As Wells puts it in his Guide
to Colorado Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails, Saxton is "the toughest easy trail
in the book." It can be driven in a stock truck, but a novice driver may find it
to be a handful. There are rocky sections with loose rocks up to 8" tall. Unfortunately,
I didn't finish this write up until two years after the fact, so details on this run
will be slim.
We met up with several members of the
Explorer 4x4 group, including
Perry, Terry and Patrick in their big purple monster, Matt Adams, Chris and Jen Woodley,
Marshall, Heath and Tara, and Darren (StadX2). We ran the trail the opposite direction from
what is in the trail book, and made it less than half way due to late season snows. |
 |
With Matt Adams in the lead, we ran up the first few miles of the trail, including the
stomach-churning switchbacks (pictured later). At the first good over look we took
a break. You can see that Marshall has the same affinity for difficult parking places
that I have. Darren's newly installed electric engine fan was not running
so while a few of us poked and prodded his wiring, the rest took in the views.
Around the next bend we found our first banks of snow. Breaking through was not a problem
as the show was only a few inches deep. But, then again, Heath did manage to get stuck...
TWICE. (If anyone has pictures of this part, please send them!) |
 |
| There is a couple of old mines along this trail. We stopped at one of these for
lunch. The weather was great. Par for Colorado, it had snowed the week before, but quickly
got up into the 70's for our run. Most participants went home with sunburns. |
 |
| Before we even hit the halfway mark, we found the snow we'd been dreading. The trail was
covered in very wet, hard, melting snow. Matt and I hiked a ways up into the snow. The
bank we'd have to break through was about 50 yards long and about 2 feet deep. I volunteered
to try breaking through. With Matt and his winch behind me, BamBam gave it all he had. |
| |
Next >>
Back to WHEELIN' |