Colorado

[fireteacher]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Colorado

You would have definitely puckered at the top of Pearl, then. It's pretty tippy and up high on the side of the mountain. If you roll it, you won't stop rolling for about 800 vertical feet.

I tried to get the camera as level as possible. It was in the middle of a thunderstorm.

i SO wish i lived there!!!
im makin this shot my desktop!

 

[Jim_Chow]

While we're on the subject of CO, I'm going up to Gunnison for a week in a stock 100-series. Anyone have any recommendations on places to go? As my wife, baby, and dog will be in the vehicle and we have no winch and are travelling alone, we'd like to stick to easier roads. I'd be more interested in seeing lush green vegetation (like in a basin) surrounded by tall peaks (I guess the snow has all melted?) with few people. If there's a lake there, it would be great.

 

[86Original]

While we're on the subject of CO, I'm going up to Gunnison for a week in a stock 100-series. Anyone have any recommendations on places to go? As my wife, baby, and dog will be in the vehicle and we have no winch and are travelling alone, we'd like to stick to easier roads. I'd be more interested in seeing lush green vegetation (like in a basin) surrounded by tall peaks (I guess the snow has all melted?) with few people. If there's a lake there, it would be great.

Sounds like your describing the road that goes over Schoffield Pass and does a loop from Crested Butte. If you go to Mt. Crested Butte and take the road CR-317 to Gothic (stop there at the general store/museum and get an ice cream . Continue through Gothic several miles to Emerald Lake. About a mile past the lake is the top of the pass. Just past that is a left turnoff that goes downhill, CR-734. That's the Slate Creek Road. It's an awesome shelf road with great views and easy driving (sometimes a little steep). You'll have a great view of the wilderness area across the canyon to the SW. Once in the bottom of the canyon, you'll go past a small settlement named Pittsburg.

(optional) After you pass the campground down by the creek, the road will make a sharp right turn toward the creek. Right after that, make a HARD right (almost 180) to get onto the Gunsight Pass road which immediately does a hard left to parallel the road you were just on. You can't drive across the bridge, but you should be able to ford the creek, and then go down a narrow passage between the willows for a few hundred meters. That road goes up a bunch of switchbacks, and will challenge you just a little up to the mine basin above timberline. I would not recommend that a stock rig go past the basin without knowing your offroad capabilities really well. The mine basin is beautiful as well with great views from the road. Turn around and go back down to the Slate Creek road and continue that back to CB.

Another nice drive is to go up to Taylor Park Reservoir and on up to Cottonwood Pass. It's a maintained dirt road from the reservoir to the top of the pass. The rest of the way is paved. Will take you down into Buena Vista past a couple of 14ers (Yale to the north, Princeton to the south). From the top of the pass you can see quite a few 14ers.

If you want a little more challenge, check out this trail. IIRC, you don't have to take the Reno Divide option and you can do a loop from CB to Taylor Park Reservior and back to Gunny.

Enjoy!

 

[Jim_Chow]

Great! I just checked it out on the topo. Is there any way to get to Crystal from Schoffield pass, or does one have to go around? Is the Lake city--Silverton alpine loop any good, or mega-touristy?

 

[86Original]

Great! I just checked it out on the topo. Is there any way to get to Crystal from Schoffield pass, or does one have to go around? Is the Lake city--Silverton alpine loop any good, or mega-touristy?

Yes, there is a way. The trail goes through "Devil's Punchbowl". This is the sign at the top of the "interesting" part of the trail:

The scribbles in the upper left corner of the lower sign says: "And they mean it!"

This is what you'd be going down if you do go down it:

The above photo was taken from just right of center of the photo below.

That yellow dot is my mother hiking up the trail.

You may be able to see just the top of a white stock Suburban that is stuck on a rock about 300 yards up the trail from her. We had to stack rocks and finally winched him from behind with a snatch block (pulley) in front of him to get him over the rock so we could continue.


Further down, this is what the trail looks like:

From the Crystal end of that stretch you encounter this sign:

But the reward is the Crystal mill:

Overall, though, the road down through Devil's Punchbowl is pretty rough, and would likely result in some minor damage to a stock rig. For more info on it, look here.

An alternate route from CB is to go northwest out of town on the Kebler Pass road. It's a well maintained dirt road that will take you over to Paonia, where you can catch the highway over McClure Pass to Marble, and then go to Crystal.

Haven't done the Lake City - Silverton for at least 5 years, so not sure what it's like now. I do remember it being very beautiful.

Enjoy!