Colorado Colors Run 2000

[rpenner54]

Originally posted by Char
Hey, where are you guys getting those neat smilies from? Is there a web page that shows more than what Rick has posted? Tell me where, oh where are the smilies at? The one with the biggie smile. Oh wait, that's a different song.

Okay Char here is where they are all at... All kinds of good ones and even bad ones. LOL http://www.pirate4x4.com Its my next favorite web site! I think there are all kinds of differn't ones Rick could "steal" from there. I am sure Lance would be cool with it knowing him.

 

[GJarrett]

Smilies

Yep, when Rick got the new server I begged him to put in Dead Link Removed and I was totally ignored. Really hurt my feelings. So now we are shamelessly plagairizing them from the POR board. It would still be cool to have our own (hint)

PS: Char, if you want more smilies here's some for you:

Dead Link Removed



Dead Link Removed



[Edited by GJarrett on 08-04-2000 at 08:08 AM]

 

[Gofast]

Kids!

Perry, I'm bringing the whole crew this trip. I will have my Daughter 11, and Son 10.

Also may have another couple coming with thier daughters, but not sure yet. He has an experimental open top Explorer ( Jeep ) , but I told him he could follow us if he wanted. He's new to offroading and I wanted him to start out with a good experiance. After watching my Moab video's he decided to lift his Jeep.

Anyway, We'll see you guys there.

 

[Rick]

I think my last question probably got lost once the page switched over. Is there any type of a sked for the weekend? I was just wondering which trails are going to be run.

Also, what about a group dinner?

Oh and Gerald... I added : bounce : to the smilie list

[Edited by Rick on 08-04-2000 at 10:23 AM]

 

[Dennis Myers]

I am all for a group dinner, but we will not be arriving until Saturday I would like to have it on Saturday or Sunday night. Would the campground be the best place?

 

[Scott B.]

Schedule and Group Dinner

We could have a group dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Ya gotta eat, right?

As for the schedule, I'm planning to look through my guidebook this weekend, and figure out what some good rides will be. I know I want to do the Alpine Loop - not very technical, but great scenery!

I'm thinking we'll set out in the morning, and return in the evening, having lunch on the trail. Is this what others are thinking/planning for?

We have about 15 trucks signed up, so we could all stay together. Maybe we could run 1 day on a moderate ride, as a group, then if some want to do more extreme stuff, we can split up, and meet back in town for dinner.

Just throwing out ideas, to get people thinking ....

Only 27 more days ........

 

[tdavis]

well.. I'm thinking about it.

I want a camp spot, but I haven't done anything yet. Not sure if I can go (I'll know more in about a week or two.) I'm small, so I don't think it's a major problem.

I'm also in the same boat as ray. Bad place to live to get to this part of colorado.. (can you say "drive all over?")

 

[GJarrett]

Rick, THANKS !!!

YIPPEE !!!

Schedule

Sorry your question got lost, Rick. I am also pretty sure there will be many wanting to do the Alpine Loop.

I will study the book tonight and look at trail difficulties and estimated times, etc and post on this thread a suggested itinerary for the stock and modifieds tonite or tomorrow, and we can go from there. I'll also re-read the preruns mentioned earlier on this thread.

I'll be in Ouray Thursday nite and be available for preruns all day Friday to get an idea for Sat and Sun.

For dinners, we have already talked about a potluck cookout at the KOA. I would like to do that one night and have a real sit-down restaurant dinner the other night. I suggest Saturday at the KOA while we are still full of energy and the restaurant dinner on Sunday. Or if there will be plenty of us already there Friday nite we can move both dinners up one night and do the restaurant Saturday nite. That might be better.

I have the Ouray chamber of commerce packet and will look at the restaurant options tonight and post that info tomorrow also.

How's that sound for a start?

PS: Scott, yes, we nearly always have lunch on the trail.



[Edited by GJarrett on 08-04-2000 at 01:46 PM]

 

[Gofast]

Group Dinners....

I'm very much in favor of having a group dinner. I think maybe the gather around the campfire deal would be real cool too. Maybe we want to have everyone bring what they want to cook ( or bring there pizza, etc ) and gather around the old campfire at night.

The only tough deal on Dinner at a restruant is the caos associated with 30+ people wanting to eat togather.

(Pretend Bouncy thingy, since I don't know that code yet)
There's a real one for you, Rob. The code is : bounce : but leave out the spaces.

Should we help haul those poor Texans down from that hill in Silverton?

[Edited by Char on 08-04-2000 at 02:57 PM]

 

[Scott B.]

Alpine Loop

I wonder if the heep and Dodge of the Texas brothers will still be there when we pass by?

 

[wabbit]

OK let's see a show of hands on who's gonna run Black Bear Pass???

(quickly sits on both hands to restrain any compulsive hand-raising twitches...)
I not gonna be on this one but I'm sure some of you thrill-seekers are burning to check it out. Black Bear pass is legendary, stories, songs,etc. As I understand it, (which may be totally wrong), it's not so much the technical obstacles as much as the "emotional obstacle" of being able to keep your cool. Keeping your rig in exactly the position you want it with the keen understanding that one foot left of good equals 500 feet down... bad...
I'm sure adequate clearance is necessary on Black Bear through a few of the obstacles, so this pass should be on the "modified" route.
Add to the tasty trails for modifieds, Poughkeepsie Gulch. Ascending this route is specifically forbidden in all of the local Jeep rental contracts... nuff' said.
Also, my gears are grinding on the group dinner thing. Are we looking at around 30 heads? The True Grit in Ridgeway may be a good choice. They have a nice upstairs area that we may be able to reserve. Hmmm, before I start calling for a "hard count" I'll give them a ring and see how they work large groups.


[Edited by wabbit on 08-04-2000 at 02:54 PM]

 

[Rick]

Warren the True Grit was a really nice place for a group of hard core off-roaders. If it was good enough for John Wayne, it's good enough for us

Pot luck at KOA sounds great!

Man I'm getting excited! I have steering on my Explorer

 

[Perry]

which trail

If our vote counts we vote to do at least the Alpine loop. It is always nice to be able to do a round trip without having to go over the same trail twice. It looks like that is a day trip in it's self.

The potluck sounds good to us also. To bad there wasn't a good buffet place in Ridgeway or Ouray.

Patrick is all excited to hear there will be other kids going with.

Has anybody done the Black Bear pass before???
Do you have to have lockers to do it????
We don't have lockers, but have the lift.

 

[Ray Lobato]

Now Gerald, why does it not supprise me that you are going to do, er, I mean thinking about Black Bear Pass. You know your gonna get me in trouble again and Sandy's not gonna let me talk to you again. I got it, We just won't tell her about it. Isn't there a video that some one did of this trail? I would sure like to see it first.

 

[GJarrett]

PRELIMINARY Run Schedule

I base this on early feedback from the ETA thread and participant info.

How's this sound:

Friday afternoon/evening, Yankee Boy Basin (Trail #2), listed as the easiest of the moderate trails. Good place to show the stockers early on they can do more than they think they can, and has a couple of more moderate/difficult forks at the end that the modifieds and Big Dawgs can play on.

Saturday: a chance to run moderate and extreme trails separately in the morning and still meet up by lunchtime to finish the day together.

Group One runs Ophir Pass (Trail #5) -- a little more moderate than the previous day's Yankee Boy Basin -- and takes it to Telluride. Meanwhile, Group Two tackles Black Bear Pass to Telluride. Then both groups meet in Telluride and take Imogene Pass back to Ouray. The last part of Imogene Pass will be familiar since it is the road to Yankee Boy Basin from the previous day.

Sunday: Alpine Loop. Whole group begins on Engineer Pass (Trail #7). The Big Dawgs take a side trip to Poughkeepsie Gulch 2.4 miles into the trail, take California Gulch (#12) paralleling Engineer Pass, eventually looping back onto Engineer Pass 7.1 miles into the trail via Animas Forks, at which point they will probably be about an hour behind the group that stayed on Engineer. Engineer Pass is one of the more difficult moderate trails and the first group may be taking it a little slow. I am thinking both groups would still be within CB range of each other shortly; and once back on Engineer Pass the Big Dawgs won't have much trouble catching back up to the stockers. Then we all finish the Alpine Loop together on Cinnamon Pass. Read my post on the next page of this thread suggesting how we can extend this day's Alpine Loop excursion into a night run.

Monday would be a free-for-all for wherever we decide to go that morning when individuals look the book over and find trails they are interested in; maybe two or three groups depending on interest. There are several other interesting looking trails. Also, anytime we finish early Saturday or Sunday we could go off to one of the other trails, or take them as side trips, such as turning onto to Wager Gulch from Cinnamon Pass if we look to be ahead of schedule on Sunday.

This is just a first idea, but IMHO not a bad one to start the brainstorming with. Whaddya think? Pull your books out. Study the trails, difficulties, estimated times, distance, junctions, etc, and let me know what you think.

[Edited by GJarrett on 08-11-2000 at 06:32 PM]

 

[wabbit]

Sounds good Gerald...

Yankee Boy Basin would be a great place to start on Friday. And, for any late comers, it is very close to Ouray and easy to find so meeting up with the group already in Yankee Boy would be no problem. IMHO, Yankee Boy Basin is one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Saturday looks good too. Meeting in Telluride will be fun. Telluride has free public transportation by means of a gondola that is strung from Telluride to Mountain Village (main ski area). This is a cool ride for adults and kids alike. Also, during Labor Day weekend, the 27th Telluride Film Festival will be going on. We may see some celebrities strolling through town. I'm a thinkin' that a big group of Explorers parading through town warrants some degree of celebrity status... The weekend before Labor Day (darn it!!) is the Airmen's Rendezvous which is a world invitational hang gliding competition.
Coming back over Imogene will be awesome!! Imogene is the second highest pass in Colorado at 13'114 ft. Top of the world...
On Sunday, the alpine loop offers many options for trails. Entry will be through the start of Engineer Pass above Ouray. As I have said before (and Brian1 will attest), the first part is pretty rough but can be traversed with care. We gotta get through this part to have access to all the other trails in this area.
I expect some schedule adjustments will be made but Gerald has come up with an excellent base plan.
I will see about posting some pictures of these passes in a seperate thread for everyone to get a sneak preview of what we are in for.

Warren

 

[mmpc]

That's a great point about the Film Festival - do you think we'll even be able to "parade" through town? I see from their web site that they're expecting at least 5,000 people to partake during the weekend! The information also says that streets in Telluride are frequently blocked off for certain events. Something to keep in mind...

 

[Brian1]

Gerald, sounds like a great plan to me. Yes the CB's will go from Engineer to Animas Forks to Pougespke (I dont know how to spell it) Gulch on a fair day. It took me from 8 in the morning to about 4 in the afternoon to do the Alpine Loop at a slow and enjoyable pace.

 

[GJarrett]

Night Run Idea

Before I mention the night run: Chris, I'll contact Telluride's C of C and make sure we can get through that day.

Night Run Idea
Since Brian mentioned that the full Alpine Loop took 8 hrs at a leisurely pace, I say we enjoy the entire day and also take in the short side trip to Nellie Creek (#14) and later on to the side trip to Wager Gulch (#18). The two side trips will add 2.5+ hours to the loop. Call it 4+ hours with the extra hour for the side trip the Big Dawgs take to Poughkeepsie Gulch (I know Poughkeepsie will take over an hour; but it meets up with the trail further down and I don't think the group will be more than an hour behind the first group staying on the loop). So an 8am - 4pm run could turn into a 8pm - 9pm run. Once the sun sets we can put Matt "Las Vegas" Adams up front to light the countryside and we finish Cinnamon Pass into Ouray at nightfall, covering the last part of the loop over land we had traversed that morning and will be a little familiar with.

Problems: this is a long entire day on the trail; eating both lunch and dinner on the way. Maybe lunch in Lake City to take a short rest if there is a fast food place like a McDonald's to raid there. Dinner would certainly be out on the trail somewhere. This may be a bit much to try to take on in a single day. But it will result in a night run, albeit forcing all of us on it.

Also, this will affect other scheduling. Obviously we won't be having a group dinner at a restaurant so this will lock down our dinner plans, placing the KOA cookout on Friday nite and the group dinner on Saturday nite; though that is probably what we will schedule anyway.

I expect this idea to get shot down but am offering it as food for thought.

Gerald

[Edited by GJarrett on 08-05-2000 at 03:43 PM]

 

[Scott B.]

Night Run Consideration

One thing to consider, especially for a night run, is the weather. Rain, snow, cold, all that good stuff. Dinner on the trail will require a lot more preparation from all involved.

Not saying I don't want to do this, only offering more food for thought....