Never heard of the Charles Wells book. I used the AllTrails app and Google offline maps. I took the north to south route. Most of the trail was easy, but there were some very rough areas. Any low clearance vehicle would be destroyed. You don't need any crazy mods to get through with your 4Runner. Mine (TRD Off Road) is mostly stock. I have AT tires and sliders, that's all. And, I always air down. No extra armor, no lift. I have been through worse terrain than 99% of the people on this forum who all have giant tires, 5 inch lifts, and 900 lbs of skid plates so they can look cool at the grocery store. Your stock 4Runner is very capable of driving very rough terrain. Just be careful, take it slow, and learn how to drive. Don't waste your money on junk you don't need.

Hellls Canyon ID

I recommend you check out the Funtreks series from Charles Wells. They are good books (he has some great ones for Colorado plus the Moab area in Utah).

Don't get me wrong, nothing in there was THAT bad. It was more just entertaining since I went in expecting stuff to be down right easy (think largely graded dirt road) and it was way tougher than that. My main concern was my lack of sliders as there were a few spots where I had some pretty close moments in that regard (and that's such a nasty issue if you damage your body tub).

I agree, some spots were much more difficult than I expected, but I have sliders. The main difficulty was the huge chunks of ground missing. Looked like the road had bombs dropped on it. If you ever come across a big dip and you don't think your bumper will clear it, just throw some big rocks in there and fill up the hole. No problem.

Hah, did exactly that in there in one spot where the side of the road was badly washing out combined with all sorts of off camber ruts. Someone had already started on stacking some but I added a few more big ones to help it out .

Overall it wasn't THAT bad, but man were some of the hills in there in worse shape than I expected.

Heading up to the Calcite Mine east of Anza-Borrego



...must like rocks...

Enjoyed a day by the river

A couple of weeks ago in Santa Fe National Forest.




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Overlooking here earlier today.

Snow Canyon St. Park, Utah

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From the top of Hidden Falls adventure park in Marble Falls, Texas
The jeeps showed me how to flex her today. I saw a few 4runners pull up when I was heading out and they invited me to join. Everyone in this community is so kind and friendly.


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Two weeks ago somewhere between Dakota Hill and Pickle Gulch, CO
I believe that may be Blackhawk but you Colorado folks know better than me.

PS thank you to the dirt bike angel that spotted some tricky crawls coming down for me. We were both equally impressed with the vehicles capabilities, despite my lack of experience.





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Eastern Sierra

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Looks like the overlook of Green Lake if one took a dim trail up The Hunchback from Coyote Ridge.

Fun Facts

The word, "Sierra" is a Spanish word meaning “range of mountains” so we are not supposed to say "Sierras" or "Sierra Nevada Mountains". Simply said it is Sierra Nevada.

As Ansel Adams once said " "...the name Sierra is already a plural. To add an s is a linguistic, Californian, and mountaineering sin"

So to stay on topic, I recently returned from the San Juan Mountains of Colorado and have a scenic picture to share