XPLOR The Great Divide - Rebels Continental Divide Trip

[RebelOffRoad]

We arrived late at our camp spot just west of Silverton. Clear Lake is beautiful spot located at 12,000 ft. We met up with Ray from Exploration Outfitters that evening and called it early so we could wake up and get on the road to Black Bear Pass and Imogene. When we rolled in that evening we didn't realize we had camped on edge of such a beautiful lake. The next morning we headed back down the trail get some epic wheeling in.

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[Andtros]

Wow that's awesome- hum at some point I'll have to take my wife to that area- She loves waterfalls

 

[RebelOffRoad]

Wow that's awesome- hum at some point I'll have to take my wife to that area- She loves waterfalls

There's almost an endless amount of them there. We're not use to all the water coming from California.

 

[RebelOffRoad]

On our way up to Silverton we ran into some heavy rain which produced this awesome double rainbow over Taylor's JT.

 

[RebelOffRoad]

Here's a few photos taken with my iPhone of our stay up at Clear Lake. That morning was a special one waking up to such a beaufiful sight hidden the night before by darkness. The lake was so calm that it provided an excellent reflection of our vehicles and mountains. The drive anticpation grew as we headed down the mountains towards Silverton where we would fuel up/grab breakfast and make our way back to Black Bear Pass.

 

[RebelOffRoad]

We arrived at the trail head for Black Bear Pass where we pulled off to air down all our vehicles. Heading up the trail we came across a large group of sheep enjoying their lunch on the mountain wildflowers and grass.

As we made our way down the mountain towards the switch backs we came across a narrow section. All three of our Gladiators had wider axles and big tires. One side had a high rock ledge that if you got to close would produce some fun body damage. To the left was a pretty steep cliff leading to a beautiful waterfall. We kept as close as we could to the right using the tires to judge how close we could hug up against the ledge.

Once through this ridge we hung to the right, came down and were finally greeted with a less stressful view of the waterfall from above. We ran into a couple that we're locals back home to us. They ended up joining us as we made our long decent down the Telluride side of never ending switchbacks. Now the Gladiators didn't enjoy these. They took about 4-5 attempts of driving way to close to the edge and pushing our beds back into the mountain side. We had Bond out of the vehicle spotting us as we needed every inch we could squeeze out to try and make it quickly through the switchbacks.

 

[jurfie]

Awesome photos! What's the story of that house/building on top of the waterfall? And is it for sale?? I want to live there.

 

[RebelOffRoad]

Awesome photos! What's the story of that house/building on top of the waterfall? And is it for sale?? I want to live there.

Check out this link to learn a little more about the Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Power Plant - https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/smuggler-union-hydroelectric-power-plant

 

[jwalt]

This looks awesome. I need to go there and retrace your steps. Thanks for the pictures!

 

[amenges]

Repainted the propane tann

Can you recommend a good spot to park a trailer in Silverton when we do Black Bear Pass. One of our party members is bringing a Patriot Trailer.

Sorry for the late reply We were out camping on the outer Banks. Animas is the best place

 

[Yossarian]

I love going up to Clear Lake. It is one of my favorite places when I am Jeepin in Colorado.

 

[Klutch]

Looks like you guys had a lot of rain. Things are now much different in Colorado. We've got multiple wildfires with smoke everywhere and a state-wide fire ban. I'm waiting for some rain so I can go camping again. And actually have a camp fire.

 

[Berserker]

Fantastic journey- thanks for sharing! That section of Colorado is my favorite to explore. I went through there on the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route in my '13 JK. I'm looking forward to giving it a go with my JT. To-date, are there any sections of trail you ran that you felt your suspension and tire upgrades were absolutely necessary? Thanks again for sharing your awesome builds and trip inspiration.

 

[RebelOffRoad]

Fantastic journey- thanks for sharing! That section of Colorado is my favorite to explore. I went through there on the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route in my '13 JK. I'm looking forward to giving it a go with my JT. To-date, are there any sections of trail you ran that you felt your suspension and tire upgrades were absolutely necessary? Thanks again for sharing your awesome builds and trip inspiration.

I would say the trails that we did Black Bear and Imogene didn't require the suspension setup we had but they definitely made the ride a hell of a lot more comfortable. I've been on these trails in a FJ on coilovers and the ride was night and day.

The rest of the Continental Divide trail was pretty easy for us other than some spots were pretty rough (some of those spots we weren't aired down to the normal 8-12 psi instead we were running 22-28 psi). We just didn't want to be constantly be airing up and down. This was not because of driving on and off of paved roads but how well some of the dirt roads were groomed (Montana).

 

[RebelOffRoad]

Our Cruise Through Stoney Pass, Colorado in Jeep Gladiators


A GoPro timelapse of our trip on Stoney Pass, Colorado as we made our way to an evening camp spot. We were using this trail to connect over to Lake City to jump on the main Continental Divide route.