Tom
September 2nd, 2013, 07:10 AM
Had a great run with Curt, his wife, John, Tina, Dustin, and my sister. It was a long day. Left Longmont at 7:30 AM returned 6:30PM. We had a couple of minor mechanical issues. Tina's driver side sway bar end link failed so Dustin disconnected the other side as well. It appeared to be an age related failure and didn't cause any further issues. John had a transfer case linkage issue and couldn't get into four low. Curt knew exactly how to correct the problem and turned out to be a simple adjustment with only a short delay.
Tina did amazingly well for her first off road driving experience. Only one white knuckled addrenaline moment as we headed up the last hill by Kingston and James Peaks. A few moments of spotting got her over the obstical and we continued to the top. (I told you Tina there was one spot that might provide a bit of concern.) We headed over the top and had a few vehicles coming up on our tail just before the hill to the Loch Lomond Post Office so we stopped to let them by. Big mistake.
These guys had pickups they'd customized to the point of almost being moster trucks. Lifted a good 10 inches with tires approaching 40 inches. One guy got up just fine. The other apparently hadn't regeared anything and had no power. Part was up he stalled it repeatedly, popped his clutch repeatedly tearing of the trail. Got sideways as he backed down and came within inches of rolling it. When he straighted out, barely, he was off trail and I didn't think he'd get any further so we all headed up quickly and got by him with no trouble at all.
At the post office a thunderstorm moved in while we were eating lunch so headed down in the rain to find Loch Lomond. When we got off Kingston at Alice Tina and Dustin decided to call it a day: Dustins back was hurting. So we said good-bye and went about finding Loch Lomond. After one wrong attempt we found it and headed up just as everyone was bailing out due to the rain. We worked our way around the traffic and made it to Lomond just as the sun reappeared. Still tons of flowers, cascades and beauty up there.
Headed back down in search of the Yankee Hill trail. After several attempts I couldn't find the start. (Curt, John I looked at Google Earth last night if we'd kept going a bit further we would have hit it) Anyway I knew where Cumberland Trail was so we went up that and back over to Central City. After airing up we said our good-byes and headed home.
All in all a great loong day wheeling. Attached is an approximation of our route. My GPS only captured the first part up to the Post Office so I drew this via my TOPO USA software. More photos to come very shortly. I'll begin processing them as soon as I post this.
Looks like I put this thread in the wrong location. Jim, can you move it?
Tina did amazingly well for her first off road driving experience. Only one white knuckled addrenaline moment as we headed up the last hill by Kingston and James Peaks. A few moments of spotting got her over the obstical and we continued to the top. (I told you Tina there was one spot that might provide a bit of concern.) We headed over the top and had a few vehicles coming up on our tail just before the hill to the Loch Lomond Post Office so we stopped to let them by. Big mistake.
These guys had pickups they'd customized to the point of almost being moster trucks. Lifted a good 10 inches with tires approaching 40 inches. One guy got up just fine. The other apparently hadn't regeared anything and had no power. Part was up he stalled it repeatedly, popped his clutch repeatedly tearing of the trail. Got sideways as he backed down and came within inches of rolling it. When he straighted out, barely, he was off trail and I didn't think he'd get any further so we all headed up quickly and got by him with no trouble at all.
At the post office a thunderstorm moved in while we were eating lunch so headed down in the rain to find Loch Lomond. When we got off Kingston at Alice Tina and Dustin decided to call it a day: Dustins back was hurting. So we said good-bye and went about finding Loch Lomond. After one wrong attempt we found it and headed up just as everyone was bailing out due to the rain. We worked our way around the traffic and made it to Lomond just as the sun reappeared. Still tons of flowers, cascades and beauty up there.
Headed back down in search of the Yankee Hill trail. After several attempts I couldn't find the start. (Curt, John I looked at Google Earth last night if we'd kept going a bit further we would have hit it) Anyway I knew where Cumberland Trail was so we went up that and back over to Central City. After airing up we said our good-byes and headed home.
All in all a great loong day wheeling. Attached is an approximation of our route. My GPS only captured the first part up to the Post Office so I drew this via my TOPO USA software. More photos to come very shortly. I'll begin processing them as soon as I post this.
Looks like I put this thread in the wrong location. Jim, can you move it?