Denver to Durango offroad 9/23/14

[jrob]

For my next trip home we are going to make our way down to Durango while touching as little pavement as possible. I will be home 9/18 and we should be departing Denver the afternoon of the 23rd taking 2-3 days to make the route, and return via interstate on the 28th.
I have been pouring over Trail damage and various trip reports piecing together a route.
So far this is what I have come up with:

I-70 to highway 6 to Keystone where we will pick up Clear creek, to Swan Lake to Breckenridge.
Short run down 6 to Alma and Mosquito pass to Leadville.
From Leadville, Hagerman pass to Basalt, down 82 to Aspen.
From Aspen, Pearl Pass to Crested Butte.
From CB, I was just gonna hit 149 to Lake City and Cinnamon pass to Silverton.

I have never run any of these passes before, so any input on route or updated info would be awesome. I'm trying to stay off road but also maintain a fairly deliberate direction of travel toward Durango so if anyone has any advice, trails I'm missing or modifications, please chime in. Would like to shave a little off the 193 miles of pavement the listed route includes. Picking up a RTT when I get in so we will be camping the whole way.

And of course, if anyone would like to meet up with us along the way or run the route with us, more than welcome.

Thanks for any input guys.

 

[USKTog]

While I've not done this in my 4R [yet], if the rig seen in the sig pic is what you intend to do this route, via:

I-70 to highway 6 to Keystone where we will pick up Clear creek, to Swan Lake to Breckenridge.
Short run down 6 to Alma and Mosquito pass to Leadville.
From Leadville, Hagerman pass to Basalt, down 82 to Aspen.
From Aspen, Pearl Pass to Crested Butte.
From CB, I was just gonna hit 149 to Lake City and Cinnamon pass to Silverton.

You will have NO issues really, to my knowledge! Mosquito Pass, Pearl Pass & Cinnamon are fun, but not overly challenging. My folks and I did Cinnamon in a 4WD Suburban back in '76 and only had 1 spot where clearance side-to-side was tight (lol).

From Denver, you could always run down US-85 to Sedalia, take 67 up over to Deckers, then follow 126 (Deckers Rd) to 211 (Goose Creek Rd). This will take you over to Park Cty Rd 77 (Tarryall Reservoir Rd). Follow Park Cty 77 to Park Cty 34 (Packer Ln) to US-285. US-285 to Fairplay, then up CO-9 to Alma and on to Mosquito Pass and over to Leadville.

For my next trip home we are going to make our way down to Durango while touching as little pavement as possible. I will be home 9/18 and we should be departing Denver the afternoon of the 23rd taking 2-3 days to make the route, and return via interstate on the 28th.
I have been pouring over Trail damage and various trip reports piecing together a route.
So far this is what I have come up with:

I-70 to highway 6 to Keystone where we will pick up Clear creek, to Swan Lake to Breckenridge.
Short run down 6 to Alma and Mosquito pass to Leadville.
From Leadville, Hagerman pass to Basalt, down 82 to Aspen.
From Aspen, Pearl Pass to Crested Butte.
From CB, I was just gonna hit 149 to Lake City and Cinnamon pass to Silverton.

I have never run any of these passes before, so any input on route or updated info would be awesome. I'm trying to stay off road but also maintain a fairly deliberate direction of travel toward Durango so if anyone has any advice, trails I'm missing or modifications, please chime in. Would like to shave a little off the 193 miles of pavement the listed route includes. Picking up a RTT when I get in so we will be camping the whole way.

And of course, if anyone would like to meet up with us along the way or run the route with us, more than welcome.

Thanks for any input guys.

 

[jrob]

Thanks for the additional beta!
It swings a bit further south than I want to for this particular run, but I will definitely check those roads out for a future trip or an alternate way to the Breck area for a different run. I want to drive mt bross at some point as well.

 

[Slowgoat]

Man, sounds like a BLAST!

I used to go up mosquito pass years ago in my old 95 4runner.

Maybe next year!!!

 

[heyoceanfloor]

This sounds like a really fun trip, I wish I could make it! Already taking too much time off it seems. Dag

 

[jrob]

Considering the possible tunnel closure on 70 and not departing Denver until 830 or so (girl has volleyball) I might opt for Webster pass to radical hill to swan lake which shaves another 10 miles of pavement off.

I will be looking for a camp site off Webster pass in the dark, any suggestions?
Thanks!

 

[jrob]

Ok, Trip is in the books and went pretty well. Got to see a lot of the State that I had not previously seen.

We departed Denver around 10pm on the 23rd. Late start but we made it out I70 to Keystone and about 4 miles up Saint Johns road where we found a cool little spot to camp.

Headlights:

All the lights:

And Since I am sure someone will ask, I am running 2 50W 6.7" Light Cannons up front with spot covers and a 40" curved roof bar from Zero Dark Lighting/explorationoutfitters.com Outstanding product I gotta say. Extremely happy with my 450 dollar light bar.

Woke up to frosty tent and a moose about 15 yard away. Beautiful creature, but I couldn't get a picture.

Onward to North Fork Swan River and Breckenridge.

We saw a Golden eagle take flight up here. I thought it was a freaking pterodactyle. Massive Birds.

Onward to Alma and Mosquito pass.

Where we encountered this rock slide debris. I couldn't fit through without incurring some major body damage so I actually got to use my hi-lift jack to move some rocks out of the way.

From Leadville we skipped Hagerman's and just took Indy pass, we were kind pressed for time.
It didn't suck.

Then made our way out to the start of Pearl Pass where we found an awesome camp spot.

Pearl Pass was a little rowdy. It would have been nice to have another vehicle. We rolled solo.

From here it was down 50 to the other side of Blue Mesa Reservoir and Owl Creek Pass to Ridgeway.

Everything took a little longer than expected and we had to shave off a lot of the original route due to time constraints, but it was amazing.
All told it was 410 miles total 90 of which being dirt.

Cheers.

 

[HOJeepster]

Badass trip. I've contemplated doing a similar trip down to Durango.

 

[T4RT]

If I lived closer I would have loved to roll with you on this trip. Amazing pictures!

 

[AudiTech]

I've always wanted to do the Colorado Trail Race, it's on a mountain bike not a truck but it's Denver to Durango. 500 miles with 70,000 feet of elevation gain.

 

[Taco04]

Looks like you had an awesome trip! I will have to add this to the trip list & thanks for sharing the photos.

 

[kyle_uran]

Not a bad way to get back home. How did the RTT do?

 

[jrob]

Not a bad way to get back home. How did the RTT do?

The tent did great. We camped on Ophir pass near the summit a couple nights later and woke up in a blizzard. We were toasty inside, but it was a bit of a chore packing the tent up in those conditions.

 

[04rnr]

:bravo: great pix, thanks for sharing.

 

[XMountainMan]

Killer pics, killer trip! I want to take my boys on a trip like this in the future what type of packing list did you have for this adventure? Places to stop and fill a cooler between trails for campfire dinners at night or eat out mainly? Maybe one of these days I can be a wingman on a trip like this!