Patrol 14 Cleans Up Adopted Bill Moore Lake Trail

Patrol 14 did our late summer clean-up run of our adopted trail, Bill Moore Lake. This was a last minute run due to scheduling challenges, so joining us on the run were Daryl and RoxeAn, Bill and Cheryl and Harold. Overall, the trail is in really great shape. We picked up a large yard bag worth of trash, a skid plate and inner fender. We pounded down a “tire puncture waiting to happen” stake near the mine, and we fixed a couple carsonite signs along the trail.

 

The big project was attempting to fix another illegal bypass. Once again, there was an illegal bypass after the late spring/early summer snow melt. Here is a picture of the bypass and another useless track down the tundra from this bypass (after we pulled the tree up):

In order to block the bypass, we looked for an old dead tree to use to block the illegal bypass. Ensuring everyone was safely out of the way with spotters and our Jeeps blocking the way, Bill and Daryl gave this tree a few pushes.

 We pulled it up to the bypass and placed it at the entry way of the bypass.

We found some other dead trees lying around and pushed some big rocks up against the tree to help keep it in place and not easily pushed out of the way.

Ouray Trip - July 19 - 21

Towards the end of July, Patrol 14 went to Ouray. It was amazing to see the work done by the local forest service to clear so many trails. It was just an amazing trip. If a picture says a 1,000 words, we will let the pictures tell the story.

June 1 - Slaughterhouse Gulch

On June 1, 2019, Patrol 14 headed out to run Slaughterhouse Gulch. This trail had been suggested at our planning meeting, and most of us had not been on the trail in a number of years. Joining us on the run were Sam and Elaine, Harold (running solo), Tom Hester (also running solo), Daryl and RoxeAn, new member Jaime (unfortunately for us, Cecilia couldn't join us on this run), prospective member CJ (Carolyn), guest Joe Maleski and our patrol leader Bill and Cheryl.

We met at Allen's Park, so everyone could load up on coffee and pickup any additional lunch needs. We were on the road headed to the trailhead by about 10am. Bill took the lead and Daryl pulled up the rear.

Once we were at the trailhead and aired down, we headed up 101 towards Slaughterhouse Gulch. The trail was in really fantastic condition. Thank you Patrols 10 and 12 for doing a great job in getting this trail in tip-top shape. Forest Service road 101 isn't really challenging.

 

After rolling along 101, we rolled onto 105. The scenery improved, and we soon came across our fist small obstacle.

It was nothing extreme, but it was something just to peak everyone's interest a little. We continued on and soon came to the large parking area where we met Patrol 4. 

They had a really small group that day (for them anyway). We decided to break for lunch here since there's plenty of room, and it would give Patrol 4 a chance to get ahead of us. This way they could take their time on the upcoming obstacles. Brian Hamilton (Patrol 22) also happened to be on the trail, running with Patrol 4. Since, he was a member of Patrol 14 years ago (and knows most of us anyway), he decided to hang back with us and chat while we had lunch. After some relaxing and some orange slices (Cheryl just has to bring her orange slices on all runs lately), we started up the trail towards the obstacles. This is where the trail begins to get a bit more technical and fun; but with the right spotter, almost any Jeep can make the climb. No one in our group had any real issues, which certainly made things easy.

Most of the remaining trail has some fun sections that are not difficult and would present a lot of fun for small to stock Jeeps. It also had some beautiful scenery, which would probably be amazing to see in September.

 

As we neared the exit it began to rain lightly, and occasionally we would see a slushy substance like snow/hail (was that snow or hail in early June??!!). When we got to the exit it was still raining some big drops, and there was chatter on the radio about airing up in the rain. Not moments after shutting off the Jeep and stepping out to evaluate the amount of rain falling, it stopped. Everyone (except Sam & Elaine) elected to air up here. As mentioned, this isn't really a tough trail, but it can make for an enjoyable day and is really close to Denver. I would definitely recommend getting out on this trail when you are looking for a relaxing day in 4-Low.

Bill Moore - May 18

Patrol 14 made a trip up Bill Moore Lake on May 18th. Joining us on this run was Bill, Gary, Daryl and David, Sam, Jaime and Cecilia, Joe, CJ and Dan. The day started off fairly cool with brief snow showers on the way up to the trailhead and at the air-down area. After airing down, we headed up the trail. The trail was dry through the early switchbacks and the chute. At the top of the chute, we met some vehicles coming down. They indicated they did not make it very far and were giving up. As they indicated, shortly after the chute we ran into a lot of snow. Gary was taking the lead, and his YJ made excellent progress past the Miller Creek cut-off and up to the camp spot at which the trail turns right and goes up the hill. The snow varied between completely covering the trail for 100's of feet to brief drifts. Sam quickly discovered that it was necessary to air down in order to make it up through the snow drifts.

We were able to make it up to the camp site, but it was challenging and a slow climb at times. Near the campsite, there was a drift across the trail. We thought it would be too tempting to drive around this drift, creating an illegal bypass, so we built a small deterrent using some fallen trees. Please remember to "Stay the Trail."

After this work, we were all ready for some lunch and relaxing for a bit. After lunch, we decided to take a few tries of varying people attempting to make it up the hill. It proved to be more challenging than any of us were capable of overcoming, and CJ even became high centered and needed a tug to get back out of the snow.

After this "fun in the snow," we decided to head back down. As we were heading back down, the group decided to see how far up the Miller Creek trail we could get, and due to various people backing up and turning around, Daryl took the lead. Daryl was able to make some progress through a lot of pounding away at various drifts heading up, and the snow became pretty deep at times.

 

Surprisingly, the heavy JKU just kept pounding away at the snow and was eventually able to get to the clearing at the top. The entire group was able to make it up the trail without too many issues behind the JKU.

At the top, we all lined up to take a picture and enjoyed a break from the snow.

Without knowing what we might run into, we decided to continue down the trail towards Red Elephant and Empire loop. Unfortunately, it did not take long before we ran into another snow drift across the trail. 

This is a pretty gnarly snow drift, as the tree on the left side created a pretty deep hole off the top of the drift. At this point, it was getting pretty late into the afternoon, so we decided to head back down the mountain. On the way down, the trail was already starting to ice up, and we had a couple of issues. After some digging, we were able to get everyone down the mountain safely, aired up and headed back to town. Overall, it was a great day on the trail, but we want to remind everyone that there is a LOT of snow up there, and it is tempting to bypass some of these drifts. Please remember to ALWAYS "Stay the Trail!"

Pickle Gulch - April 27th

Patrol 14 decided to run Pickle Gulch and enjoy a day in the mountains. We all met at the Z Stop outside of Blackhawk about 9:30 on Saturday morning. Joining us on the run were Sam  (Elaine was out of commission), Daryl (RoxeAn was busy with Prom stuff), Gary and Trudy, David and Kim, Harold and Sandy, and the trip leader, Bill and his partner Cheryl. Additionally, we had Dan Ayriss as our guest. Gary and Bill were thrilled to have Dan's company because he drives a YJ. Once everyone was at the meeting spot, we headed to the trailhead via Black Hawk and Central City with Bill leading the run and Daryl pulling up the rear. We stopped to air down at the trailhead.

As we were airing down a lone CJ7 was coming off the trail. He stopped to chat with us and asked if he could join us since he was relatively new to four wheeling and was unsure about making the run alone. Of course, we said yes, and we threw him in the middle behind Dave and Kim. We soon discovered that his experience was indeed very limited and he had not aired down near enough to make the climb up the first obstacle.

Once we got him up that first obstacle, we pulled off the trail and got Brandon, our guest, aired down to 20 psi.  He was a little nervous about going any lower than that so we thought we'd try that. We journeyed on up the trail and then stopped at the old cabin. We met up with a nicely built XJ and a Toyota pickup. They headed up the trail and the rest of us took a few photos and enjoyed the scenery from the cabin.

Not long after, our group got back in our Jeeps and headed up the trail to see what happened to the XJ and the Toyota.  They had encountered deeper snow and were having some difficulties.  The Toyota decided to turn around, and they headed back down the trail towards the trailhead. While we were waiting for them to get turned around, an ATV on tracks came down from the top of Pickle Gulch.  He informed us that there were two XJ's that were stuck pretty bad and were off the trail. He said they were having great difficulties trying to recover. Gary and Daryl decided to walk ahead and scope out the situation. When they got to the XJ's, Gary chatted with them briefly and asked if they would like some help. For whatever reason, from what Gary and Daryl had been able to surmise, they had little interest in our help.

As the trip leader, I decided that we would stop a little further back down the trail, grill our delicious hot dogs, and enjoy the sunshine.  We had offered help and if they were not inclined to take that help, we had no intention of ruining our day of wheeling. After lunch, Daryl had a prior event he needed to get home to, so he took off down the mountain. Sam took a walk up to check on the XJ boys. By now (about an hour later), they realized that some help would be a nice thing to have. Sam reported back to the group. Of course being MHJC 14'ers, we decided to go try our best to get the fellas out of their bind. It turned out that getting up the trail to the XJ's was a bit of a challenge, but we did make it up there with Harold, Dan and Gary's Jeeps. One of the XJ's had freed himself; however, he was pointed up the trail and backing down past his partner was going to be almost impossible without getting stuck again. We encouraged him to try to turn around while we tried to winch out the black XJ which was off the side of the trail and in extremely deep snow. We hooked up the two Jeeps that had decent access to the stuck XJ. One Jeep was pulling back and one Jeep was pulling across the trail. Along with some shoveling and about 45 minutes of rigging and re-rigging, we were able to free the black XJ. Once we had the XJ's free, we returned to pick up our ladies, load up our gear, and head down. While loading up, the XJ's passed us, waved, and said a simple "thanks". About halfway down the trail, one of the XJ's busted his front drive shaft and was stuck on the trail. We patiently waited, offered some assistance, and got them up and running.
They thanked us and headed home. When we got to the trailhead, we gave thought to exploring further or airing up and going home. Sam and Dan headed home.The rest of us decided to explore further trails in that area. Unfortunately, at every direction we turned we encountered snow. About 4:30, we decided to head into Georgetown and stop at Beau Jo's and have some delicious pizza. It was a great day to be on the trail.

Spring is upon us and we are all anxious to go wheeling. This was a great start to another great upcoming summer of four wheeling with great friends.

February Run Pennsylvania Gulch

On the first weekend of February Patrol 14 had our annual planning meeting. Since all jeepers get anxious to get out by this time of year, we scheduled a trip to Pennsylvania Gulch and trails in that area. Of course, we didn’t know what we would encounter when we made those plans.  As it turns out Patrol 19 had done a greenhorn run just prior to our trip and we saw their photos on FB. So, we knew there was snow on Switzerland trail and we knew that Pennsylvania Gulch might be difficult with the snow fall in that area; but what the heck, we had a plan and we were going forward. As it turned out the Denver area got a lot of snow Friday night (Feb. 22nd). We gave some consideration as to whether we wanted to make the long drive to Nederland. We decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it. Although Denver got a lot of snow, the drive to Nederland from the metro area wasn’t bad. We met in Nederland at The Train Cars coffee shop. We had a turnout of 6 Jeeps, 4 patrol members, including Bill & Cheryl, Gary & Trudy, Harold & Sandi, Tom & Nancie and two guest jeeps. The guests attending were Paul & Suzie Vastola and Ryan Boudreau.

The wind in Nederland was fierce. I had hopes that once we got on the trail and got in amongst some trees, we might get a little relief.  We left for the trail head about 10:00. Ryan took the lead and headed off 119 onto Gold Camp Road.  Shortly after the turn off we found a flat spot and aired down.  Dang, it was still windy and really cold.  So cold the ladies only got out briefly and then returned to the warmth of the jeeps.  Once everyone was air downed, Ryan continued to lead, and things were looking good. It was sunny, beautiful and windy.  

Here is our crew airing down. Did I mention it was COLD?

Shortly, Ryan came across some deep sugar snow. Of course, he sailed right thru as did Gary in his lightweight YJ.  Next up was Harold in the Blue JK 2-door.  Harold was running just a bit slow and bogged down.  Call in the reinforcements.  Bill’s Red YJ was behind Harold and so we strapped Harold back.  That wasn’t very effective, since another run at the snow proved worthless.  Finally, Ryan brought out his kinetic strap and Gary’s YJ gave the big blue JK a solid tug and Harold was free.

It doesn’t look like it here, but Harold was stuck pretty deep in the sugar snow. Bill’s YJ is doing strap duty, sadly it just didn’t have enough weight to manage to pull Harold free.

Next was Bill in the red YJ, sadly he just didn’t have enough momentum and he too was stuck.  Now Harold gets a chance to yank the YJ clear.  

Next came Tom in his green TJ, he was able to make it thru but just barely.

Last came our other guest Paul in his Black JKU on 37’s.  He made it look like a cake walk.

Our crew lined back up after battling the sugar snow.

We, then, headed down the trail and came upon 2 vehicles, one 1999 4 Runner in complete stock street attire and a Honda Pilot.  Both were stuck, no shovels, they did have a strap and that was about it.  Of course, we couldn’t leave them there, so we managed to get them out and turned around.  We put them in the middle of our group until we got to a trailhead.  They thanked us a number of times and headed out.

We broke for lunch. About the time we were through with lunch a large group of jeeps came off the trail.  We assumed they might be headed for Pennsylvania Gulch (we were only guessing), so we loaded up and headed out ahead of them.

We turned up Pennsylvania Gulch and made it to the hill climb with Ryan in the lead. He tried the hill climb 5-6 times and finally made it over.  Up next was Gary, after 3 attempts and a conversation with Ryan, we realized it was fruitless to try any longer and decided to turn around.  We waited for Ryan and soon we were all together again and headed out.  When we hit the fork, Ryan and Tom decided to call it a day.

The remaining group decided to explore the rest of Switzerland Trail.  Gary took the lead. Soon we came upon a ridge, it’s pretty apparent the Forest Service has been doing a lot of clearing in this area.  It was shocking to see so much open territory.

It didn’t take Gary long to find the DEEP snow and bring the YJ to a halt in its tracks.  Although to us it didn’t look all that deep ahead, Gary did some further investigation and after serious consideration we decided it’s probably best to bring up my jeep and winch Gary back and turn ourselves around.

It had started to get late in the day and colder by the minute, so we all decided to head to the trail head.  It was a great day, sun was out, and I got to spend time with some great folks on a trail.