With all the mods to Rick's Explorer he will be able to drive over French Creek with style. The biggest rocks on the far right side never move, if you are double locked and have decent approach angle with a crawler T-case (like an atlas or Marlin) hit one with each tire, straddling the gap, and it will pop over with ease. Small lifts with bad angle can't do this. The other option is to the left, the rocks move with the snowmelt and other trucks, the little guys have fun there. There is a nice shackle drilled into the rock above the obstacle for a winch mount. The trail is fairly easy after that to the city unless it has rained. An off-camber section before the old mill will pitch you left near the trail edge if it is wet. Next is the mud bog which has been getting tamer and tamer each year, plus it has winch points. Now for the fun part. Big Dawgs go up past the city (shacks & foundations) and hang right. Go past a few hard spots next to some tailings and get out and look at what you are about to attempt. Commit or turn around as it is hard to back out. Obstacle 1 is an off camber that WILL roll your truck if it is top heavy or has poor articulation (i.e. TTB). Obstacle 2 has two routes. One is a 50-60 degree slab, drivable when dry, and the other is a four tier rock wall. Pick your line carefully or major damage will happen here, particularly on the way down if you make it up. This is where Avalanche Engineerings Bruiser rolled last summer. I personally don't think any Ex would make it over this w/o damage of some sort. Obstacle 3 is a set of slabs and ledges, lockers and ground clearance required. If you get past these 3 then you will most likely make it to the Holy Cross wilderness boundry. A short hike takes you to a nice lake with a great view. All the obstacles above the city have multiple winch points to help. The winch points on #2 will keep you from doing an endo on the way down. Rick has to try these, like I said the only vehicles I'v ever seen or heard of going up are jeeps, Toyotas, and Customs. I personally like my Navajo too much to roll it on this trail so it has never gone past French Creek. Thats where the 84 Toy Crawler I built plays. This trail is tough and the reason it breaks parts is because it is so accessible to vehicles that have no business on it. You can do it with 31's but you will bash your vehicle, if you don't have a locker, forget about it. Have fun, I might crawl up there in the Toy to watch this one.
Oh, the reason I know so much about this trail is simple, I live in the Vail area and actually camped out for 6 weeks near the trail head, driving up it each night till it got dark- that's another challenge. I've been to the city four or so times and the the boundry only once. Later.
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Char is going to be in Chicago that weekend.
