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Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 - Poughkeepsie Gulch with friends, old and new on Day 2 of the 2010 FJ Summit in Ouray, Colorado
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On Thursday, I lead the 7:30 trail run up Poughkeepsie Gulch (Trail Damage link).
Sandi's friends for this run were
FJinCO (Titanium Metallic with tube doors, colorado mainiac (Iceberg White) and QuicksilverFJ (Titanium Metallic).
Here's a link to the forum thread about this trail run.
Since I was going on this trail run, and wanted some other friends (FJinCO) to join us, I talked em into changing their trail run for this day
the night before. As it turned out, when I went to the trail leaders meeting on Wednesday evening,
only two of us were actually 'officially' signed up for this trail run; QuicksilverFJ and I.
Also as it turned out (found out at the end of the day),
Black Bear (the trail which FJinCO was going to do that day) ended up closed due to a rock slide.
Anyway, since I was the only one that had ever done this trail before, I got the pleasure of leading (the trail run which I had signed up to lead
was the Saturday Imogene one, but I was fine taking lead on this trail too).
We did this one (technically the toughest trail in the Ouray area) last year at the 2009 FJ Summit completely stock.
So, not that Sandi is lifted (ToyTec 3") with bigger tires (285/75/16 Mickey Thompson Baja MTZ) and a good skid plate (All-Phase),
I figured we'd have no trouble.
If you want ALL of my photos from this day, click ---> here <--- (VERY LARGE ZIP FILE)
Here are the shots I chose to post on this page from this day of our trip...
Unfortunately, the day started out a bit bumpy for FJinCO.
After about ninety seconds on the trail,
we heard his voice come over the radio with just this,
"Broke a window" (calm and undeterred from his mountain fun)
We first though it may have had something to do with the tube doors....maybe without the full door,
the vehicle flexed oddly when they went over some rock obstacle they were playing on or something like that.
As it turned out, it was a bungee cord. One of the bungees they had stuff secured to the roof with came loose
on the passenger side, swung over and smashed the driver's side rear seat window.
The interesting thing is how much worse it may have been. Look at this photo and see where the two straps are
which they ended up putting in place of the bungees. If it had been the front one of the two bungees that came loose
he may have gotten a broken face instead (no front window while running with tube doors).
One thing we didn't actually notice until later that day was that the window was completely shattered (like auto glass is designed for).
At first, they were just going to put a few pieces of tape across, and didn't put any on the inside, but ended up finishing that
part later to avoid having little glass particles all over the place on the inside.
Man, what a crazy way to start your first Summit trail run. At least they had a good attitude about it.
I guess I don't have to say this, but here's a waterfall
(maybe someone will find it if they're searching for waterfalls on Google).
This is the mud pit at the turn for Poughkeepsie Gulch (Iceberg's rear points the direction we're going next).
Rollin again
ha ha, another waterfall :-)
Oh, did I mention this place is extremely beautiful?
Even on a dreary, cloudy, rainy day like we had, it was still amazing.
JammerGirl checking out the flowers on way back from potty break
Here are FJinCO and QuicksilverFJ at the dry creek spot...
I will probably be adding more video (to this page and others in this series) in the near future.
This was another little obstacle area. Again, we needed to be potted through very carefully last year,
but now that Sandi is lifted with bigger tires, she just rolled right through. Amazing how just a few inches can help.
colorado mainiac
FJinCO
QuicksilverFJ
GO VIKINGS!!! :-)
looking back
Now, we got to the 'winch wall'.
It's kinda funny....last year, when Sandi was completely stock in every way, we just had to air down, and get spotted up by
Bill Innis (of Athena fame). I basically just drove her right up without a problem.
As the Summit got closer this year, I had already decided that we'd do Poughkeepsie Gulch again this time around.
So, once we got the lift put on her, I decided that, if possible to still get in, I'd even lead the run.
I said to JamerGirl, "with how relatively simple it was to drive up it aided by spotter last year in stock form,
this time, I won't even need a spotter. I'll just roll up it."
Just to set the stage right, I rolled up to the wall, got the front tires up, bumped up the rears onto the first ledge,
but then could tell it wasn't going to be a smooth ride like I had been thinking about.
Of course, if I really wanted to macho the thing up, I probably could have punched it and made it up without
any help, but as you may know, that's just not my style. I like to take it easy and let the vehicle do it the right way.
Unfortunately, this time, it was raining, the 'winch wall' was all wet, and we had to 'cheat'
(although, it is called the 'winch wall' for a reason I guess...still would have been nice to roll up it unaided).
To help out, we hooked one end of the winch line to Sandi to act as the anchor;
in order to let more line out fro the spool.
So, this is QuicksilverFJ winching him self up the winch wall first.
After he got up, he winched me up the wall.
Then FJinCO gave it a try.
the colorado mainiac even helped out by stacking rocks in the right place, but it still wasn't quite enough.
Again, he probably could have muscled his way up too, but we'd rather not risk popping a diff or anything like that.
So, he winched him self up...
Then colorado mainiac got into position
FJinCO then winched him up the wall.
Fun with some other rocks along the way...
FJinCO coming down one of the optional rocky descents
Again, it was still beautiful, even in the rain
This is one of the last little meadow spots just before getting to the lake.
Of course, I have to throw in the occasional shot of Sandi
FJinCO
Here we are at Lake Como (notice vehicles on the road up above).
In this shot at the lake, you can see another FJ crew going up the road way up on the mountain behind us.
This is when we are now on the road we were looking up at in that other shot.
The other FJ crew behind in this shot is now rolling down to where we were at the lake before.
I love this shot, because I managed to get FJ Cruisers from three different trail runs in it at once.
There's our rigs in the foreground, then there are the ones from another group in the mirror heading down to the lake,
and then there's the other group way down below (middle right in this photo....blurry),
on their way to the lake on Poughkeepsie Gulch trail that we just got off of.
Here's Digger (Outrider Offroad). He picked up a large stick along the way.
We were wondering if he was going to try to make a solid axle mod or what.
Here you can see two different FJ crews, one going up Corkscrew, and the other heading down
(probably making their way back to Ouray through Silverton by way of Gladstone - the way we took back as well)
coming into Silverton on 110 from the North-West.
When we went to the Triangle station in Silverton, we noticed what seemed like quite a deal on gas.
Of course, once I started pumping, it changed over to the actual, modern price. :P
Later that night, we had the pleasure of hanging out at Ourayle House Brewery (the Mr. Grumpy Pants Breweing Company).
We played darts, and someone ended up getting a Robin Hood (yes, one dart actually landed on the back of another).
I don't know if anyone else got this one, but the first thing I thought of when I noticed this sign
was the window incident at the beginning of the day. HA! :)
All in all, it was a great day. A little nasty weather can't keep friends from having a good time out on the trail.
We just made up for it with attitude and fun.
Thanks again to everyone. It was great to have the day together with friends, old and new, and I can't wait till we get out there again soetime.
Click ---> here <--- to see the next day of this trip.
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