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.
