Colorado Trip Reports

^one of my favorite foliage runs

 

Nice job getting out and seeing what is still possible.

My fall colors and trail status report:

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/of...semi-epic-quest-fall-foliage-high-passes.html

 

9/28
Ran Barbour Fork with teamhypoxia (Eric). It's a beautiful trail that's really pretty close to town that I will definitely be visiting again. It took us a little bit under 4 hours to complete with a couple of short stops.

It doesn't take long for the obstacles to start:


There's an open field a little ways into the trail that we found some horses in. A few were pretty interested in us:

My worst trail damage of the day came here, when one bit the truck:

In the same open space, there was a HUGE rut caused by the runoff from all the rain that we've been getting. We straddled it for a good while before it became too wide and precarious, so we went around:


We started up a pretty fun rock climb about half way through the trail:

Got a little wheel-stand:




Eric coming up the same climb:




Eric hitting a mud hole just after the climb:


Got a little posing in:





It was a ton of fun and great to meet Eric and his kids!

One more shot of the guy that bit my truck:

 

Who says my street tires can't do mud?

Sam's wife took more (and better) pictures than me.





All in all it was a surprisingly cool little trail. Not quite as tight as the plane crash trail but still pretty tight in spots. I was glad again for my sliders. Horsebit did a good bit of driving to avoid any damage except when he stopped near the horse.

I also learned from Sam the value of a good hatchet when we had to cut down a dead fall tree that had fallen across the trail.

Oh and when I cleaned the truck up the other day I found some minor horse damage of my own... Seems one of them put some scratches in my interior when she stuck her head in the cab to greet the kids. I guess the kids' excitement was worth the little bit of "character"

 

Nice work, that is a fun little trail, and it looks like the aspens were starting to show off as well.

 

Went up Kingston Peak today. "sean266" rode along and we met up with "thebrick" mid trail.



Braved a bitter cold wind to add some rocks to the pile for good luck...



Some awesome views from up top...




Snow drifts on some of the climbs added a bit of a challenge to an otherwise mild trail.


We didn't go all the way over to Rollinsville as planned. After cresting the last ridge, the trail had accumulated a bit more snow on the north side. It was clearly a "point of no return" as we would not have been able to make it back up if we'd ventured down it. Having never been on that portion of the trail, and not wanting to risk it, we decided to turn around and head back the way we came (From the St. Mary's/Alice area).

All in all, another great day in the Colorado mountains! If Sean ever pipes up about wanting to ride passenger, don't hesitate to let him. I'll vouch for him. I'm pretty sure he showered and if he ever farted it must have been outside the truck. He even spotted for me when I tried to roll my truck backing down a hill.

 

WTH Sean? You hadn't showered in days and were eating beans from the can when you rode with me.

Looks like you guys had a good time. Yeah that north side after the summit can be hairy if you are not familiar with the trail. How much snow was on that side?

 

it wasn't a ton of snow but the trail is cut a foot or more deep and the snow stays in it when the wind blows making the trail itself the deepest snow

 

Probably wise, the shelf road on the other side can be pretty scary when icy, and going off of that would definitely not end well.

 

agree with everyone, once you summit and start heading back down the shelf road on the other side i wouldnt want to slide off it to the right. I was thinking that area would probably have snow packed into it from the pictures i saw from sean yesterday!! looked like a fun day, wish i could have made it up with you guys

 

Got some body damage on bald Mountain today, and didn't even finish the trail.

 

Always sucks when it happens, but they usually turn into a good story later. The frist good trail damage I got pissed me off for about a week, and now I laugh about it. Edit: you can see it pretty good in my sig pic.


Anyways, tried to bust my way up Buffalo Pass today. Got stuck in a snow drift about 2/3 of the way to the top, wish I would've been able to make it a bit further, but I've spent too much time shoveling my truck out. I did get to use my recovery kit though to pull two people out of the ditch. I'm amazed what people will try. One of the rigs was a Suburban with about 7 kids trying to get out for a few ski runs. Went too fast around a corner and burried the driver side pretty good. No gear, no shovel, and no idea what they were doing.

 

Wow, what a fun day yesterday was! Ended up with 7 rigs on the trail. Two second gen tacomas, two first gen's and 3 4runners.

Personally, I was pushed waaay outside of my comfort zone, but I got some great spotting help and managed to make it through unscathed. At least I think so, I'll know for sure once I clean up the truck and get underneath it today. None of the body got damaged, but I beat hell out of sliders, bumper, skid, etc. and I know there were some hard hits under there so I'll have to see if it banged anything up. That's a trail I would definitely prefer to have more armor for!

It was definitely a long day. After meeting up in Morrison at 7:30, we drove to Buena Vista and finally got everyone together at the trail head around 10. Getting all 7 rigs through the tough obstacles took quite a bit of time. I think we were just getting off the trail around 5:30 or so and I got home to Firestone around 8:30.

I had some reservations, but I'm really glad I went.

My photobucket is full so I was playing around with Google photos. Haven't figured it all out yet but hopefully this link will work if anyone wants to see some of my pictures from the day.

https://plus.google.com/photos/104088801709080718214/albums/5947249525753701793?authkey=CO7g8PaMgZrNCw

 

Can anyone else see these pictures? Or do they just work for me?

 

I can see the pics.

 

Awesome run yesterday guys. Like Eric, this was probably one of the hardest trials I've done. I'll get some pictures of my sliders


Was a long day with snowy roads, made it home just shy of 10:00 last night after leaving here 6:30 that morning. I'm use to Rabbit Ears Pass in a white out, but Hoosier Pass in a white out was a bit interesting.

 

Cool. does the last one look all edited?

 

Yes, maybe a bit too much.

 

Good, just playing around with the Google stuff and wondering what all comes through. I won't clutter this thread up anymore so just tell me if the link to the album does NOT work.

Otherwise, It'd be cool to see if anyone else has pictures.
Also, I like to keep track of my trail runs and I'm terrible with names. Lots of new to me faces so if anyone can name the people on the run that'd be great.

 

Anybody in here run the San Juans area? Need pick someone's brain on the area over the next couple of months. Starting to piece together a route for next summer.