Blog

We woke up to snow, camped in the East Troublesome Fire, near Stillwater Pass, but it was just a dusting. We finished up the loop and aired up when we hit the pavement. Today we’d be headed south in search of more aspen, through Leadville and hoping to find a camp south of there.

We planned to see about picking up some drive by pie in Grandby we heard about, and we pulled into town right at opening time. The proprietor had a slice of blueberry ready to go for us, and easily talked me into a butterscotch cookie to go along with the pie. If you are near Grandby, make sure to stop for pie!

After a pie side trip we were headed south. Jones Pass was our next stop. With snow and a low cloud deck we decided to turn around before we reached the pass, as we’d basically be admiring the 100′ view (or lack thereof) in the fog, but it was still a neat little side excursion. Jones Pass tops out at 12,454 feet but we probably didn’t quite hit 12k before we turned around. There’s some tight switchbacks and narrow sections on the way up, and a few switchbacks we didn’t have the turning radius without doing a 3 point turn.

From Jones Pass we continued south through Leadville. Leadville is the highest incorporated city in the US. It appeared to have quite an interesting historic city center, but we didn’t have the time or inclination to check it all out. Maybe sometime when there isn’t a pandemic on we’ll re-visit some of the mining history of the area.

We continued south a short distance to the Twin Lakes area and found a side road we were hoping had prospects of a dispersed camp. The first several options we found were full (thankfully), but as we continued up the road we stumbled on one with a great view of the mountains and a neat beaver pond. We were home for the night. A lot of the aspen was past its prime, but that just provided a better view of the fresh snow on the mountains.

It was our last night with the Tiger. We planned for a big last day estimating drive time to see it all and still get the rig turned in on time and make our flight. We were up before dawn and hit the road as the sun was just kissing the peaks on the Continental Divide.

We headed over Independence Pass en route to the Maroon Bells. We didn’t really know much about them, but heard they were a must see, and they were just a hop skip and jump from camp (1.5 hours over the snowy pass). It was a magical drive with almost nobody on the road and million dollar views in every direction.

The Maroon Bells weren’t bad either. Apparently they are sedimentary mountains in a sea of granite. The fresh snow gave them a great look, and there was still some gold on the aspens. Once we arrived we started seeing signs saying we needed a reservation, but only once we were out of cell service. So we continued up the road, and apparently there was space for us to park, and our America the Beautiful Pass even let us bypass the $10 fee. Up we went for the obligatory photo. I felt like I was in full tourist mode, but needing to cover the ground back to Golden we didn’t have time to explore more than that.

We headed back the way we came (back over Independence Pass), then enjoyed a Sunday brunch on the camp stove alongside the Arkansas River before heading over Weston Pass. Weston Pass had some neat abandoned cabins and lots of vacant dispersed camps that deserved another night, but alas, our time in Colorado had come to an end. Back to Golden we went, turned in the Tiger, and braved the massive crowds of the Denver airport.

In our upcoming and final installment on our trip to test the Tiger we’ll do a walk around of the truck and a few thoughts about our experience over the four days we had to test it out. Hint: we loved it….