Im good anywhere, its about the people your wheeling with... someone just name the place and time and Im there...

i dont mind,, your good people.

 

Okay trail choices for each area are...

San Juan (trail and ratings found on Darrens site):
Arrastra Gulch & Little Giant Basin 3/10
Black Bear Pass 6/10
Burns Gulch 3/10
California & Hurricane Passes 3/10
Corkscrew Gulch 3/10
Engineer Pass 4/10
Eureka Gulch 3/10
Governor Basin 4/10
Imogene Pass 5/10
Kendall Mountain 3/10
Kennebec Pass 2/10
Ophir Pass 3/10
Stony Pass 3/10

There aren't any trails near Glenwood Springs that I can find. The closest are near Grand Junction...:
Bangs Canyon 7/10
Grand Juntion Desert 5/10
21 Road 10/10
Battlement Mesa/Battlement Reservoir 9/10
Kenney Creek Res. Road 4/10
Long Slough Res. Road 7/10
AND near Vail:
Holy Cross 8/10
McCallister Gulch 3/10
No Name Gulch 4/10
Resolution Road/Ptarmigan Pass 4/10
Shrine Pass 1/10
Yoder Gulch 6/10

For the Breck/Keystone area we have:
Deer Creek 1/10
Georgia Pass 4/10
Middle Fork/Middle Fork of the Swan 5/10
Radical Hill 6/10
Saints John/Glacier Mountain 4/10

Lots of trails, and I haven't done any of them yet. After reading up on these, I want to goto the San Juan Mountains, the scenery looks incredible. But I'm up for just about anything.

 

How do these ratings equate to our rigs?

Chris

 

i did georgia pass last late spring. thought i was going late enough to avoid a lot snow. haha yeah right. i parked behind some guys who were tokin' and drinking red bull and vodka, and we all shoveled a track through three feet of of snow for three hours to get to the top. that night it snowed like a banshee up there. silly story but it's a nice trail. not far from breck/keystone and georgia pass are lots of other passes, many 4-wheelable, ie argentine, webster and so on.

ophir is easy but a bit white-knuckle on the west side, especially looking down at the wreck partway down the scree field.

shrine pass? lordy it's just a nice cutoff. it's like a 0/10. heck they have *weddings* up there.

california pass? never heard of it, and i thought i had a pretty big list of passes on my site. http://www.aspen-graphics.com/colo-passes.htm

near glenwood, just go to aspen and tool around there a bit. there are a small handful of easier passes north of glenwood.

the san juans are stunning. no other way to say it, and not so crowded if you stay away from the big hitters like engineer. tons of great backroads and approaches.

 

Im fairly sure that anything up to 4 a stocker would be able to do, we could probably push it to 6 if the driver is willing to drive it. I just listed all of the trails I found for these areas. There is no way that any of us will be able to run 21 road or any of the higher rated trails.

 

Chris,
you can check out http://www.traildamage.com/index.php for more info.
but we have ran
Carnage canyon 4-9
Spring creek 6-8
wheeler lake 5-7
moody hill 3-8
so i know they are doable with IFS
or just look HERE for pics that others have ran. Im not sure who rates the trails, but "sometimes" they are over rated.
Im sure there will be some good spotters there.
EDIT: im sure most trails do have a "bypass"

 

thanks ric. the grand junction desert is pretty fun. when i went to a family reunion we stayed at this camp geound that had showers and a lake and boat or jet ski rentals. any way my friend and i took our dirt bikes up there and it was a blast. ther were trails that never ended. and some of the old drued up creek beds with sand that was so sotf and then you hit a little rock pile then occasionally some mud but it was fun. then when you comback so the camp site you had showeres and the latrine was clean. but thats one idea

 

For the san juan list, i have been on every one of those trails at one time or another, in a stock 4runner..EXCEPT Black Bear, which i personally will never drive...i do not like the idea of rolling off cliffs, and it is a long, long way down.

Grand Junction Dessert is a play ground...you can have it anyway you like
Long Slough Res looks tight, but doable, not sure on that
Battlement Mesa looks good for dents, if it's wet...if its dry, looks fun
21 Road, good luck, probably not going to make it w/out 2 lockers, and a full body will get dents. Its a rock crawl, more than just wheeling
The rest look fun,

you'll enjoy any of the suggested trails, they are all gorgeous.

 

I vote for a place that has a variety so if there is folks that want to the run the harder stuff they can, and vice versa.

Chris

 

The Xterra world use to have an event in the San Juans every year. It's was GOX, Gathering of Xterras, which was a huge hit.
1/3 Colorado scenery, 1/3 Fellowship 1/3 wheeling

 

And for those of you who wern't around - CO4RJ #2 was held in the San Juans and we did a lot of those trails. Great Scenery but not really challenging at all - unless you don't like shelf roads...

http://www.reapur.com/car/co4rj-2002/index.htm (looks like a lot of pics arn't up anymore - including ours)

John

 

that woulld be cool to have a variety of different trails. have some moderate ones and have hard one for the people that would like to do thoes if they wanted.

 

I don't want to start a fight, but if I decided to come out for this, or if SteveO attends, or several others I can think of, there would be folks that WOULD be able to do the hard trails. Some of us may want to do harder stuff, regardless of the attendance of those people that are not feeling welcome. Maybe I'm wrong and everyone will be happy driving dirt roads, but it might be a good idea to either choose a place that has options for all levels of trails or make sure everyone thinking of attending will be satisfied with easy stuff. If the event is going to be changed into a weekend of camping and siteseeing for Colorado folks that's great, I just want to know that before I plan on driving 2 days to get there.

 

I agree! I like riding nice scenic trails, but I also like to run the hard trails and push my limits too. A selection of both would be ideal, in my opinion.

Chris

 

Depending on $$ i would like to see some harder trails also, I haven't had the chance to test my trucks or my skills on them, and would love the oppertunity(sp) but would love the company. i think a selection would be a good thing, just as long as the testostorone is left at home.
B

 

I like competing with myself and my rig, and I'm willing to try just about anything if I have the proper equipment (excellent spotter and winch).

Chris

 

I also agree, I do want to do harder trails as well as easier ones. I've just been assuming that most of the people that will be going are going to have rigs that may not be able to handle some of these trails. If we have enough people that want to do both trails, we may have to split up into groups again like last year. But I don't really want to stick people in a group and make them be stuck with doing hard trails all weekend if they don't want to.

 

Splitting up is inevitable. I've run a lot of larger groups, and just everytime we have 10 or more rigs it's always better to split up anyway. It makes for less problems out on the trail.

Chris

 

I agree with John and Anna about the scenic to moderate trails. Our rig is a daily driver and I don't like to push to the limits. I really like the get togethers but I think it got a little out of hand last year. I think the majority of the people are beginner to moderate and the others have just outgrown the local group. It's great they have been able to build their rigs and challenge themselves more than the rest of us but most of us just like the medium trails. I would also agree in choosing a different location, we have been the the BV the past 3 years and something new would be nice.
Hopefully if it all works out and we can all play nice it will be a good thing. As far as timing I'm thinking later Aug early Sept and maybe be able to catch the fall colors. You never know with Colorado though. Thanks for letting me put in my 2 (or 3) cents worth.

 

If it was that simple - then there wouldn't be any question in having a scenic / moderate / hard groupings - but this isn't moab. Finding a place that has all 3 types (or even just both easy and hard options) in close proximity to a single campground (with all the requirements people have for that) is next to impossible - especially for 2 or 3 days worth of trail runs. Now maybe someone out there much more traveled than I can tell me of such a place (outside of Buena Vista - even that is a stretch) but I do know that Glennwood Springs and the San Juans area isn't going to meet that criteria.

Maybe we should abandon the "lodging" worry and just set up the event. Each individual figures out where to stay - whether in a cheap campground or a 5 star-resort- it's your choice. Then, the event planners of CO4RJ only have to worry about scheduling trail runs. Saturday's trails are this, this, and this - be here ready to go at 9:00. Evening party/dinner at this place., etc.

just an idea.

john