Black Bear pass with trailer?

Worthy of mention for folks on a Black Bear quest is an "in and out" trail to Bullion King Lake. It gets very little press. It can be run on it's own or "connected" to the Black Bear trail. It starts a few hundred yards south of the BB trail head (usual direction) and has a "connector" spur over to BB mid way up.
The lake holds Trout and is around 12,500', well above the tree line. There will be a chorus of Pika and Whistle Pigs (Yellow Bellied Marmots) protesting your presence. The lake is about a 1/4 mile hike passed trails end. Easy and flat.
The short BB connector spur offers some nice camp spots with a usually running stream and shielded from lightning.

Looking west from U.S. Basin. BK trail zigzagging up the left, BB to the right. The connector is dead center. Google Earth shows it pretty good.


Most of the way up BK is a mine site with some of the most lurid colored mineral stains I have seen.
Better shot of BK. Note the long diagonal "shelf road" section. Stop and check for traffic coming down. It's about a mile between passing lanes.


BK lake and some old fart.

 

Now that's some local info

 

Awesome. Thanks for the info!

 

Added this to my list. I'll be down there in three weeks so I'm looking forward to it. Thanks!

 

I have been over bbp several times in the late 80s and 90s on my 1985 sr5 extend cab pu that's was totally stock the first time. On the second switchback my automatic hubs disengaged and I spun out. I used to have hemroids till that happened. Needless to say the next day a set of warn supreme manual hubs were installed no more issues. It's a great trip enjoy

 

Went over Ophir pass and 2/3 way up imogene pass from the Ouray side 2 weeks ago. The copilot gave me an ultimatum going up imogene so I had to turn around unfortunately. It was fun in a stock tacoma except for floormats.

 

And Telluride was terrible IMO. Silverton was nice and we stayed at the Durango KOA for a few days which was amazing.

 

Cracks me up every time a "club" mandates requirements to successfully complete at trail. Explains why most jeepers (not referring to all of them so no one gets offended) run flat hardpack in 4lo. I've come to realize that there are alot of people in the wheeling community that don't understand that 4wd is there "to get you out" not "get you in." I've been to the top of BBP back in the day in my '87 Toyota truck with my dad and we went up in 2lo most of the way, there were some spots where we absolutely needed to go to 4lo, coming down into Telluride was sketchy AF back then and the switchbacks were tight and wasn't really "maintained" for the most part. I'm planning to get back out there next year with my new rig, it's been to long.