The Best 4x4 Trip From Hell Ever

Note: Many thanks to Trent for helping out with the timing and details in this story. It certainly wouldn't have been as entertaining without him!

It's getting fuzzy in the past, so it's time to write about it, before it completely fades away� The summers of '93 and '94, my first in Colorado, were pretty full of army stuff and deployments. In between most of those, we had weekends! A small cadre of young officers from (then) 2-12 Infantry took it upon ourselves to explore as much of Colorado as possible on those weekends. This is one of our stories.

I was one of the latecomers to the group; the other group members were in general a year ahead of me (seniority) and had formed a pretty tight group by the time I arrived. I was fortunate enough to land in Alpha company, right next door to Trent. It took a little work on his part, but I started doing some of the group things (although I never did make the leap to the Dark Side they kept hoping for). The two important (most notable) group activities were adventure 4x4 trips to remote passes and ghost towns, and the inevitable followup dinner/drink fests at Old Chicago's downtown. I'd been to some neat ghost towns and backcountry roads around mostly the SW corner of the state as a kid, and was pretty excited to see the rest now.

Several fun trips all over the central part of the state got us warmed up and ready for an epic, and let us make some decent friends. Driving up 14ers on old mining roads, hitting hard baby-head trails around Aspen, camping and climbing (the free stupid kind) wherever we could find rocks, getting shot at, or just finding nice views at passes; these were the goals and objectives. Just to have fun.

We resolved in late summer '94 to make a last good, big trip with the largest group we'd had, and John Harris wanted to visit one of his old favorites, Carson. This long trip would take us almost to 4 Corners through the middle of the San Juan mountains, in my long-standing view the prettiest mountains in the state. They also have the largest concentration of still-remaining ghost towns, probably due to both the huge amounts of ore in those mountains and the long distance from all the city-dwellers in Denver. I'm disappointed to say that some of the stuff we saw isn't there anymore, from both weather and vandalism, but that's another story for another story.

I had typically ridden my XR250R enduro dirt bike on our trips, but this one looked to be much longer than the others; I opted to ride in the back of John and Amy's Scout II with their dogs. It was a fantastic old piece of crap International, in the original fading orange. I've always been much more minimalist in my 4x4ing/camping than many others; they had a huge old-fashioned stand-up tent with a separate polebag (probably 80 pounds of tent that could sleep like 10 people plus the dogs) and air mattress; my little army rucksack with sleeping bag and a poncho to tie to the side of the truck was much smaller, but it was still pretty crowded. Trent was in his jeep with Trevor & Tala (their first weekend of official dating), his roommates John & Jay in their Jeep Wrangler, Christina, Stacy, Lee, and Joe and brand-new Pathfinder; and we were to meet two more, Wendy and Tim, in Lake City later in the day.

Our first day of travel was to be to Carson directly; and, wanting to avoid as much pavement as possible, we decided to take a left off of 50 somewhere around Saguache and head overland through Slumgullion Pass (and the mighty Slumgullion flow) to Lake City. We left John's quarters on south Fort Carson Saturday morning in a long caravan, heading down 115 to 50, and through Big Horn Sheep canyon. It was a pleasant enough day, but pavement gets boring quickly. After a couple of hours we'd passed over Monarch Pass on the continental divide, and were approaching Sargents; the map showed that we needed to take a left onto an obscure dirt road, go five or six miles, and hit the Slumgullion Pass road (at least 60 miles from its terminus in Lake City, maybe more).

We made one of our first group halts at the turn onto Slumgullion road; Trent was yelling at his roommates through his window; they'd already drank all of his first days' supply of beer, at least a case! We would barely have enough to get the rest of us through the day, and we'd probably have to stop in Lake City to pick up more before making camp. There's a different way of measuring distance when you're 4x4ing, see: the odometer doesn't count. Time and space are measured in beers. E.G. How much farther? Two beers. How long have we been on this trail? Three beers. Trevor threw off our time table by bringing the big Sapporro beers and we weren't sure how far we had gone. The rough distance from CoSpgs to Monarch Pass and down the back side is eight beers, give or take. Distances on dirt roads (where it's really just a suggestion not to drink) are about half that of paved roads, or in other words the beer gets gone through twice as quickly. Ah, to be young and stupid again. I don't think anyone else witnessed the first fun part of the trip. Trent had stopped at the first turn for a beer & bladder break; Tala was asleep in the back seat, and Trevor asleep shotgun. Trent drove off at a high rate of speed, and tried to take a corner on the dirt road a bit too fast. He went off the edge, at full power, and impaled his jeep's front bumper on a stump, destroying one fog light. Tala bounced up into the front seat and into Trevor's lap, and then Trent was bumped into her lap. Trevor woke up with two people on his lap in the front passenger seat, and said, "Get off me," in the voice only someone who's just been woken up rudely can muster. For some reason we only heard about this on the CB for an hour or so. A missing (presumed destroyed) fog light, and a slow leak in the driver's side rear tire were the primary result, but by the time they stopped at the bottom Trent had spilled his beer and both Trent and Tala (from the back seat) had ended up in Trevor's lap. Keep track of these tallies. They get outrageous. Trent and Trevor replaced the tire at a beer break, and then�

About an hour down the road we all stopped; the Scout was out of gas. Hmm. Should've checked that back in Sargents, I guess. Trent immediately volunteered for a forward recon to obtain new gas (remember, he needed a new tire, as well), and off he (and Trevor, and Tala) went. Being mostly self-sufficient, we felt obligated to fix it and meet him halfway. Well, we were on a high plateau, but fortunately only about a quarter mile past a farmhouse. No one was carrying extra fuel in those days, so we wandered over to the house to see if there was anyone there. No luck. But, wait! There's a garden hose that's not being used! Borrowing the middle section of the hose, we wandered back up to the vehicles, intending to siphon a bit of fuel from one of the less-guzzling trucks. Christina's Pathfinder seemed to be the best off, so we inserted one end of the hose into her tank and started trying to get some flow. I think we got a couple of gallons out, which we estimated would get us down to Lake City. No problems.

Until we tried to extricate the hose from the tank of the Pathfinder. These trucks apparently have some sort of anti-theft device inside the tanks that keeps a hose pushed into them stuck there with little teeth! An hour of taking apart the rear panels of the new Pathfinder (no, Christina wasn't real happy with us), and we were about ready to go again. I'll fast forward a bit for the sake of brevity; John & Jay's wrangler had two more flats in the next 30 miles, probably due to detritus and nails in the road; we stopped and replaced one with a spare and used Fix-a-Flat on the other, then bought new ones when we (finally) reached Lake City. Trent's first gas-run (and tire replacement) run took them down Slumgullion at an insane rate, scaring the beejesus out of a poor old couple by taking a 20mph curve at 70 in his jeep. (There's something about a 9mm and a cow in here somewhere, too�) A bit later, as we were all ('cept for Trent, still on the gas run) truckin' along again, the near-unthinkable happened. Again. Our earlier thoughts turned out to be a poor estimation, as we ran out of gas again about 25 miles further along the road, this time in a narrow section of road flanked on the right by a rock wall. I decided to go climb up above the trucks for a few minutes, as we waited for Trent's gas refill to arrive. At least we made it a bit further along the road. Joe decided this was a good time to take his rifle and start taking potshots at the cliff. At least the girls weren't too amused. Nor I, but the guys all seemed to think it was a hoot, me climbing away and Joe plinking away at the wall next to me. We made it down to Lake City without further real incident, although another story needs to be told here:

The whole time Trent and Trevor were on their gas run (and indeed, before!) they were chewing Copenhagen and spitting (they thought) out the windows of the speeding jeep. Tala, in the back seat, was getting little spittles all over her for about 4 hours, and she didn't let them even know until they finally arrived at Lake City! At the end of their speed-run down the Slumgullion curves on two wheels, Tala got out of the jeep, walked to the back, opened the glass, and in both hands got a beer and guzzled it down, looking a little shaken; Trevor reportedly told Trent, "Please don't do that stuff again when she's in the jeep with us." Not not to do it, just not when she was in the car! In Trent's words, "She was quite a tolerant trooper." As Trent was driving down for gas for the Scout, he came up behind a local beat-up pickup hogging the middle of the road; it wouldn't let him pass, and eventually apparently got sick of his attempts. The passenger in the truck pulled a handgun out of the glove box and handed it to the driver. Trent backed off a little, but only to start passing out firearms to the jeep's occupants. It was not a generally good idea to mess with this group in those days; I want to say that vehicle alone had an AR-15, a 30.06, a 12 gauge pistolgrip pump, and a couple of Glock 9mm handguns. Well, they disappeared before Trent could catch back up to them (probably best for all), but as we all continued down the road to Lake City we all had something more-or-less ready to go in the vehicles.

In Lake City we all met up with Wendy and Tim, who had stayed down below and missed all the first day's adventures; we met them when we all came down, picked up some more beer (and of course new tires), and headed about 10 miles south of town and up another obscure road leading to the little-known ghost town of Carson. Probably New Carson, actually. Joe surfed the top of one of the trucks up the pass (Which direction has right-of-way again? We wondered as we went up past other 4x4s. Probably annoyed some people that day), leaving poor hapless Lee to be hit on by the, um, slightly larger passenger, Stacy. Old Carson is much higher in the bowl, up by the saddle headwall in a cold and windy pass, but there's nothing left of it now. In those days Carson was still unprotected and in pretty good natural shape; the remains of an old barn that has since fallen and been used for firewood and an old waterwheel were still evident. We explored carefully and set up the couple of tents (I tied my poncho to the car later that night and slept outside). It's a pretty neat place with lots of history; now they've done some preservation work and put tin roofs on the still-standing buildings so we can all enjoy it for a few more years.

Our goal the following day was to get to Ouray or a bit farther, following Cinnamon Pass over to Animas Forks, Eureka, and Silverton, and then to take the Million Dollar Highway (US550) over to Ouray, but the weather being what it was, Tim, Wendy, Christina, Tala, Stacy, and Joe turned and ran home. Lee hopped into the backseat of Trent's jeep. Those who left missed the real adventures to follow! It was a chill and wet day, and I was very happy I wasn't on my dirt bike. Unfortunately the clouds and rain kept us from seeing some of the great scenery along the way, like American Basin (which is definitely worth a trip in and of itself). As we came down the west side of the pass and into the Animas Forks area, we ran into the first herds of sheep. The sheepherders take them out all over the western San Juans for the summer and fall to graze, and live up high in tents following the flocks about. We unfortunately (again) had a video camera with us; Trevor, free of his girlfriend Tala, got a little crazy in a meadow and started chasing the sheep around, his pants around his ankles. I sure hope that tape was preserved for posterity. Oh, and the Scout hit a nasty bumpy patch (imagine that, on Cinnamon Pass!), and Amy, this time in the back seat with the dogs, went clear out of the seat, hit her head on the hardtop, and came down again with one cheek on a bar in the seat. She was a bit tender (and kept reminding us of it), but John was way impressed with his wife's bruise, to the point of making her share it with everyone else! I've never seen a bruise as big as she had! Amy was terrific through all of the misery that followed, however, a testament to (obviously) the training we army guys had instilled in her.

It was just too wet to explore the ghost towns that day, so we drove around through them slowly, shivering. It rained all day as we headed down out of the mountains, into Silverton, and over the hardball pass to Ouray. We drove southwest out of town just before the entrance to box canyon, on the road to Yankee Girl and Imogene Pass (the most scenic way to get to Telluride). Not wanting to carry on over the pass in rain, we stopped before sundown just before treeline in a small turnout (just barely large enough for our trucks). We started trying to find dry wood, nearly impossible after the large amount of water that had fallen, and built a small fire ring backed up against a large rock (hoping for a reflector-like effect). As all 8 of us huddled around the sputtering fire, the porous rocks heated up and started breaking, occasionally exploding small fragments at us. Oww. Oww! Ow. We put on our sunglasses and kept close to the fire, drawing blood every time a chip hit flesh. It was a chilly and wet night, and we hoped it would be nicer the next day.

It was Monday and we all had to be back at work the next day; the rest of us decided we still had plenty of play-time to explore in, so we packed up and loaded the trucks, on a beautiful clear day. The rain had cleaned all of the haze out of the air and the mountains were crystal clear and gorgeous as we drove around and up to Imogene. At one point the Scout didn't have enough umph to get up a steep slope, so Amy and the dogs and I got out and walked up the pitch; shortly after that we did some impromptu road-building with rocks to defeat a large rock step created by the rain's runoff. Trent and Trevor drove on up to the pass, and came to a locked gate; they called back down to report this discouraging news, and went back to see if they could cut off the lock or blast it. Trent pulled out his 9mm from his Han Solo holster and loaded a round; he aimed at the lock from a somewhat safe distance (oh, maybe 6 feet) and was about to pull the trigger when another jeep pulled around a corner on the correct road (that they'd missed a few minutes earlier). Trent and Trevor looked where the Jeep had come from, and called us back without killing themselves or anyone else. We all linked up at the top of the pass a few minutes later, the rock step negotiated. John and Jay found that the 2 new tires they'd purchased in Lake City had slow leaks, so they called it and headed back down and home to CoSpgs at this point to get another set of replacements.

We (the 6 of us left) descended into Telluride about 10am on Monday; being low on gas, we stopped at the first station we came to (about the only one there). We were a bit hungry, too, so we asked the attendant about food. Is there, like, a McDonald's or something here? We nearly got laughed out of the gas station. Well, it was only our first time there. We didn't know any better.

We snacked on the junk food they sold and drove up to Bridal Veil falls at the far east side of town. We drove about halfway up the steep switchbacks, then decided to come back down. Doing like 9-point turns on the switchbacks with big dropoffs to the rubble fields below the falls scared Amy so much she almost got out of the truck.

Well, it was afternoon now; and, being slightly more responsible than John and I, Trent & Trevor decided to pack it in. With Lee in the jeep, which was packed to within 6 inches of the ceiling with junk, and he lay on top of the stuff for the entire ride back to CoSpgs. John, Amy, the dogs, and I wanted to go to another ghost town or two, so we headed down the road south of Telluride towards Old Ophir. We drove the talus shale road out to 550 where it comes out just south of Red Mountain Pass, one of my childhood favorites. Since I was familiar with this one and it's history, I suggested we pull out to Red Mountain Town and look around. After all, wasn't that why we were on the trip?

We messed around looking about Red Mountain Town (on the south side of the pass) for a half hour or so, and wishing we'd had another hour to explore the north side, got back into the truck. It was an hour and a half ride north to Montrose (with the requisite stops to look at the waterfalls and dropoffs from the Million Dollar Highway), and as we pulled into Montrose it was about 5:30pm and getting towards sunset. We quickly grabbed some burgers and headed out east, towards home, but within an hour we were deep into an intense rain and thunderstorm. Well, something must have come loose sometime over the weekend, and we lost all electrical power in the Scout. No lights, no dash lights, no CB, no taillights, no radio. This would make the trip more interesting, we thought.

Fortunately I was still in my survival-mode days, and I pulled out the little all-purpose survival kit I'd put together. The spare fuses in the car kept blowing as we replaced them trying to get headlights, so I took a piece of survival chocolate and ate it. Well, I rolled up the aluminum wrapper and used it as a heavy-duty fuse to we could get power to the headlights. We used the micro tool (knife, mirror, magnifying glass, screwdriver, and the all-important bottle opener) to rewire the CB directly to the headlights. A mini flashlight on the dash could be used by the driver to check his speed every once in a while, and two red chemlights zip-tied to the rear taillights kept us sort-of in compliance with visibility from behind.

We drove on, constantly talking to truckers on the CB ('hey, yeah, I see you; you know your taillights are kind of dim?'), and by the time we approached Monarch we were in a full-blown snowstorm. It got late� John kept driving. I don't think either of us made it to work at 6am the next morning; we didn't pull back into CoSpgs until something like 0300. Such are the things tales are told of for years amongst old drinking buddies.

Oh, forget? We're supposed to be keeping count of the tallies. Here's the final score of mishaps. 5 tires, one gas tank, out-of-gas twice, Amy's bruised butt, multiple cuts from the exploding rocks, Tala's chewspit episodes, (almost) a gate lock, I got shot at, we almost had to (okay, maybe) give some yokels a shooting-back at, and we blew the electrical system in the Scout (turned out to be a ground fault, which the rain exacerbated). And well, there ya go.