aqcjeepGlad
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Edit: A big thank you to others on this forum for their ideas, guidance, and reports. As well as all the other forums and youtubers who provided information I used to build my trip.
Left central FL Aug 6, 5187 miles later returned Aug 21st averaged 17.8 mpg. Some parts I got better than 20 mpg and some places less than 5 (sand dunes). 35x12.5 Falken Wildpeak AT tires on stock Mojave suspension.
Day 1: Drove back roads from FL to AL. Stopped in Alabama at Red Mountain State Park, very nice park, inexpensive camping.
Day 2: Headed out to Arkansas to the Buffalo River National Waterway, camped at Tyler Bend campground.
Day 3: Drive up into Kansas to Lake Kanapolis (right in the middle of Kansas, free camping for non-electric sites M-Th and many sites right on the lake. Beautiful place to camp.
Day 4: Stopped at Castle Rock about 2.5 hours West of Lake Kanapolis. Then Monument Rock, like Castle Rock but it is a real National Monument in the middle of nowhere. Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park is also nearby which is a valley filled with things like Monument Rock. Lake Scott State Park is also close by and looks like a nice place to camp and enjoy lake activities. Pushed on to Denver CO, failure to plan for a major metropolitan area forced me into the KOA on the east side of Denver off I70. It sucked.
Day 5: Headed to Denver and FT Collins to pick up some additional travelers then headed to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, you need a reservation to even drive through the park on the US highway so we had to wait a couple hours. Found a local spot to hike in the park (supposed to have a reservation for that too). Drove through the park taking the Old Falls Road to the summit instead of the paved highway. Very cool drive and wonderful summit.
Headed south out of the park to Grand Lake, camped at Green Mountain Reservoir CG. Nice place pretty private but it was busy there. Best pit toilets I’ve ever seen, they even smelled good!!!
Day 6: Headed off to Flemming, CO to check some other off road areas before heading south to Leadville. LOts of trails and BLM land in this area. We ended up not getting too far as we followed the CO river into the Gore Canyon area. Beautiful valley without any cell service but surprisingly a lot of traffic on the road. Checked out the warm spring running into the CO river and found some awesome dispersed camping sites on BLM land.
Day 7: Hike the canyon south of Gore Canyon, a cool trail along the edge of the canyon up above the river with a 70 yard deep old mine shaft and some tight spots with chains to help you stay on the trail and not in the river. Turns out this is a great place for whitewater kayaking this time of the year and there is a festival coming up soon to celebrate the whitewater (can;t recall the name), lots of commercial rafting below the Gore canyon (loots pretty mellow, but I’m told in the Gore Canyon itself the rapids are Class III, mostly IV and some V. I was told not many commercial rafting companies go through the Gore canyon. We then moved onto Leadville where we camped by Halfmoon West campground on the National Forest land along the forest road. There is a lot of dispersed camping in this area, I mean a lot. The trailhead for Mt Massive and Mt Elbert are also right in this area. There are actually many developed campgrounds just 8 miles north of here but they tend to get filled up with RVs and families. Enjoy the peace and quiet of the National Forest dispersed camping.
Day 8: Headed out to the Southeastern TH for Mt Elbert down by Twin Lakes. BTW there was a bicycle race going on in Leadville the weekend we were there so it was very busy. Hiked to the top of Mt Elbert (tallest Mountain peak in the lower 48 states I was told). Camped near Halfmoon again.
Day 9: Up and off to St Elmo to go to Tincup Pass. St Elmo is a private town, and not much there so don’t count on it to buy much. Headed up tincup trail, rough in the beginning and narrow but widens out and smooths out occasionally. It was more of a rough road than anything technical or requiring a Jeep. But it was fun for the driver (passengers not so much). A good intro to off-roading I would say. Once you get to the top the road soothes out some as you head down into the little town of Tincup. Stopped at the little BBQ food truck for some smoked turkey legs and brisket. Sadly they are selling their truck and closing up after this season. Headed north out of town to take a cutoff over to Crested Butte. Drove through Crested Butte to 734 on the north end. We later find out this is Paradise Divide trail. Easy gravel road that gets narrow and drop offs as you start to really climb the mountain. Lots of organized dispersed camping along this road. You have to pay or have a permit though. Thus, read the camping information sign when you see it. At the top of the road there is a T, to the right is Schofield Pass and will take you back into Crested Butte and left is ????? We turned left hoping it would take us to Marble, CO as we were told Marble is a cool place and we thought we’d come back to Schofield pass. After a little more driving we came to a major hiking trailhead for the Maroon and Snowmass basin. Looks like a great area to hike/backpack. Many people seem to do a one way hike and shuttle back to the beginning in Aspen. We continued on the road that we hoped would take us to Marble. We reached another parking area and saw the familiar 4X4 only road sign. We talked to a biker who just biked the road. Asked if he had driven it, no he said he couldn’t really bike it very easily and that someone on a motocross went down the road some and then turned around. He explained a little bit about the road to us and said he was unsure if it went to Marble as there had been a lot of mudslides and he thought the road was closed. We looked at each other and said let’s give it a try. WOW what a road, creek crossing, big rocks, tight spots between rocks, tight spots between the wall and the drop off into the river below. Not long after we started we ran into a SBS, asked him about the road etc. He said it was rough but passable and that you could get to Marble. He also said he was going up and coming back down. We pushed on, now this was the 4wheel drive off road stuff I came to CO for. We reached what appeared to be the bottom of the canyon and there was a very cool waterfall and a big bowl of water, it was cold!! We pushed on down the road and ran into a 4runner at what seemed like the beginning of the harder stuff, they were headed to the TH with all the hikers to pick up their car. It was starting to rain so I hope they made it okay. It was going to be a tough but not impossible drive for them. We headed on down the trail more until we came across a ton called Crystal, maybe 4 or 5 cabin style houses and that’s it. Oh and right before we got to Crystal we saw remnants of a mudslide. As we headed out of Crystal we saw a lot more big mudslides that had been cleared off the road or should I say trail. We thought Marble was just down the trail. An hour or so later we rolled into Marble. BTW the couple in the 4runner told us to stop in Marble and have some awesome BBQ. Slow Goovin BBQ has the best smoked wings I’ve ever had. Headed out of Marble to a CG just north of town. That was a long day, but a lot of fun. Turns out the trial we were on was the Devil's Punchbowl. Look it up.
Day 10: We are running out of time and we have not even made it to the Silverton/Ouray area to hit the famous trails. So we high tail it for Ouray going through many small towns along the way. Lots of high plains desert BLM land along the way. Stopped to do some dessert driving with the Mojave. Then headed into Ouray. Drove the million dollar highway south toward HIghland Mary lake. But ultimately decided that would put us too far south for Blackbear and Ophir and Imogene and Engineer trails. So we found a Forest Service road and did some dispersed camping closer to the passes. It rained that night and changed our plans, Blackbear pass was closed and we were unsure about Imogene and we did not really have time to drive up and find out let along drive the whole trail as I had conflicting information about the typical time it takes to drive it. Like I said we are running out of time. We drove to Ophir pass and ended up in Telluride for lunch. We chose very poorly for lunch and it was barely fair food for a lot of money. But the drive up to Bridal vail pass was interesting (in the rain). Lots of people and rain so we headed out of town toward Cortez as the next few days were forecast to be very wet. Stayed at the Mesa Verde NP. The best part of the park was closed because of road construction and the camping was fair and expensive, if we had to do it over knowing what we do now we’d have camped at one of the local reservoirs.
Day 11: Headed to 4 corners national monument because you have to stand in 4 states at one time. Disappointed that the entry fee was so steep ($8) and that the monument area had been surrounded by Indian booths selling their stuff. I know it is on their land so they can pretty much do what they want by a big change and surprise for me from when I was there 40 years ago. The bathrooms were all closed with only pit toilets available. Headed off to Northern New Mexico and drove past ShipRock, a rock formation that looks kind of like a ship. We’re headed to Carson National Forest to camp tonight so we hit it hard across the northern NM and southern CO areas. Camped at Cimarron CG. Hiked around the Shuree Ponds area. Rain drove us to bed early.
Day 12: Headed out of camp toward Little Sahara State Park in Oklahoma. Camped at a private campsite of a person we met on Tincup pass, very nice of them. No one at the CGs or the park.
Day 13: Packed up all the heavy gear into the Jeep and headed to the park. Lots of dune driving, some drop offs, little jumps, and fun. We learned that wind blown sand can be very rough to drive over, the Jeep will go through a lot of sand, and it uses a lot of gas running around the dunes. Used my 2781 5.4 CFM Smittybilt pump to put some air into the tires. It worked great and was fast. After airing up we headed off for Arkansas to find a place to camp on the way home. Found a nice Corp Of Engineers place along the Arkansas river just outside of Little Rock.
Day 14: We Packed up and headed for Fort Pickens at Pensacola Beach, FL. We rolled in relatively early, we had to wait for a rain shower to pass before setting up camp. Then headed into town for dinner. After dinner we came back to camp and it was so hot and humid. We did not have a pleasant night. The weather had been so nice and cool the whole trip except for this last night. But it is FL in August.
Day 15: Headed for home on the interstate, thankfully nothing eventful happened. A great trip!! But definitely more off-roading like the Devil’s Puchbowl will be on the agenda for next time and not try to cover so much area. But this trip was about exploring the whole state and learning where to concentrate next time.
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