White knuckle Imogene pass

[MaicoDoug]

Between Ouray & Telluride is a trail known as Imogene pass. It's on All Trails. I wish I had more pictures, but my co pilot was totally freaking out 99% of the time, which was ok, so we simply kept busy working the trail from inside, he never stopped talking constantly, white knuckles you know. Especially when going up to Governors basin passed the washed out point up on the snow. The drop offs are a bummer, at least 800 feet straight down. Not in this picture, I belive at this point Frank was kissing the ground.

The coilover mod is holding up nice, as ever from this trip I honestly would believe if failure would of ever happened, it would of happened on this crazy trail rated "difficult" 4/5. Plus driving a straight 15 hours to Durango from just north of Houston. Only scraped the bottom just slightly twice.

It was the one piece headlights actually.

Just purchased the Lear 122 top for $500. The motor ran cool (as always) in 4wd Low, which is required for the technical up & down saving the brakes in the rockies is mandatory. The M/T Degan 38s worked perfect half worn. The Lastfit 20w fog lights and newly sanded (now clear) covers illuminated the way nicely. It snowed turning the trails white for a half hour. No bugs, no humidity,

My prospector friend & I stopped by the "Yankee Boy" gold mine, he did some panning in the stream, Frank froze his hands in no time but did find some specks in the pan. I climbed up to the top and kicked down some small boulders of nice looking ore, with quarts crystals, ect. Piled them in the back. Slid down on my rear for a hundred feet where the ranger was waiting. The truck. It was a Saturday and the trail was full of some very nice truggies and buggies running 2.5 inch shocks, V6 engines even, not much in the ATV department. Saw some sort of 4 seater, enclosed, looked like a 4WD Cushman, and 2 grandmas riding electric mountain bikes! Dang! Would of loved to have a brew with those gals! Way up at the top, not at the overlook, but in the snow way up the canyon where all but the most technical stuff was.

Silverton was nice as always, we felt alright coming in off the trail needing a hose off, the truck also! Can't wait for the next time. It was a big deal for my friend Frank, he used to own a 4wd XLT, 1989. He loved it, but he had never ever traveled east of Houston, never knew of the Rockies, or nice weather, a real forest, rock hunting yes in N. Carolina, but he's 100% addicted now. It was a real treat to be the usher to some real off roading with a real offroad truck, on the road & off.

Thanks as always the crew here at TRS for all your ongoing help keeping my Ranger launch ready.

Everyone there was smiling and having a great time, no politics, no complaining, now back to civilization, and some more upgrades to the yellow sub, oil pressure, water temp, vacuum, and connecting the forward of the new console to the dash somehow. Plus giving the realtor a call. In a couple of years, I'll live there. Oh yea, that dog gone door rattle is there again, my rubber thingy must of fell off. I hate when that happens -Doug

 

[Uncle Gump]

Between Ouray & Telluride is a trail known as Imogene pass. It's on All Trails. I wish I had more pictures, but my co pilot was totally freaking out 99% of the time, which was ok, so we simply kept busy working the trail from inside, he never stopped talking constantly, white knuckles you know. Especially when going up to Governors basin passed the washed out point up on the snow. The drop offs are a bummer, at least 800 feet straight down. Not in this picture, I belive at this point Frank was kissing the ground.
View attachment 113757

The coilover mod is holding up nice, as ever from this trip I honestly would believe if failure would of ever happened, it would of happened on this crazy trail rated "difficult" 4/5. Plus driving a straight 15 hours to Durango from just north of Houston. Only scraped the bottom just slightly twice.

It was the one piece headlights actually.

Just purchased the Lear 122 top for $500. The motor ran cool (as always) in 4wd Low, which is required for the technical up & down saving the brakes in the rockies is mandatory. The M/T Degan 38s worked perfect half worn. The Lastfit 20w fog lights and newly sanded (now clear) covers illuminated the way nicely. It snowed turning the trails white for a half hour. No bugs, no humidity,

My prospector friend & I stopped by the "Yankee Boy" gold mine, he did some panning in the stream, Frank froze his hands in no time but did find some specks in the pan. I climbed up to the top and kicked down some small boulders of nice looking ore, with quarts crystals, ect. Piled them in the back. Slid down on my rear for a hundred feet where the ranger was waiting. The truck. It was a Saturday and the trail was full of some very nice truggies and buggies running 2.5 inch shocks, V6 engines even, not much in the ATV department. Saw some sort of 4 seater, enclosed, looked like a 4WD Cushman, and 2 grandmas riding electric mountain bikes! Dang! Would of loved to have a brew with those gals! Way up at the top, not at the overlook, but in the snow way up the canyon where all but the most technical stuff was.

Silverton was nice as always, we felt alright coming in off the trail needing a hose off, the truck also! Can't wait for the next time. It was a big deal for my friend Frank, he used to own a 4wd XLT, 1989. He loved it, but he had never ever traveled east of Houston, never knew of the Rockies, or nice weather, a real forest, rock hunting yes in N. Carolina, but he's 100% addicted now. It was a real treat to be the usher to some real off roading with a real offroad truck, on the road & off.

Thanks as always the crew here at TRS for all your ongoing help keeping my Ranger launch ready.

Everyone there was smiling and having a great time, no politics, no complaining, now back to civilization, and some more upgrades to the yellow sub, oil pressure, water temp, vacuum, and connecting the forward of the new console to the dash somehow. Plus giving the realtor a call. In a couple of years, I'll live there. Oh yea, that dog gone door rattle is there again, my rubber thingy must of fell off. I hate when that happens -Doug

Dude... one damn picture?

Glad you had a good time... and made it back home safe. I really want to do a few trips out west.

I'm moving this thread over to the outings and events forum to keep things tidy round here.

 

[Blmpkn]

You westerners are so lucky

The east coast sucks so bad for adventuring.. especially the northeast.

 

[dvdswan]

I love that trail. It's always nice when you can look off the edge of the road and see nothing but a boulder covered slope and an itty bitty vehicle doing a water crossing at the stream below.

Most pictures don't do justice of the slope or degree of the trail.

 

[MaicoDoug]

"Most pictures don't do justice of the slope or degree of the trail. "

...and few words that actually tell the truth. Frank never stopped talking the entire 6 hours on the trail, but the ride home was silent as we both stored up the memories.

 

[MaicoDoug]

More pics are coming

 

[Shran]

Any plans to do more while you're in the area?

We did Ophir, Hancock, & Hagerman passes when we did the CO BDR in 2017. Ophir was short and pretty easy.... Hancock had some cool train stuff but was very rocky on the west end. Hagerman was probably my favorite, very scenic and there is a cool train wreck relic on the west side that is easy to get to. I did them all in a stock Explorer and had very little difficulty but that was also 7 years ago so the trail conditions may be different now.