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.