@jscherb I’m not sure what’s more awesome, the LJ or the places it’s taken you.
I grew up 40 minutes from Ouray and although I’m a late-comer to the Jeep world, I get up there as often as I can. I’ll hopefully be hitting some trails in Colorado in July as well.
The Ouray Hot Springs pool is a must do stop when we're in the area.
A few weeks ago I got out my Colorado trail books and maps to think about planning an off-road expedition for this summer. As I was going through the books I was reminded of how many of the trails I've done over the years (I've been doing Colorado expeditions for about 10 years), so I decided to make a list of the Colorado trails the LJ has done (this is not a complete list - I've done many forest service roads and un-named trails in addition to these). Alphabetically:
Alpine Tunnel Road
Argentine Pass, McClellan Mountain
Arrastra Gulch
Aspen Mountain
Balanced Rock Road
Black Sage Pass
Boreas Pass
California Gulch
Cinnamon Pass, Wager Gulch (Carson Ghost Town)
Coffee Pot Road
Corkscrew Gulch, Hurricane Pass
Cottonwood Pass
Cumberland Pass
Dakan Road, Long Hollow Road
Devil's Punchbowl
Dotsero Crater
Dry Mesa Jeep Road
Engineer Pass
Escalante Canyon Road
Georgia Pass
Grizzly Jeep Trail
Guanella Pass
Hagerman Pass
Hancock Pass, Alpine Tunnel
Imogene Pass
Kebler Pass
Kendall Mountain
Last Dollar Road
Marshall Pass Railway Grade Road
Marshall Pass to Sargents
Marshall Pass via Poncha Creek
Medano Pass
Montezuma Basin
Mosquito Pass
Mt. Herman Road, Rampart Range
Nevadaville Loop
North Fork Cutoff
Ohio Pass
Oh-My-God Road, Russell Gulch
Old Monarch Pass
Old Stage Road to Gold Camp Road
Ophir Pass, Alta Lakes
Paradise Divide
Pearl Pass
Picayune Gulch, Placer Gulch
Pikes Peak
Pomeroy Lakes and Mary Murphy Mine
Red Mountain Mining Area
Rollins Pass East
Rollins Pass West
Saxon Mountain
Shelf Road, Phantom Canyon
Shrine Pass
Silverton to Animas Forks
Silverton to Lake Como
Stony Pass, Kite Lake
Tincup Pass, St. Elmo
Transfer Trail
Waunita Pass
Weston Pass
Yankee Boy Basin
In addition, I've done almost all of the trails in the Moab area that my LJ is capable of (2" lift, 32" tires), and a few that it wasn't (I won't post photos of the LJ being strapped over a too-big obstacle unless someone insists). Also some off-road and off-pavement miles in Alaska and trails in the Mojave Desert (the Mojave Road and more), trails in Death Valley and a few other random places need to be added to the list above.
What I'm thinking of for this year's expedition is exploration in Colorado above I-70 - most of my trail expeditions are exploration, not "how big of an obstacle can I climb over" and this would be exploration too. I'm thinking of exploring the headwaters of the Colorado River this year and some of the old railroad lines through the area. The map below is pieced together from three different Colorado trail and guide books and shows approximately what I'm thinking - the red dashed line shows one possible route through the area.
The approximate east to west distance pictured on the map is 125 miles; the actual route I would do would be much longer. A lot of the route is paved, but some of it is trails and some of it is unpaved or gravel roads. There are many side detours/trails that could be explored as well.
This is still in the early planning stages, I've got more research to do. And if anyone has any thoughts or recommendations about this part of Colorado, please post them.
Last year we did Rollins Pass from both sides; this is in the same area and was the original railroad route over the continental divide before the Moffat Tunnel was completed. It was a fascinating trip through history. From that expedition:
The route was obsoleted in 1928 when the Moffat Tunnel opened, which eliminated about 30 miles of treacherous trackage over 11,660' Rollins Pass and replaced it with a 6.2-mile long tunnel under the Continental Divide (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffat_Tunnel) and since the 50's most of the old railroad right of way has been a trail. It's a fairly easy but uncomfortable trail covered with 6"+ embedded rocks and 9"+ deep holes for a large part of the way, but there are no technical challenges.
The route is divided into two separate parts, you can't go completely across - there is a short tunnel at the summit that's been closed for some years now, so you can approach the summit from the east and the west but you can't go all the way across through. Back when the right of way was first opened as a trail (and the tunnel was open), the Forest Service published this:
Approaching Needle's Eye Tunnel from the east. It's the black dot roughly in the center of the photo. The Jeep is at about 11,500 elevation.
The tunnel is barricaded at both ends but I'm tall enough to take a photo over the barricade. You can see the barricade at the other end in the photo.
It started to rain just as we were beginning our descent from the tunnel. It rained the rest of the afternoon. The trail didn't get slick but all the potholes filled quickly with water. This photo was taken on the way down, about a mile from where the trail is closed before the tunnel.
The west side of the trail isn't as rough and uncomfortable as the east side, but the last two miles to the Needles Eye tunnel is pretty rough. Lots of rain was forecast but luckily it held off until the last two miles on our way out. The west side is more interesting for railroad buffs since there are several relics left over from when the trail was a railroad line, like the Rifle Sight Notch trestle:
Not having been used in 93 years, it's not in very good shape.
Clouds closed in at the summit, and at one point visibility was down to less than 50 feet.
The west side of the Needles Eye Tunnel, I visited the east side the day before:
From the tunnel, it's about a mile hike to the Devil's Slide Trestles. These are a real engineering feat, I haven't figured out how they could build these hanging on the side of the mountain. Clouds prevented great photos:
Anyway, enough of that trip, this illustrates the type of exploring I like to do. I've got similar photos of historic mining and railroad ruins from all of my Colorado exploration.