with. Nice to sit inside in a chair and read a book listening to the rain outside.

Love all the pics, did you run any particularly difficult roads? Looks pretty smooth in most of the pictures.

 

[Downs]

Great stuff. Two broken image links that I can see, first one early on starts with an /img so it is just a bunch of text. Second one just seems like the link isn't correct.

That's an awesome tent. I picked one up this past year and we love it. The only downside is the packed size which folks can see because it looks like yours rides on the roof. I just met up with some friends and they brought their small tents and I popped up the Taj Mahal for just me. Hilarious but very nice to have especially if you've got some bad weather to deal with. Nice to sit inside in a chair and read a book listening to the rain outside.

Love all the pics, did you run any particularly difficult roads? Looks pretty smooth in most of the pictures.

I think I have them both fixed now.

None of the roads are particularly difficult, but they don't allow much in the way of mistakes, and in some instances mistakes can mean a 1000+ foot tumble off of a shelf road, most are quite steep and if you're afraid of heights can be scary. Black Bear is the stand-out here, it's been in the news quite a bit the past few years for pretty serious accidents from people who got in over their heads and made mistakes. The most technical sections are very steep downhill (I think one of the newer Jeep owners with the off-road data page reported 40+ degrees down on some steps) and in a 4 wheeled vehicle some "steps" and switch backs are off camber and can be puckering if you're not used to being off kilter. As typical pictures and videos of these areas don't do them justice for how steep they feel. There is one switch back that's pretty tight that even 2 door Wranglers have to make at least a 3 point turn on. It requires you to pull up very close to the edge of the road then backup to a rock wall then pull forward again. Longer vehicles have to do that a few times to get around the switchback.

Like this. The camera makes it look pretty level, but you actually feel like you're standing on your firewall coming off of the steps, lol.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1227339474668298

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=390168699914646

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=788527778950081

Yankee boy basin was another stand out. We thought it was going to be a nice easy scenic drive in but turned into a long steep hill climb with a few steps. Again the videos don't do it justice, It's another area once you get in the rough stuff that isn't necessarily difficult but if you mess up can have severe consequences. All I can see without leaning out the driver's window is sky and you feel like you're laying back in your seat as you climb the step here. Having the sway bar disconnected is a great help on a lot of these obstacles. The front locker doens't hurt either and makes many spots easy.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=788527778950081

 

[gixxerjasen]

Yep, familiar with Black Bear Pass, watched many videos on it, and I'm pretty comfortable saying that I'll probably not have a vehicle capable of that road that has more than two wheels. And as I understand, BBP is butt clenching on two wheels thanks to loose steep surfaces.

"nice easy scenic" sounds nice without too many bad surprises.

Images look good now btw.

 

[kickstand~prophet]

It's a Gazelle T4. Takes about 2 mins to setup and less to take down. IT's a big cube tent similar to a pop-up ice fishing tent. We cooked most times, we ate lunch with the group a few times and did fast food on the way out and back on the highway to save time.

We were moving every day (avg 8-9ish hours a day) and would hit a grocery store daily in the mornings to pickup lunch dinner and breakfast, lunch was typically something like a Wal Mart bakery sandwich, we had a few MREs and canned goods for backup use just incase. Usually we had enough breakfast stuff to last a few days, but would get dinner daily to cook in camp. I ran a smaller 21 quart 12 volt refrigerator for the trip running it off of a lithium-ion battery pack (Jackery 300), during the day the battery would charge off of the Jeep and when we stopped for the day I would unhook it and run it just on the battery.

Cooking was done on a dual burner propane stove with a cast iron griddle on top to even out the heat.

It is a neat looking tent. Last time we were out that way we stopped in Ridgeway to buy a few things to cook. Prices were crazy high. I heard the Jackery is excellent. Really enjoyed the scenic pics. Thank you for taking the time to take them.

 

[Downs]

It is a neat looking tent. Last time we were out that way we stopped in Ridgeway to buy a few things to cook. Prices were crazy high. I heard the Jackery is excellent. Really enjoyed the scenic pics. Thank you for ta

king the time to take them.

Grocery prices werent too bad but we did restock fairly well in Montrose at Wal Mart when we did the brake booster. Gas was killer probably spent close to 800 dollars there.

 

[LicketySplit]

I love the San Juans. The colors one sees up there are really amazing. Thanks for sharing your story and photos.

 

[Downs]

I heard the Jackery is excellent.

I love it. It's quite useful and great to have around the house to run small things during a power outage that I don't need the overkill of the generator for. I will so if I had to do it over again I would probably go with something like the Bluetti EB3A, it's battery chemistry is better (LiFePo vs Li-Ion) and takes more charge cycles and the form factor is better, the Bluetti is shaped like a cube where the Jackery with that handle on top isn't as "packable". I've never been left short on power with this unit, so the 300ish watt units are probably fine for my uses, even running my 12v fridge. Though I may have stepped up to the 500 watt units just for a little extra wiggle room.

 

[kickstand~prophet]

Grocery prices werent too bad but we did restock fairly well in Montrose at Wal Mart when we did the brake booster. Gas was killer probably spent close to 800 dollars there.

Hope the booster wasnt to big of a pain. I remember doing one on my Mustang a long time ago. Lying on the floor board was fun.

 

[Downs]

Hope the booster wasnt to big of a pain. I remember doing one on my Mustang a long time ago. Lying on the floor board was fun.

It was about 45 mins of work. Didn't even have to open up the master cylinder lines.

 

[kickstand~prophet]

It was about 45 mins of work. Didn't even have to open up the master cylinder lines.

I can only imagine how hard the newer vehicles would be with all the electronics to change one out.

 

[Tracker]

amazing images, great report. Thanks for taking the time to share and write-up. Miss me some San Juans and the Lake City area.

 

[Gravel Guy]

Fantastic share, Josh.

 

[TxTiger]

What a great trip and to have shared it with your dad, super special. Are there easier jeep roads there? Might want to a few when I get the CJ finished. Thanks so much for sharing