South West Colorado...

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Esther

Esther

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
May 31, 2007
Threads
51
Messages
124
Location
Tucson, Arizona
Hi All,
We are planning a trip to SW Colorado and will be traveling on the San Jaun Skyway. I am looking for some nice roads to do some back country camping off of. There is a wilderness area to the east that I'd love to check out but need some kind of starting point. I will not be doing any serious wheeling because my daughter is only 3 mo old. Just looking for that perfect out of the way spot.
Any tips?
John
 
Dominguez Canyon...Wow, beautiful area! I just did a search for pics. Being in the southern part of AZ, any running water is great to see. In one of the descriptions it mentioned that "being a wilderness area, off-road trucks are not allowed". I'll need to find out for sure about this. Thanks for the tip.
John
 
Esther said:
In one of the descriptions it mentioned that "being a wilderness area, off-road trucks are not allowed". I'll need to find out for sure about this. Thanks for the tip.
John
Click to expand...

There are certain hiking and wildlife areas that motorized vehicles are forbidden. There are dedicated 4WD and ATV trails though too. It's a huge area with lots of dirt roads and places to camp. I'll see if I can dig up the camp spot we stayed at. There are sites on both sides of the river (stream?) with pit toilets, picnic tables and grills.
 
We used the Charles Wells book while driving the trails in the Durango/Lake City/Telluride area and found it to be accurate and useful. It's written with the stock Jeep owner in mind; we found the trail ratings to be slightly on the cautious side with regard to a stock Land Cruiser's capabilities. We also had a DeLorme Colorado Atlas and Gazetteer that was helpful in seeing the bigger picture while navigating to, from and along the trails. You may also want to navigate over to the Rising Sun forum and poke around there.
 
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The Alpine Loop would be another easy "off road" trip. Camping can be done most anywhere within the National Forest Boundaries as long as your a certain distance from roads and water sources. Search the NFS website for the exacts. There are also plenty of commercial or NFS developed campgrounds around.

Wilderness areas may only be accessed by foot or horse. No wheeled vehicles allowed motorized or not.
 
ophir pass is good, some camping on the east side near the top. the east side is also the 2WD side, but there is no way anyone is getting up the west side in 2WD, Toyota or not!!!

also, check out stony pass, northeast of Silverton. It is mellow on the way up (just a few suck-it-in narrow spots, not too rocky), and at the top you can camp NEXT to the wilderness area. The east side is quite rough Hence the name), so may be better to descend the way you came up.

plenty of places to do what you are looking for, but many of the passes are rough and full of tourons in rent-a-jheaps.
 
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