Buena Vista, CO and Black Bear Pass

We recently took about a week and a half to camp and run trails in the area close to St. Elmo, CO, then headed down to Ouray to run Black Bear, since we weren't able to last year. We camped about 2/3 of the way up the trail to Pomeroy Lakes, at 11,600'. My goal was to run Mt. Antero and Iron Chest Mine.

The length and intensity of the shelf section on Mt. Antero surprised me, but we actually had a friend with us who ran it in his Ram 3500 (though his wife was not too happy by the time we got to the top!)



We were actually counseled AGAINST running Iron Chest Mine in the Tacoma, due to the quarter-mile-long boulder field at the beginning of the trail. I'm overwhelmingly pleased with how the truck performed on this trail. And our 60,000 mile KO2s never slipped when the trail was dry:







Again, I was surprised by the shelf section on this trail. I must say, I prefer the trails in nearly any other part of CO to those around Silverton and Ouray; there's generally way less traffic, and the trails are more challenging. Iron Chest Mine is only three miles long, but it holds your attention that entire time.

We couldn't spend too much time at the namesake mine at the top because a storm blew in quickly. It rained harder as we approached the boulder field on the way down, and working our way through it became more a matter of sliding and bashing armor than picking precise lines. Glad we have nearly full skid plate coverage; the Pelfrey front and mid skid have some good bends in the them, and the Victory 4x4 CA skids took some real abuse!





We then headed down to Ouray to run Black Bear. Apparently there was barely any traffic on the trail the day before we ran it; we ran it in moderate traffic, but still had a great time.

This was the third time we've run Black Bear since 2005, the first two times were in Jeeps. Just for the hell of it, I used Crawl Control on the steps, and the truck eased itself down like nothing. This is only the second time we've ever used it--first time was on the descents from the top of Red Cone.



This is the only spot on the entire trip where the KO2s slipped on me. And that's a disconcerting spot to have the whole truck slide passenger:





All in all it was an exceptional trip. The truck clocked 2,700 miles in 11 days with my wife and me, our three dogs, and all our gear!

 

Great pics! On my bucket list to visit Black Bear Pass

 

Thank you! BB is a trail everyone should 'wheel at least once, for sure.

 

Nice! Your hood graphics are cool.

 

Thank you!