Colorado 2009

[JB]

Sep 5, 2009
8:45am – Left house, filled up with gas at Exxon ($77.49)
9:45pm – Arrived in Santa Fe. Francie’s house is enormous. It is much bigger than I remembered. She still has the FJ80 sitting there. It's a 96 with 80k. Maybe 1000 of those in the last 8 years.


Sep 6, 2009
8:45am – Left the house, on the way to pick up ice and gas and onto Colorado.

1:15pm - Drove straight through Durango and stopped for lunch at Haviland Campground. I made a PBJ and ate Wheat Thins with ranch combined with a frosty Coors Light. It worked.

People have no idea what “slow traffic keep right” means. I am trying to relax, but my road rage, coupled with stupid low speed limits in NM are making that hard.

I am glad I have the topper. It has been raining off and on the whole trip out here.

I lost track of the time, but I hit up 110 out of Silverton and onto California Gulch. It was a pretty easy trail and offered great scenery. I had been up this trail once before, two years ago with Derick. The trail ended at Lake Como, where you have the choice to go down Poughkeepsie, or go down Corkscrew. I chose PK. There is really only one section that is difficult. If my truck sat 4” higher I would have walked down the whole thing. I got about 100 yards from the hard part when I came upon a Scout and a redneck-d out Chevy. The Chevy had driven off in the mud, gotten stuck, and torn apart the ground pretty bad in the process. The Scout guy looked nervous when I showed up because he knew his buddy was a dumbass. I pulled him out. The trail stays pretty wet, so I imagine it will get closed soon if people like this dillhole keep tearing it up. I made it to the difficult downhill section and watching a nicely equipped Disco climb up the right section. His little girl kept asking me if my truck had all the things her daddy’s truck had. She said I would be able to do the trail if I had a Land Rover. I know her Dad was hearing everything she was saying and had a huge mental boner.
I turned around, back up PK, and took Corkscrew down to just south of Ouray. I headed up and found a campsite. The town was packed with bikers and Jeepers for Labor Day. Cooked some hot dogs and went to bed.

[JB]

One more from today for Grayson. Quadsteer GMC

[Graystroke]

sweet house! that thing is huge when you look at the doors and railing for scale. are those 8'0" doors? wow. I think every gmc yukon QS is that color...same as mine I have seen like four of them and they are all that color. are you sleeping in the topper? Cold at night? next year get some DOW foam sheathing and line the topper.

[Doug Krebs]

Awesome JB! I'm pissed I didn't do some kinda of journal thing when we went. Maybe I can still write something.

[JB]

Sep 7, 2009
Wow, I actually slept really well in the camper shell. It was in the low 50s but I didn’t feel it inside. I slept till 8:30am, drove around Ouray for little bit before hitting up Imogene.
I do this trail every year for the scenery. I like the Ouray side a little better than the Telluride side. Less bumpy. There were plenty of Jeepers. Mostly built Rubicons driven by older people. I took the RC crawler out for some pretty serious imaginary wheeling along the creek. I also rounded a corner to find a hiker woman and her friend pissing in the middle of the trail. I just stopped, they looked up, finished their business and walked right past me, never breaking their conversation! Unphased hippies! Can’t you find a tree at least! It was funny.

After Imogene, I headed south of town and hit Ophir. It was about 1.5 trek back over to 550. From there, went down what I thought was the Clear Lake trail, but turned out to be Red Mountain Basin. Nothing too exciting. I finished that route and found the road to Clear Lake. The map book said it offered plenty of camping and it did. I found a good spot along another creek and set up camp.

[Seth]

Nice pics - is the camper going to stay on, or just for trips?

[sasquatch]

damn john, you are officially ltd.

[redcagepatrol]

that is awsome - I love driving the trails out there, need to get out there again.

[JB]

Sept 8, 2009
I woke up this morning, packed up, and headed back through Silverton and up to Engineer Pass. I took this over to Lake City. The weather was overcast and drizzling. Nothing very special about the trek. I stopped in Lake City and got some pizza at something Alice’s.

I decided to head east at this point and drove to Villa Grove, about 2 hours away. The drive from Lake City, through Creede, and then to South Fork is in my top five scenic drives. Somewhere in there (first pic) is where the Rio Grande starts. I got to Villa Grove and headed up Hayden Pass. The trail ascended quickly and offered amazing views. It then turned very rocky and narrow for maybe .5 mile. I made it without a scratch, but it was steep and I was surprised I didn’t cut a tire. The KM2s have been working well. The truck has been working well. The topper clamps haven’t loosed up and the topper doesn’t look like it has touched the cab at all. Made it to the top and then descended down into CoalDale. I knew I needed new rear rotors/pads before the trip, and now I am just hoping I can make it home. I use low gear coupled with 4lo for all the descents, but sometime that is just too slow. They have to be melted now.

Drove to Canon City for a shower in a cheap motel. Drive from Coaldale to Canon City is also beautiful.

[JB]

Nice pics - is the camper going to stay on, or just for trips?

I rented the shell from Pickup Specialties in Spring. They sell/rent used ones. $125 for 7 days, $10/day each day after. They happend to have one in my color. This is a mid range camper that sells new for $1400. Way to much money unless I lived up here and could use it in winter to keep snow out and summer to camp in.

[JB]

I headed up from Canon City to south of Breck. Spent another night on some mountain west of Jefferson. Really good campsite. I drove back to TX on Thursday morning, got back 1am Friday. It was not the best trip, but it was good to get away. It rained quite a bit and I didn'tget one clear day. I had alot of stuff I needed to do to the house too.