Need me some Elevation ... (1 Viewer)

[KOWBOY]

Day 4:

Here's a nice shot in the mornin' of the sun comin' up on the valley wall behind our camp.

My lil' backpackin' tent that Josh slept in is out of the picture to the right.

 

[KOWBOY]

One of the cool thangs 'bout the designated campsites in the National Preserve area is that each site had a bearbox to put all your food and smelly stuff in.

Josh got a good closeup shot of the explanation sticker ...

I just found the thang handy for cookin' breakfast.

Didn't take long for us to get in a good rhythm of sharin' camp chores. Josh made a DAMN-fine campmate.

 

[KOWBOY]

Coupla shots makin' our way up the Pass ... easy goin' ... but awf'ly purdy.

 

[KOWBOY]

Josh showin' off his talent with his bad-ass camera on some local flora.

 

[KOWBOY]

Good shot lookin' back at a sign towards the top for the Folks headin' down the Pass. We never heard, seen, smelled, or sensed a bear the entire trip.

Poser shot of Josh and then Rubi and her Kamper at the top of Medano Pass at 9982'.

Another great moment of the trip was on our way down the backside of the Pass. Oncomin' traffic on the the single-wide roads in Colorado is somethin' you deal with on a reg'lar basis. Technic'ly speakin', uphill traffic has the right-of-way but circumstances can vary dependin' on the situation ... such as towin' a trailer or who's closest to a wide spot appropriate for passin'.

Anyhow ... we come upon this jeeper with a chick drivin' up the pass. We had seen this particular jeeper a coupla times already and commented on it's cheesy accesories. Where we met on the trail was very easy for her to move aside and we waited for her to do so. She obviously had very lil' experience with a clutch and VERY violently managed to pull aside. We cautiously passed her and continued slowly on our way down. Just a bit later, a second jeeper with the boyfriend of the chick caught up to us and asked us if'n we had tools/spares for the broken axle his girlfriend suffered gettin' outta our way. :whoops:

We politely told 'em we didn't have no jeeper tools/spares and continued to ease on down the road.

 

[KOWBOY]

When we hit pavement at highway 69, we figured out that if'n we jack-knived the trailer in both directions ... the air hose off the Warn Powerplant would reach the Kamper tires.

 

[KOWBOY]

Aired back up to 20 lbs., we headed North up highway 69. This was an absolutely beautiful valley with some summer homes to die for. A short distance brought us into the rustic lil' town of Westcliffe ... where, of course, we needed to buy more beer.

Back on the dirt outta town up towards Hermit Pass ... a dead-end road established for a Uranium mine back in the day. Since we knew it was a dead-end, we looked for a campsite to drop off the Kamper. This was one of the two times durin' the whole trip we were seperated from our caboose. Proved to be a damn-good thang too.

It wasn't really four-wheelin' but it was bouncy as hell. Imagine a road jammed-slap-full of bowlin' ball size rocks.

The first pic is of a nice waterfall on the way up.

The second pic is way up towards the top and lookin' over the North side into an adjacent valley with a lake down below.

The third pic shows the road we took up to the top and lookin' down at Horseshoe Lake ... not for the faint of heart.

The road was actually blocked 'bout a hun'erd yards from the top 'cause of a snowdrift on the last switchback.

We got up to 13000' though.

Then it started to sleet.

I mean hard!

Josh did a great job drivin' back down that Bitch in the weather. Rubi's hood was white with sleet, slick rocks, rocks rollin' down the mountain and across the trail in front of us, lightnin' and huge thunder ...

 

[KOWBOY]

Back down the pass at the Kamper ... this was proba'ly the lowest point in the trip emotion'ly. Sleet turned to rain.

Cold.

We donned the raingear and set up the canopy over the Kamper and made cold sandwiches to eat. To wet for a fire. Did let up long enuff to slap the tents up ... and ... By Gawd ... we crawled in 'em.

END OF DAY 4.

 

[Fireman]

Looks like ya'll had a blast. That country is cool looking.

 

[Bomar]

Sounds like an awesome time.

 

[KOWBOY]

Day 5:

Mornin' brought clear skies and sunshine! After a lumberjack-size pile of pancakes we packed all our wet s*** away and backtracked down to Westcliffe.

North on 69 until we cut across a lil' scenic shortcut on 1A over to Highway 50 on the Arkansas River. A few short miles brought us to the Hayden Pass 4wd drive road where we hung a left. The actual 4wd part starts at Hayden campground where we aired down the 6 tires.

Here's a shot of the trailhead sign and one lookin' down into the valley as the switchbacks quickly got us up to elevation.

 

[KOWBOY]

The appeal of this trail as quoted from our "Guide to Colorado Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails" 2nd edition by Charles A. Wells was:

"... the road becomes a narrow ledge ... (Note: In late November of 1995, a Jeep slid off this portion of the trail and the driver was killed.)"

I snapped a few pics as Josh hugged the wall.

The pics really don't do this one justice ... it was a LONG fawkin' way down on the passenger side.

 

[KOWBOY]

Once off the ledge and comfortably back in the woods, we came across this fallen Pine that barely cleared Rubi's vulnerable soft top.

A short distance later we arrived at the Summit.

 

[KOWBOY]

The descent down the Western side back down into the San Luis Valley proved to be the steepest one of the trip with loose rocks and small ledges along the way.

Josh geared Rubi down into 4wd low and first gear to keep the Kamper under control and the bouncin' down to a comfortable level as we eased our way down.

The second pic is off one of the switchbacks lookin' across the valley. The San Luis Valley is not very pretty and we knew we needed to cross it and get back into the mountains in order to camp.

 

[KOWBOY]

Although our guidebook said full services were available in the small town of Villa Grove where we met highway 285, the gas station was out of bid'ness. So we aired up our own tires in the empty parking lot of a cafe ... that was also out of bid'ness ... and headed North on 285.

We chugged our way up and over Poncha Pass at 9010' ... actu'ly gettin' passed by an FJ-62 ... how friggin' embarrasin' is that?

We hung a left on a dirt road 200 to work our way up to O'Haver Lake to try our luck at some fishin'.

At the turn-off for the lake we found a really cool sign describin' "A Town Called Shirley." We looked all over but couldn't find no sign for "A Town Called Shirley-Not."

 

[KOWBOY]

Unfortunately, the road to the lake was well maintained and led to a very crowded campground packed out with RV's.

To hell with that ... so we headed up Poncha Creek on a nice lil' road and found a sweet spot to camp next to the perverbial "babblin' brook".

I made quick work of the firewood duties while Josh fixed up yet another supper fit for a King ... or at least a President and Vice-President (of The White Trash that is).

 

[KOWBOY]

Once we done et ... we did our nightly ritual of lookin' at the map books to see where we was headin' the next day.

Our "Colorado Road & Recreation Atlas" by Benchmark Maps plainly showed the Poncha Creek road we was on was a dead end. However when we cross-referenced with our 4wd guidebook mentioned earlier, the road was indicated as a 4wd road that went up and over Marshall Pass!

Better lucky than good.

END OF DAY 5.

 

[KOWBOY]

Day 6:

Since we knew where we were ... we drove right up to the summit of Marshall Pass. An easy trail with alot of scenery.

Gotta really watch out for the lil' 4-wheeler ATV's on all the trails. They're thick as ticks on a hound and can move alot faster than Rubi and 'er Kamper!

I was surprised not to see more of the side-by-side deals like me and Josh got but they really didn't seem too pop'lar. Of the ones we saw, the Razor was the most abundant.

 

[KOWBOY]

The Marshall Pass 4wd road put us out back on Highway 50 at the small town of Sargents where we filled up the empty fuel tank. Burn alot of gas pullin' a trailer over 4wd roads at high elevation. My advice is to fuel ev'ry chance ya get.

We wanted a break from the poundin' of the 4wd roads so we decided to ride some Forest Service roads to see the country without the friggin' bouncin'.

So we very briefly headed east on highway 50 to get to 888 to get to 887. This took us over Black Sage Pass at 9735' and on over to 763. This one took us over Waunita Pass at 10303' and into the really cool town of Pitkin.

When I win the lottery I'm gonna move to Pitkin.

They had a general store that had wifi so we had to stop for a few minutes for Josh to get online and apply for his next unemployment check.

Then it was off on 765 to go up the famed Cumberland Pass.

A nice road that gets ya REALLY high. Here's a coupla shots on the way up.

 

[KOWBOY]

The summit at 12015' was cold and our daily rainstorms were on the way.