Chris' Solid Axle Summit #8 Trip Report (1 Viewer)

[Hokie LX]

Pasting a bunch of this from my build thread but wanted to share here also in the hopes that it will convince some of our club to join me next time. It's an awesome time!


I just got back Sunday from an amazing trip to Ouray, CO for Solid Axle Summit #8. For those who know me personally, I went out to SAS#5 with my brother a few years ago and that trip prompted me to start searching for a 60 of my own. Wheeling and hanging out all week with a bunch of 60s infected me with a desire to have my own. I ended up buying my truck in November of that year...

The goal all along was to take the truck back to the event that prompted me to buy it in the first place, SAS. After a couple years of life getting in the way, I plugged away at working on the truck to prepare it for its eventual journey to Colorado. This year, it worked out for me to go.

The trip was incredible. 11 days, 4,400+ miles and 4 days of wheeling made up the trip. The journey out was full of excitement and motivation which made the miles go by quickly and I met up with the TX convoy in Amarillo, TX for the remainder of the trip. I'll break the trip into a post per day below.

The arrival into Ouray was a 2 day adventure from TX. Day 1 was driving up into Colorado and camping on the Rio Grande with the crew. Day 2 was heading up Stony Pass and into Silverton where we took the highway back to Ouray to camp.

The night at the Rio Grande was beautiful and the following day was a good easy intro to the wheeling that was going to happen in the coming days.

 

[Hokie LX]

However, the trip across country wasn't without its excitement. As we rolled over Stony Pass and were pulling up to Main St in Silverton, a caliper bolt finished backing out of my passenger front caliper and locked up the rotor under braking. After checking a couple hardware stores with no success and backtracking to try to find the lost bolt, I finally found Animas Towing and Recovery who graciously gave me a new bolt that would work! It may have been since they just wanted me to leave their shop on a late Sunday afternoon but regardless I was very appreciative. Back on the road, we got to Ouray KOA and settled in.

 

[Hokie LX]

Day 1 was Red Mountain 1&2 and coming back down Corkscrew. Good day with a great group and no issues.

 

[Hokie LX]

Day 2 was Imogene. Once again we had a big but good group of trucks. Led by Zach we hit the trail with some side quests along to way to see some beautiful sights. Sandy did great but I could tell the altitude was weighing on her. I had kept my HAC when I did my desmog but opted to bump the timing a hair to help, which it did.

I forgot to bring a ONSC sticker with me to tag the Imogene sign so I had to sacrifice the one on my truck to mark that the east coast cruiser had made it to Colorado.

I also took the time to snap some pics on poser rock, cause obviously I had to.

 

[Hokie LX]

Day 3 was Poughkeepsie Gulch. This was a two man team with a new friend in his 40 custom frame/caged buggy with a 6.2/tons/40s/Aqualu and all the goodies. It was a really nice truck with a ton of time into it and it performed great! It felt like I was back home as I was wheeling with a truck on 40s haha. His buggy is a monster!

We moved quickly until we got hung up behind a group of duck lovers at the wall but we finally got past them and finished the trail with a couple offshoots to explore before heading back to camp. The wall was fun and the pick your own adventure rock garden behind it was even more so.

Excellent day!

 

[Hokie LX]

Day 4 was Black Bear. This was a trail I had ridden on my previous SAS trip but I was excited to drive it. We were a group of 5 trucks and were able to get through the trail fairly quickly. The trail is beautiful and has some pucker moments but overall I really enjoyed it!

 

[Hokie LX]

Ended up leaving a day early since the rest of camp was pretty cleared out. Headed back to Amarillo the first day but not without swinging through SE Colorado and stealing THE Colorado Cruiser (5.3L/H55) for a quick test drive for research purposes... Once the fun was over, I was 30 minutes behind the guy I was convoying with and rushed to catch up before we hit the monsoon looming just north of Amarillo. Ended up being a ~11-12 hour day with the weather and stops. Leaving the next morning was met with more monsoon rain leaving 12" deep massive puddles all over the side roads of Amarillo and 24"+ deep crossings under the highway overpasses which I had to cross 2 of to get out of town. I finally outran the rain by the time I got to OKC.

The rest of the drive back to NC was relatively uneventful. Day 1 was Ouray to Amarillo. Day 2 was by far the longest and logged 1,115 miles from Amarillo to Knoxville. Then day 3 was the home stretch back to Durham.

Overall the truck was great throughout the trip from start to finish. The new seat is extremely comfortable and I had zero issues even on the 16-17 hour driving days. Carnage includes a broken speedo cable I'm guessing, a pretty gnarly sound coming from the rear 3rd right when the driveline loads up or unloads, a blown front door speaker, and I tweaked by back bumper by dropping it on too many rocks. All fixable. No body damage was taken. The speedo cable or something in there broke on Stony Pass so I lived all week without a trip, odo, or speedo. I was a little nervous about taking this truck on a 4,400+ mile trip but I'm really happy I did. The 60 is surprisingly nice to drive long distance.

I hope to get back to SAS in the future but driving the 60 across country definitely won't be an annual event. Maybe in 2026. Until next time, Ouray!

 

[mattressking]

Looks like a good time and not too rainy! Unfortunate I couldn't swing it this year, but next time you drive out I'll have to make a trip down.

 

[roadstr6]

Superb! Bucket list trip for me too. One of these days....

 

[gasman4u]

That trip looks like an awesome time! Great pics and write up!

 

[Hokie LX]

It was super fun. These are some pics from SAS5 in 2021 that inspired me to buy my 60. The group of guys we ended up hanging out with mostly had 60s. Is a beautiful place to wheel. While it isn’t really that difficult, the views and landscape are unmatched.

The blue/gray 62 is my brothers truck that we took on that adventure.

 

[thecapedcapper]

Was following your updates on Instagram, looks like an awesome trip filled with a bit of Type II fun on the way back. You're making me want to go next time!

 

[xychromosome]

Great trip Chris, and awesome pics! I'm hoping to do some of those same trails soon.

 

[onemanarmy]

Great pics!

This event is on my to-do list as well

 

[jimsmith1370]

What a trip! Great pics.

 

[clrussell]

Thank you for sharing! Great pictures!

 

[Comet]

Chris, just wow! I am green with envy. Glad it was relatively uneventful. Definitely a long day back!

 

[lumbee1]

I just found this thread. WOW! What great pictures! I would love to do a trip out west. We planned to go to Vancouver in 2020 but our plans got cancelled. We've been meaning to make another big road trip and Black Bear, Imogene, and Engineer are on my bucket list.

 

[lt1fire]

Holy crap amazing pictures. Still need to go to one of these events.... this and the 100 in the hills were ones I always wanted to go to and never did. I may have my cruiser done by the next event so you never know. Give me a good reason to stop by and bug @shellb

 

[shellb]

Holy crap amazing pictures. Still need to go to one of these events.... this and the 100 in the hills were ones I always wanted to go to and never did. I may have my cruiser done by the next event so you never know. Give me a good reason to stop by and bug @shellb

Or just come out next year and we can roll together in my 80!