Two Adults, Three Dogs, 2,900 Miles

For my birthday, when we still lived in NM, we'd always take one of our Jeeps up to Silverton and Ouray, CO. Now that we live in Houston, we hadn't 'wheeled on my birthday until last year, when we visited the Black Hills, WY, MT, and CO. This year, rather than tow the Jeep, we decided to pack all three dogs and all our gear into my wife's DCSB and hit the road. Originally, we planned to go to Silverton and Ouray, but we've been there SO many times we decided to mop-up some bucket list trails in other areas. I had to do a few quick, last-minute mods to the truck the evening before we left, but we left Saturday the 4th and headed to the mother-in-law's in west TX. We left her house at 03:00 the next morning and made it all the way to the Fairplay, CO area. Our first night in CO was spent on the trail to Red Cone, which we ran the next morning.

The lower part of Red Cone is pretty chewed-up and difficult in places. We wouldn't have noticed in our SWB Jeep on 37s, but in the truck it took some careful lines:




We actually had to use the rear locker to get out of that last spot. That's the only time I locked either diff the entire trip.

Just off the first (steepest) descent from the top of Red Cone:



We ran Webster Pass down from Red Cone, which felt SUPER narrow just off the pass:



We then made tracks to Fairplay and across Mosquito Pass and spent the second night in Leadville:

 

The next morning we headed to Crested Butte, by way of several small CO breweries. We set-up camp about seven miles up the road to Pearl Pass:



The next day we ran Pearl Pass all the way to the Aspen side. Starting up to treeline on the CB side you're looking at the back side of the Maroon Bells:



There are some rocky, semi-difficult spots on the CB side:



The approach to the pass felt really narrow in the truck vs a Jeep:



At the pass:



I REALLY wanted to drive the Aspen side of the trail, just off the pass. It is spectacularly rocky, which provides LOTS of stories of cut tires:



We had zero issues, and made it down to this semi-difficult spot, the last on the trail:



All in all, an excellent day. Early August is also wild raspberry season in CO, which we took full advantage of. Only downside to Pearl Pass is its length and location; we didn't have enough time to run it in reverse or to run Taylor Pass back to the CB side, so we literally had to drive from Aspen to Buena Vista to Salida to Gunnison to get back to camp.

 

The next day we ran Schofield Pass to the Devil's Punchbowl to Lead King Basin. We'd run Schofield two years prior in our Jeep; it was much more exciting in the truck!

Starting down the difficult section towards Devil's Punchbowl:



We actually made use of both the Shrockworks rocker guards and the Pelfreybilt front skid multiple times on this trip. I'm pleased to say they held-up perfectly:



The other sketchy spot on this side of the trail:



Enjoying a birthday beer at the punchbowl and letting the dogs play in the water:





We then ran Lead King to Marble. The Wells (FunTreks) book lists Lead King as hard; it's easy as can be, but very scenic:



This is the first time, in 20 years of 'wheeling, that I've 'wheeled an IFS rig. The truck did phenomenally well, and I never aired-down below 25psi. I did remove the front sway bar before the trip and would adjust the shocks to firm for highway driving, full soft on trails. Honestly, it surprised me how well it did. On-road, especially over some of the steep, twisty mountain passes, we surprised some unsuspecting drivers with how well she handled. I manually-shifted the auto trans on those roads, and the truck never hesitated or complained. I'm very impressed.

Overall, for nine days on the road, we got three days packed-full of 'wheeling, and four nights camping. It may sound like a lot of driving for little reward, but it was so much fun, and so enjoyable. We're looking forward to next summer!

 

Happy birthday! You guys went to some beautiful places. Glad you had a good one man.

 

These three slept almost ALL the way back to Houston (the truck will never be the same!):

 

Thank you very much!

 

That's a proper dog pile right there!

 

Good thing they all get along so well!

 

Looks like a good time.

 

Looks like a rad trip! Awesome post.

 

Thank you! Just wish we could do it more frequently.

 

A few more random pics from the trip.