Honeymoon/Alpine Loop Trip

Hey fellas, after many years I'm back in a Tacoma, an '18 OR. Getting married in a couple weeks and finalizing our honeymoon trip. Will be staying at the Stanley Hotel then heading for Lake City to run the Alpine Loop.

My plan is to split the loop into 2 days..Lake City clockwise to Silverton the first then Silverton back to Lake City the second. Will take our time and sight see and walk about as much as possible. Curious if anyone has any tips or info on how everything is up there. I am not interested in taking the Mineral Creek trail into Ouray so will travel in and out from Silverton. I've seen some reports around of things being much more difficult than in the past, especially Engineer Pass, what do you guys think? Will we run into any trouble with a stock height truck with 33s?

 

You are fine. Any decent driver could do it in a Subaru.

 

I agree with CO Taco above unless something has really changed.

Also, Corkscrew pass will is another way to Ouray if you want to skip mineral creek.

Previous Alpine loop threads
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/alpine-loop-area-friends.841855/#post-30122785

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/alpine-loop.837456/#post-29988407

https://www.codot.gov/travel/colorado-byways/southwest/alpine-loop

https://lakecity.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-driving-the-alpine-loop/

https://www.coloradodirectory.com/maps/alpineloop.html

Better map showing more trails
https://staythetrail.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Alpine-Loop-Map.pdf

 

I was down there in the area last week. I only did Ophir pass but considered engineer and cinnamon. Ended up driving through Montrose to get back to Colorado Springs faster instead of one of those two passes.

It was my first time doing Ophir, but it seemed a little more "difficult" than all the videos and posts online mentioned. The descent on the west side seemed more pot holes in the shale rock. These weren't super deep, but I bumped a couple mud guards and some other stuff under the truck. Couldn't find any obvious damage though I didn't look super close. Going down from the top, I was mainly in 4lo in 1st doing 1-2 mph to keep it from being insanely bumpy.

My truck is a stock 19 OR that was loaded for a week of camping.

I don't have a ton of "off roading" experience, just a handful of passes around Colorado. Difficult is in quote above because it wasn't really hard, just more than I expected. Watching a video from last year, it seems that section is a little different.

Based on that though, you shouldn't have a problem. Just be smart

 

Rogo, thank you guys. We're very excited to check it all out, hoping we can stay out of everybody's way and have a nice easy cruise