Labor Day Weekend 2011

Friday morning I set up camp around Turquoise Lake and then headed up Hagerman Pass towards Basalt. I have never been in the Leadville area for wheelin before, but there are a ton of roads up there. We took Hagerman all the way over (man that is a long drive) but it was a nice drive. My mom was riding with me and I talked her into driving over to Marble and up to Crystal Mill.

We got into Marble about 4pm and headed up the trail. Met one other Jeep on his way out, but that was it. There was a ton of debris on the lower portions of the trail near the river. The heavy winter and high spring runoff looks like if caused a lot of havoc on that trail. No wonder it took forever to open this year.

We reached the mill and I wanted to continue up, but it was getting too late, plus we had to make the trek back to Leadville still.

Eventually we headed down and on the way out, i think 6-8 vehicles passed me going up. Hit the evening rush hour I guess. Two full size trucks passed me, and a Honda Element! I couldn't believe the Honda drove down there. I mean the trail isn't hard to the mill, but it is definitely rough and rocky.

Saturday I made the trek to Halfmoon Creek. Hit the South fork first, and the rock section coming out of the creek I thought was a little hairy. Not too hard, just took careful tire placement. Drove way up top expecting to see the mine and never saw anything. Headed back down, and got some pics at the creek crossing.

 Next headed up the north fork towards champion mill. This is an AWESOME PLACE! There are a few cabins before you reach the mill that you can check out, but the mill had to be the biggest mill I had ever seen still standing.

Sunday I headed up to Birdseye Gulch where a few other MHJC members were installing some buck and rail fence at the old mud bog with the remaining money from the restoration grant. We installed about 350 yards of fencing.