Recon Mission - Ouray 2000September 2 - Imogene PassFirst
of all, I would like to say it was a great pleasure to meet and spend
time those of you who made it to the 2000 Ouray recon mission. Krista
and I had a great time with ~all y'all~. (that is plural y'all in
case you haven't been in the South much)
We had some things to do to Luna before we left Cortez. Thursday, she got a new battery, wipers and hangers on the tailpipes along with tightening up a few lose screws. We were all loaded and in town getting fuel and groceries by 1300 on Friday. The drive up was nice and Luna pulled the hills on the highway with ease. We were setting up camp at 1630 and wondered where the other Amphitheater campers were. After walking around some and getting an awesome view of Ouray from the campground, we headed back up to camp. As we were walking up the road we heard a familiar rumbling sound that could only come from an AMC V8. Could it be an FSJ? It wasn't long before Jason and his family rolled by on their way in from the day out on the trails. We turned around and walked over to their camp. I was impressed with the stance Jason's 78 Waggy has with the J20 running gear and lift. It sounded like they had a good day out and even experienced some snow flurries at one point on the Engineer trail. We had a short visit with them and headed up to cook supper. The rains came Friday night and we were lucky to stay dry. The air mattress, however, gave us a fit and was close to flat Saturday morning. Yuk. Coffee got brewed early, we loaded Bones the Wondermutt, headed down, gassed up at the Texaco and met everyone at Cecilia s at 0930. Lots of intros were in order along with a bagel and more coffee. The word was Imogene. Krista and I were psyched! Was it the java? Nahhhh.... It must have been close to 1030 before we left town. Just before we got off the asphalt, a stop to air down was in order. It was an impressive line up of Full Size Jeeps!
The
group turned off the trail that heads up to Yankee Boy and crossed
the creek left of the bridge. It was a bit swollen from the rain the
night before. We got some stills and motion video of most the
rigs making the first splash of the day. This kind of trail
was a bit of a challenge for this flatlander. I was used to
running boggy sand beaches and little playing in the Blue Ridge, but
this stuff is different. The hood of an FSJ can hide what is
over the next hump and leave you wondering "does it drop straight
off or is it OK?" We had a lot of fun going up and stopped
for photo ops a few times.
There
was another creek to cross and it had more of a challenge with a drop
off the rocks to the water. Stewart managed to hang the left
rear bumper of his 91 GW on the ledge coming down and couldn't quite
get off the rock with open diffs despite the bouncing a couple of
us did on the frontend. It only took a light tug to get him
off and rolling again. Ethan showed off a bit by taking a different
angle than everyone else and dropped off a steeper ledge into the
creek. He got lined up right and didn't hang on anything though.
Could it be his stealth bumper cam that makes the difference?
Lunch break came at an old mine just above the tree line. The view was awesome.
There was a deep rut diagonal across the trail headed up the last leg. Lynn had managed to get his beautiful Big Red to this point in 2WD, but the rut would not yield until he was locked in 4WD. 
We
all got a great view near the top where a couple rigs were beginning
to experience some rich mixture on the intakes. At this stop,
I walked around all 4 corners checking Luna for any stress and found
my self winded and dizzy. Wow, no wonder some of the rigs were
having a bit of a breathing problem!
One
more short crawl and we were on top Imogene Pass. All I can
say here is ~WOW~! All this time Krista had navigated Luna with
great precision and I must say I am very proud of her. Yeah,
she drives a big Jeep and cooks too! C'mon y'all, I mean that
with the utmost respect. =8-)
 As
for Krista's driving precision comment, we had a good laugh the other
night on the phone... The main reason she thinks she drove so well
was her healthy fear of driving off the trail and bouncing off of
trees and rocks down the mountain side! <grin> As
a matter of fact, Krista was a little concerned about the amount of
space we had at the very top of Imogene and as we drove by the elevation
sign, the roll of cable there got snagged on the rear bumper.
I think the elevation was starting to make our heads a little light.
The group got together at the top and waiting for an opening to start
down the backside. There were some pictures taken here that I hope
come out well.
That
first stretch down the backside looked like a really long haul down
to the first switch back. Don't know about y'all, but the first
time down that piece must make everyone's eyes big and get a tighter
grip on the steering wheel. How about you David? It also
seemed like that trail got pretty narrow at times. Whew, that is a
long drop down. I believe David was having some trouble with
his QT kicking outa low range to neutral and he had to stand on the
brakes pretty hard coming down. That would be a challenge because
using low-low was pretty handy in keeping the pace nice and slow.
The views coming into Telluride are pretty incredible. Words
can not explain the beauty really, nor can pictures. There are
clear images in my head though! The traffic got kind of thick
nearer the bottom and it took a while to get into town. We all
stopped at the Texaco station on the outside edge of town to take
a break and jaw some. It was getting on in the afternoon by
now and there was some talk about what to do next. Stewart
had been having some stalling problems coming off Imogene and other
folks had a full day. So we split up and Jason & family,
Lynn's crew, Ethan and Krista & I decided to take Ophir Pass trail
back over to highway 550 before calling it a day.
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