Colorado Trip Reports

I just posted a bunch to the Colorado BS thread along with a video and I'll post some pics here too but I want to crop them first. Here's the video to tide you over for now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxIEpYn9eOc

 

dont crop the images through the window with the built in HTC EVO gradated blue filter!!!!!

 

That's custom sucka!

 

Had an exciting couple of days out in Chaffee county this weekend. I had several guys that work for my company in our office in Knoxville drive out here with a bunch of their wheeling buddies for a week long camping and wheeling adventure, and I joined them for the weekend. The plan was to run Chinaman's Gulch, then head up Grizzly lake to camp, and then explore the Hancock/St. Elmo/Tincup area on Sunday. We started out with one of the jeeps having engine issues Saturday morning, causing a couple hour delay in getting to Chinaman's, but got to the trailhead and airing down by 11 or so.

 

Got some nice body scratches on the first hard obstacle, not sure what it is called, but a tricky set of ledges with a rock that you slide into when you spin your wheels. The rest of the trail was pretty awesome, and probably one of the hardest trails I have completed, including anything I had done out in Moab. The sand everywhere made for tricky traction on obstacles that should not have been too difficult, and if you got hung up too badly, it was easy to get burried if you did not back out quickly, which was how I got stuck for the first time ever on a trail, three times. A quick tug out and a new line got me going through everything without ever a tug forward. I got stuck in this spot twice, but my buddy buried himself proper.

 

Random shots throughout the trail. The crew was 5 LCs, 3 jeeps, me and a 1st gen taco. I was probably the least equipped vehicle, everyone else at least had a rear locker, and everyone but me and the taco and the white Grand Cherokee were on 35's.

 

Body scratch.

 

The GC ended up bending the shit out of his steering link in the front so we had to stop and bend that back using winches, highlift and good old fashioned trail ingenuity, but wasting an hour, so we did not get off of the trail until 6:30, back to Johnson Village for gas, and then out to the Grizzly Lake trail head at close to 8:00, and staring to get dark. The first LC took a stab at the first obstacle out of the creek, and took him a while to get up, then the next LC was struggling even more, and with daylight dwindling, we pulled the plug on GL and decided to head up to Hancock area to camp for the night. Pic of the LC coming back down the first obstacle.

 

Got a nice camp spot right as it was getting dark and woke up to a beautiful view out of the tent.

 

Went up to Hancock Lake.

 

. . . and then up to Hancock pass.

 

Nice pics!

Benefit of Alaska wheeling... doesn't get dark til 1am haha

 

I would never sleep if I lived there, too much to do and daylight to do it!

 

Oh yeah, for trail notes, TD lists Chinaman as a 4/7, this is BS. Most all of the obstacles are mandatory with no bypasses, and I would say minimum equipment would be 33s and lots of armor, and at least 3 vehicles, one with a winch. I beat the shit out of my skids on this one.

 

great pics james...chinaman gave me a couple dents and scratches too..dented my driver rear panel at the spot you got yours on i believe..door and driveshaft dings were due to spotter errors.

hancock looks like a nice cruise and camp location..snow seems to have melted quite a bit up there already too..i wasn't far from you guys checking out little brown creek in between mt antero and mt white.

and mcclellan pics are great as well! fun trail when there's water over the trail and full crossings

did twin cone not happen?

 

Yeah, it was a beat your truck up type of trail, but a ton of fun, I would like to get back up there with a group of TW guys/gals.

Trails up there weren't hard, most stockers could do it going slow and good line choice, but damn it was beautiful.

Were you wheelin or just hiking and camping?

 

Nope. Due to a late start and incoming weather, we didn't make it over there. Some decided to brave Sunday afternoon I-70 traffic and the rest of us went over guanalla pass to 285.

 

was hiking with the pup..giving the truck a break and getting my ass in hiking shape again

goal was to summit antero but the approach through little brown creek is loooooong...10mi roundtrip only got us to 11500ft, so i found a good spot for lunch and called it good for the day..

lunch spot for the day, 11,500ft

 

WOW thats a long hike, you couldnt get closer to start the summit attempt?

 

there's a lot of options for trailheads...i wanted to get away from the crowds and check out a lesser traveled route..saw 2 others on the trail that day. route trip summit would have been close to 17mi though i'm not in that shape yet haha..found what it takes to tired out my dog too haha

main route takes you up the 4x4 trail to the summit..the other routes are similar lengths to my approach.


trail gets muuuuch steeper as soon as you hit 12,000 mi as you climb to the saddle (~13,000ft) between mt white and antero, then another 1,000ft up from there to antero