July 4th, 2013 Pre-Runs

As tradition has it, we use the 4th of July to pre-run all the All-4-Fun trails and make sure they are clear of snow, and open for All-4-Fun later in the month. I took pretty minimal pictures while out there, but Leadville is a great place to spend a weekend, or a full week. Tons of trails in the area, and tons of history to check out.

First I'd like to fill you in on the background for Operation Potty Re-Location...

There were a few port-a-pottys set out on the property for the pre runs, and unfortunately non of them were near where most of us camped. So, in the middle of the night, sitting around the propane camp fire, we came up with the brilliant idea to use a jeep and relocate one of the pottys to our camp. So we grabbed a sober driver... Glenn, a strap, flashlights, and headed over to steal us a potty. After some cave man efforts of using a rock as a hammer, we finally got the strap attached to the potty and off we took it to camp. Below you will find very confidential, never before seen, live footage of the operation as it went down...

On to the few wheeling pics taking this weekend... Taken on Halfmoon Creek

On top of the Champion Mine... 13,400 feet.

 

Dave coming across the creek on the way to the iron Mike Mine.

Wheeler Lake 6/15/13

Because Kelly Flats was still closed, we decided to meet up with Patrol 6 and try opening Wheeler Lake. We followed a ways behind them with a fairly small group. Ryan, Morgan, Chuck, Paul & Suzy, as well as Tyler in his new JK, and Chad's girlfriend brought out her new TJ.

 

The day was moving along without a hitch when we reached the V Notch. Chuck decided to try an interesting line that started on the far left, crossed over in the middle, and finish off with the notch. Turns out he got a little off his line and it put him in an interesting spot on 2 wheels. A quick pull on the winch and we were on out way again.

Just before the mud pits we hit our first snow drift of the day. Plowed through that one no problem and continued on to the mud pits. At this point, patrol 6 had radioed back that there was a very large drift at the sharp turn at the top of bowling ball hill. The didn't have any luck with it, so they were on there way down.

 

We reached bowling ball, and sent up our snow buster... Morgan! Morgan gave it hell, but was not able to power through on his own. Luckily he had just bought a brand new smittybilt land anchor. We busted that out, and after figuring out how to work it properly, Morgan was able to winch himself right up on top of the drift. Ryan followed next, and soon the whole group was on their way up. Tyler left his rig at the bottom because he didn't have a winch, but then one of the Patrol 6 guys wanted to reach the top with us.

We ran into one more drift up on the tundra, but it was hard packed enough for us to stay on top of it and just drive on over to the lake. We snapped some pics, and headed back down to air up.

A couple of us weren't quite ready to head home as it was still early, so we went off to check out some roads by Kite Lake. We found a ton of old mining roads that just crossed all over the mountain and kept climbing. We took as many of the roads as we could before we were eventually stopped by every single one.