blanca peak (1 Viewer)

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2

2manycruisers

Joined
Sep 28, 2004
Threads
164
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Location
back in the land of enchantment
two opportunities to go in Sep:
First is Sandia Jeep Club:
Dues are Due!!! Dues are Due! Remember that club dues also go for
membership in Southwest Four Wheel Drive Association and United Four Wheel
Drive Association.

The next meeting is back on the second Monday of the month, September 10th
@ 7pm at Sierra West Sales/Sierra Designs , 856 St. Michaels , Santa Fe, NM

Dues are Due!!! Dues are Due!

Elections are also at the September meeting.

Dues are Due!!! Dues are Due!

Since we haven't been to Glorieta Mesa this year, we were trying to see who
had a free weekend in Sept / Oct to go. Michelle said she would contact a
few people ( Zak and such) to see if they were up for it also. So yell when
is a good weekend and more info to follow.

Dues are Due!!! Dues are Due!

Saturday September 15th, Dean Doty and Steve Bunch want to do Blanca Peak
in Colorado. I know they want to get an early start in the morning, so they
will be spending at least one night there. Depending on input, they might
delay it to Sunday. Contact me, and maybe by then, we will see if the plans
for the weekend have solidified a little more. This ride is after the next
meeting, so it might be then. If you are unfamiliar with Blanca, the NM4W
are going the weekend before us ( which is the SF festival weekend ) and
they have a nice summary at the bottom of their events web page.
http://www.nm4w.org/schedule.htm

Dues are Due!!! Dues are Due!

National Public Lands Day is Saturday September 29th. Michelle wants to do
something up at Abiquiu again. More info to follow.

Dues are Due!!! Dues are Due!

The Adopt-A-Highway Cleanup is tentatively scheduled for Sunday October
21st.

Dues are Due!!! Dues are Due!

Since we have an Adopt-A-Highway mile, we were automatically entered into
the Keep NM Beautiful, Governor's Challenge, Cleanup Olympics.
http://www.nmcleanandbeautiful.org/programs/gov-challange.php We are
currently gathering info to see if we want to enter this or not.

Oh yeah, Dues are Due!!! Dues are Due!
 
2manycruisers said:
There is another group going up and back on Saturday 9/15, I may go with them. Includes Mark Hoverson (pretty red fiberglas 40) and George Morgan.
Click to expand...

More info or links?

Thanks.
 
I'm thinking hard about this one. It's a "day trip" for those up north, but ~ 230 miles from ABQ to the trailhead - which means a 500 mile day...
 
Its a pretty cool drive. You go up around 5000 verticle feet in 7 miles.

Jaws one is the first obstacle, its a really large rock that you have to go over or around. Short wheel base vehicles can usually go over it. How much lift you have will determine how much you scrape your skid plate. You can drive around it but you have to be confident of how much your rig will tilt before it rolls over. The right side of the vehicle will be up on the rock. I've driven around it with my 40 and it made it okay.
I've only seen the vehicles in the groups I've gone with go over this, but I've also seen vehicles I didn't think could make it, up at lake Como.

Jaws two is the interesting obstacle. The local 4wd club has made improvements to it so it isn't quite as spooky as it was (its still plenty scary though). It still commands all of your attention to go up and down.

Jaws 2 1/2 isn't too bad, its short but technical, a good spotter makes it easy.

Jaws 3 is fun if you have lockers. This is the only one with a bypass.

Jaws 4 is past lake Como on the way to blue lake. Its a steep climb up a large rock. It wouldn't to bad if it wasn't for the stream you have to drive through just before you get to it. You pick up mud, leaves, twigs and all sorts of other crap just before you have to climb this rock.

There are a couple sites that call this the hardest trail in Colorado. I have no idea if it is or isn't but it is hard. The views are worth it though. If you get to blue lake there is a hiking trail up to Blanca peak. I've never done it but the lake is only ~1300 feet below the peak.

More info
http://www.mhjcontherocks.com/Community/Trips/1186.aspx
http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.asp?trailid=HGR220-065
http://www.4x4now.com/cobp.htm

Excellent video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnKRS9N80bw


Mark Hoverson
 
Great links. I'm not sure if this is an 80 friendly trail or not. Jaws 1 looks to be a driveshaft killer. Most of the obstacles looked to be good short wheelbase obstacles or a lot of lift. I think I'd be worried if I showed up and all the other guys had no doors and full exo-cages.

Cool trail. Let me know if anyone with an 80 (or the like) attends. The lake and fishing at the top look wonderful.

Graham
 
TroutRunner said:
Great links. I'm not sure if this is an 80 friendly trail or not. Jaws 1 looks to be a driveshaft killer. Most of the obstacles looked to be good short wheelbase obstacles or a lot of lift. I think I'd be worried if I showed up and all the other guys had no doors and full exo-cages.

Cool trail. Let me know if anyone with an 80 (or the like) attends. The lake and fishing at the top look wonderful.

Graham
Click to expand...

This is all I could find:
http://www.sleeoffroad.com/pictures/reader_david.htm
 
It looks like about 95% I'm going - This is one of those all time classic trails...
 
If anyone wants to go, we can meet at San Felipe Casino at 5:15 in the morning, or at the NE corner of Fairview and US 285 in Espanola at 6:45, or at the trailhead which is three miles north of the intersection of SR 150 and US 180 at 9:00 in the morning. That intersection is about 15 miles east of Alamose. Give me a call if you want to meet at San Felipe or in Espanola - 980-0303
 
Steve and David,

Give us the trip report. I can't wait to hear about it.

Graham
 
Well, I met up with Mark Hoverson and Dean, the trip leader (sorry, no last names on the other guys...), in Espanola at a quarter to seven. Dean has a Jeep built on the order of Shawn's 40. We got up to the trailhead at 9:00, and the others were waiting to go. David Lawrence, George Morgan and his brother Bob, another Steve, another Dave, and another Mark.

We commenced up the mountain to Jaws 1, where our 40 decided to quit - no fuel, although I had just topped off in Alamosa. After checking the fuel filter (fine) and determining there was no suction there, we primed the carb, and it ran fine the rest of the day. When I got on top of Jaws 1 there is a pivot on the frame you have to do - a CCW pivot, which ended up being on my xfer case. Basically what this did was to hold the drain plug steady and rotate the vehicle around it. (yes, a skid plate is in our near future..) Fortunately David L noticed it was loose, and really fortunately Dean had a quart.

When we got to Jaws 2. David L went over the top, dragging his skid plate, so I, not having one, went around. At some point in my gingerly working my way around the low side of the obstacle, something slipped and my right front started going up. George jumped and grabbed my bumper to hold it down, and everybody else breathed a collective sigh of relief as my right front tire came back down.

Dean, George, and Dave went up Jaws 3 while the rest of us went around.

Further up, as we were approaching Como lake, we heard over the CB "we have a rollover." On a section where I had momentarily slid crosswise just before, Dave (the other Dave, CJ5 with 35's and two lockers) had walked up a rock with his right front, exactly where I had missed doing that but had slipped crosswise nonetheless. Not having a winch I moved up and out of the way, so the other Steve (Samurai) and Dean went back to roll him back over. I don't know if it was there or where, but Dave broke a leaf in his right front and limped the rest of the way up and back. At Como Lake, George broke a link on the rear of his 40. Fortunately, Dave had a 7.2 V Makita drill that he had rigged up to run off a cigarette lighter - good trick there... David L went up the hill and we strapped to George's frame to hold it in place, and they drilled some holes and bolted it back in. That held, but someone noticed a couple of bolts broken on George's left trunnion bearing. That came back to haunt us later. As some of us hung around to see if we could help fix George's link, Dean, Mark H, and Steve (Samurai) went on up past Jaws 4 to Blue Lake.

We made it pretty much uneventfully back to Jaws one, when Mark (the other Mark, with a CJ7, got jammed up coming over the top and ran his fan into his radiator. He killed the engine and with Dave strapping and the rest of us pushing, got him over the obstacle okay. (There were a few drips of antifreeze under the radiator, but when we got back to Alamosa it was holding pressure.)

A few feet after Jaws 1, George's other two upper bolts holding his trunnion bearing broke. Dave's drill came in handy again getting the remnants of a couple of studs out, and after a couple of hours George, David L, and Dave got it back together again. We were moving again about 7:00. We made it down uneventfully from there, and to Alamosa where we stopped at Arby's and then headed south. I got back to Rio Rancho shortly after midnight. An excellent but long day, and I can now say I've been up the Blanca peak trail (even if I did take some bypasses).

I'm ready to do it again (as soon as I get 35's and a front locker). I don't know how a wagon would do on it, there are a lot of areas where a short wheelbase is really helpful. As I recall, there were bypasses around most of those. There were some Scramblers coming up after us too, and they're kind of long (?). They were the only other 4x4's we saw, other than a couple of ATV's.
 
Lake Como

Coming back down

Dave taking the side route over Jaws 2
117_1778a.jpg
117_1784a.jpg
117_1789a.jpg
 
Here's the trail:
Blanca.jpg
 
Sounds like a fun trip Steve, thanks for the trip report and the pics from MarkH.

SteveLCetc said:
Fortunately, Dave had a 7.2 V Makita drill that he had rigged up to run off a cigarette lighter - good trick there...
Click to expand...

I picked up a 14.4v drill and did the same thing. It was a display model at Lowes with no battery. They had it marked for $7 so I snatched it up and wired it for 12v use. Works great if you remember to bring your tools. :D

-Mike-
Drill-1.jpg
 
Well, I was hoping to hear that it was a challenging but enjoyable and fun trip. But....I think I'll stay off this one for a little while longer.

Great trip report. Would love to see more pictures.

Graham
 
We had some challenges, and it was definitely an enjoyable and fun trip. Took us a little longer than we expected though...
 
well, i'm in! sounds like it is a lot closer than i thought. we should do this as a club (for the modified rigs maybe).:cool:
 
Just trying to wrap my mind around this trail....for us wagons, is it the width that's the issue or the longer wheelbase?

Nice job on the trail report, wish my memory was this good......
 
Beowulf said:
Sounds like a fun trip Steve, thanks for the trip report and the pics from MarkH.



I picked up a 14.4v drill and did the same thing. It was a display model at Lowes with no battery. They had it marked for $7 so I snatched it up and wired it for 12v use. Works great if you remember to bring your tools. :D

-Mike-
Click to expand...

I had never thought of this.. great idea. I think i am going to have to start searching for one to mod.
 
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