Let's See Those Double Cab Long Beds! 3rd Gen

One more from summer when I was using it as a tow rig.

 

HSWOR - Day 7 - 128 by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

 

No dust it looks

 

Hidden falls run last Friday

 

Hell ya man!

 

Somewhere in Northern Maryland!

 

Day 3: Cinnamon Pass

After a great night of sleep, we woke up bright and early, eager to explore the San Juans. For day 3, my dad and I had thought it'd be fun to change up our mode of transportation & decided we'd try to rent a UTV to drive the Alpine Loop. As mentioned earlier, I grew up riding ATVs with my dad, so renting the UTV had us incredibly exciting for many reasons, but mainly the for freedom you feel when driving/riding in an open air vehicle.

In order to make this happen, we'd need to find a business who had a UTV available, which I thought would be no problem given it was the middle of the week and Lake City has tons of businesses who rent UTVs & jeeps. My dad & I both have always longed to own a Polaris Rzr or Can-Am Maverick, so we had our eyes set on renting one of the many available in Lake City. After calling nearly every business in town, only one had a UTV available for renting, and it wasn't a Rzr, but a new-ish Honda Pioneer Trail. Comparatively, not the most exciting rig, but for our entire lives, we've only owned/ridden Honda utility ATVs and have absolutely loved them - they're incredibly reliable and versatile (used ours for snowplowing, hauling trailers, and just generally working around the property, but also for tons of trail riding).

Anyways, we got setup with the company, learned the logistics of running the loop, paid, and headed back to camp to load up the Pioneer. We loaded up lunch, rain coats, and sunscreen & hopped back into the rig. Unfortunately, when I went to put it into drive, the transmission wouldn't go into drive. Only Park or Reverse. Not ideal... We messed around with it for about 10 minutes, and ultimately determined something with the linkage was malfunctioning. Luckily, my dad had driven the Tacoma back to camp, so we loaded up into it and made our way back into town to notify the rental company. We caught up with the owner who followed us back to camp with his brand new, super badass Honda Talon and we helped him get the Pioneer hooked up. He was incredibly apologetic and offered us a full refund + $100 credit. Overall, a super standup guy and I'd definitely rent from him in the future. I think it was just a freak thing and we were just happy that it didn't happen to us in the middle of the trail. And anyways, we had the Tacoma, so we still had plenty of opportunity to explore.

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After all that, we decided it was too late to run the entire Alpine Loop, so we opted to run Cinnamon instead, starting from Lake City.

I've ran Cinnamon to varying degrees 4-5 times before, so I was familiar with the area, but it continues to be one of my favorite trails in all of Colorado. And I think you'll see why in the upcoming photos. The scenery is absolutely epic - from narrow shelf roads, to slow flowing streams, to massive glacial valleys, to Red Cloud & Sunshine 14,000 ft peaks - this route has everything you want in a Colorado backcountry route.

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We arrived at American Basin and enjoyed nearly panoramic views 10,000+ ft peaks. We had tons of sunshine on the drive up, but you could tell a storm was brewing over the peaks, so we had a quick lunch in the basin and packed up the truck just as the winds started to rip across the valley. As we headed down, we had intermittent sun & clouds, but it didn't rain until we reached back at camp.

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At this point in the trip, my dad and I were definitely in need of a nice, warm shower and I knew just the spot. I'd stopped into Highlander RV Campground a few times before on previous trips to Lake City and had always been incredibly impressed with their facilities and the hospitality of their family owned business. We paid and enjoyed immaculately clean & piping hot showers. It's amazing how nice a shower is after camping for a few days. A total refresher. As we were heading out, the owners of Highlander RV even invited us to the campground's weekly cookout later that evening, even though we weren't officially camping on their property. Just a testament to how well-run this business is!

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After getting freshened up, we decided to head into town for a bit of walking exploration. I also had a strong craving for a chocolate malt, so we stopped into the local ice cream shop and enjoyed a truly old fashioned ice cream.

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To close the day, we headed back to camp, made some dinner and sat around the fire before heading to bed. Another great day outdoors.

 

Picked up one of these beauties. Topo Topper crew is all world.

 

Nice! It looks gigantic.

 

Ha .5 on the iphone helps...the tundra in front of me was mega sized, thing was a tank and really well done.

 

that’s a super nice GFC!

 

Thanks brotha

 

Another screen capture from drone footage

 

@Tronfunkblow keeps us posted on build out. Im kinda curious bout those, Thanx & enjoy.

 

21 TRD Sport 4x4 Taco

 

Here’s mine!

 

Will do! They are stout for sure!