^^400 ft fall with driver and dog thrown from the vehicle. Very lucky there were no fatalities. Lots of people out there with their new 4x4's going places that exceed their skill set.

Wow. That road looks amazing but well in excess of my limits.

Huh? Wow. I missed that.

I am not sure if they still do it but the pass used to be drivable uphill once a year during a special event.

I've done it twice going up with the Rotary Club in Telluride. I assume they still do it annually but I haven't checked in a long time. It's definitely different going up and you tend to miss the great views that you get heading down.

I feel like it would be a lot less intimidating going up?

Most of the folks I've been off-road with are far more uncomfortable going down than up. I took a group on 'Behind The Rocks' in Moab one time and most, if not all, of them had a great deal of experience. It spooked a number of them since most of the extreme obstacles are going down on that particular trail. On one of the runs I did headed up Black Bear there were a couple of H-1 Hummers and it was a bit disconcerting being behind them and watching them crawl up on the uphill side slightly to avoid having their downhill tires drop off the edge. Other than that one instance going up Black Bear wasn't bad at all.

I have done it a few times but I would not do it in any vehicle without solid axles. The funny thing is that when I got my first Jeep in 2012, that is where I went. It scared the heck out of me but it was too damn late to turn around (you literally can't turn and backing up (without 4x4 in reverse) is near impossible too. So I said what the heck and asked my friend to get out of the Jeep for her safety. I walked the stairs twice and picked my line. I went down it solo and made my friend walk it down. That was a bit scary for sure. After that, it was a bit less scary each time but I still would not do it in a truck or an IFS vehicle. Many do...just not me.

Curious, what 4wd vehicle doesn't have 4x4 in reverse?

Not sure if there technically are or if that is even possible, but there seems to be a ton more DS binding when in reverse (in 4Lo) since you can hardly go back and up in a straight line on those trails. Forget about lockers in those tight spots too. Of course, it is too scary/stupid on those steeps to take it out of 4Lo. So the only way is forward in those cases. The stairs was especially scary for me since I was such a newbie, and the only place I ever considered backing up.

I'm with you that backing up on steep slopes can be intimidating, and without good spotting it can be hard to keep to a workable line. That being said, the drive train itself doesn't care which direction you are going, and shouldn't bind up one way more than the other.

Guess you've all seen this one.

Not a 4x4 technically, but Subarus have big trouble reversing over a rough spot. Ask me how I know

Outbacks, Foresters, and XVs have all done Black Bear, so there is that.

In fact, BB is a bizarre trail, I am sure that a Subaru is less scary over the tippy spots than an IFS 4x4. I did many trails there in my OB, on upgraded brakes, and lots faster than Wranglers and Toyotas in both directions, but drew a line on BB. Others do it but I thought it is just not right even if doable.

What some don't realize is that after a rain (or during even) Black Bear and several passes there, become really really slippery. There are stretches of slippery soil that are not everywhere but can catch the unwary off-guard. I'll never run Black Bear in those conditions. I have been caught out in a downpour once. It was hard enough to start causing rockslides. I was near the end of Engineer Pass intending to come back via Cinnamon Pass. Instead, I went to Lake City and took the LONG way home on the highway, and almost got caught by a rockfall there.

I had a buddy meet me in Telluride one time (we were both in FJ's). We were there to do the Rotary Club's annual Black Bear Pass run going up. When he was going to head back to Dallas we decided to go over Imogene Pass to Ouray and he was going to take off from there. There was another friend visiting who was riding with me. We did Imogene and had lunch in Ouray. It was pouring rain the whole time. I decided to take Mineral Creek/California Pass/Hurricane Pass/Corkscrew Pass/Ophir Pass back to Telluride. When I got to Corkscrew it was really spooky heading down. There were serious slides in a number of spots across the trail that we had to go over, and the severe off-camber nature of crossing those slides was more than a bit unnerving. I found out a few days later that around the same time we were doing that run someone in a rented jeep who was right where Hurricane Pass drops down and Corkscrew Pass takes off was killed by a large boulder that had dislodged and crashed through the roof. Lesson learned about doing runs in that area in a heavy downpour.

Close call! Off-road slides can be fatal. Yeah, I actually almost got hit by a rockslide on the highway. I knew there wold be slides on Corkscrew, American, and even Engineer. So we got on the highway and took the long way back. The water/rocks suddenly flowed over the top of the cliff like a waterfall. It missed me by 50-60 ft as I passed it a few seconds before it hit the road, but the truck that was going the other way had a trailer and the trailer's rear portion got hit and it pushed them almost all the way off the road. We stopped and he managed to get the trailer straight and wanted to hightail it out. We did too. After that, I developed a habit of looking up at the cliffs for water flow.