72Blazer
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Finally getting around to posting our trip report to the San Juan Mountains and Moab. For the TL;DR people ready to scroll down for pictures and videos: if you’ve never been to the SJM, start planning a trip NOW...no amount of words, pictures, or videos can even begin to describe it; if you’ve never been to Moab, then you need to go experience some of the best wheeling in the world.
7/23: After months of preparation, we hit the road from south Texas to Kerrvile on Thursday around lunch time. We made the 4 hour drive to cut the drive to Roswell. We were packed to the gills with luggage for 2 adults/ 3 children, tools galore, adult beverages, Yeti hopper, Yeti 35 full of frozen meat, and a bunch of misc crap.
7/24: We hit the road around 7 AM to Roswell and arrived there at around 3 PM. Our buddy was kind enough to smoke some pulled pork for us. So while we waited, we proceeded to go wheel some rocks down the road from my buddies house. I ended up chunking my Patagonia’s pretty good on the main obstacle. We were surprised how easily they tore the lugs apart but I was letting it eat pretty good. After returning back to the house, we made final adjustments to the Jeeps, had some adult beverages, ate pulled pork, and had some more beers before calling it a night.
7/25: We hit the road around 8 AM to make the trek to Durango and arrived around 3 PM. We decided to grab a table at a local brewery and began walking around downtown when we decided to forgot all that and hit the road to Ophir Pass. We hurried back to our vehicles, stopped by Serious BBQ for a quick bite (semi decent BBQ as I’m a BBQ snob), took some quick pictures at Pinkerton Hot Spring, then hauled butt to Ophir. Once we got to the trailhead, we experienced our first SJM monsoon season. The conditions slowly got worse by the time we reached the peak but had a good time doing it. ~1.5 hour to run round trip. Once we descended, we returned to Silverton just in time to have dinner at Black Bear Cafe (Handlebars had already closed). After finishing up dinner, we met and talked with Michael Maxwell (San Juan Mountain Trail Group-Facebook) and thanked him for all his efforts to get the trails open. We hit the road to our cabin at about 930 PM then decided it’d be a good idea to hit Lime Creek Road as a “short cut” to the cabin. Boy was I wrong. We were on the trail for almost 2 hours with piss poor visibility, fatigue setting in, and a group ready to just get to the cabin to rest. We would later laugh at our misadventure.
07/26: We were loaded up to the gills again and hit the road around 8 AM. We proceeded to run Black Bear Pass with almost no traffic on the trail. This trail offers some great pucker factor especially with rains slicking up the rocks before the descent to the waterfall. ~4 hours to run beginning to end. We had the perfect day with clear skies and cool temperatures. We dropped into Telluride for lunch at Steamies Burger Bar. Crappy burger, the vegan menu shoulda thrown red flags, but good selection of beer. We did some shopping but it seems no one had any large tshirts. After fueling up, we hit Imogene Pass. Nice, easy trail with a bit more traffic. ~4 hours to run. Once we made it into Ouray, we made the drive to our next ABNB in Ridgway and had our buddy make some tacos for dinner. Drank some beverages into the night.
07/27: We woke up late as this was our rest day. We had already put significant miles sitting on our asses so we decided to take it easy this day. We ran to Ouray for lunch and some shopping. MAGGIES KITCHEN is legit. Their patty melt and Serrano burger was awesome. This was the best place we ate all week. Mid way through our meal, I suggested we run a light trail. We decided to make the drive to Clear Lake and passed on Yankee Boy as the drive to the trailhead was significantly more. Almost no traffic and phenomenal views. ~4 hours to run. We then headed back for dinner at Ouray Brewery. The food was decent but nothing to write home about. Their chili/ hot sauce was tasty, don’t forget your Tums if you’re going to try it. Their beer was actually pretty good and grabbed some growlers to bring home. We then headed to the cabin for some Jeep preparations and beers.
07/28: We woke up early and got the show on the road about 9 AM. This would turn into a bit of a cluster fuck. I recommend you really map out your route and not completely depend on trail signs. Our trail leader for the day would be the white JK, he’s very new to wheeling but did a great job leading us around. We got onto the Alpine Loop, got to the Engineer Pass trailhead then branched off to Poughkeepsie Gulch. I have to say this trail was the most difficult we ran in the SJM but extremely fun. The pictures or videos don’t do it justice at all and we were surprised on a few sections considering we thought the only obstacle was the Wall. Once we ran the Wall, we had lunch and proceeded to keep going on the trail. At this point, we were just driving to find our way to Engineer. We somehow ended up running another pass (California? Cinnamon? Really have no idea) before finding Animas Fork then finding our way to the Engineer peak. I was under the impression we would just loop back to the trailhead we started on from Ouray. Unfortunately, we ended up in Lake City around 530 PM with two options: 1) drive the trail back the 30 miles to Ouray or 2) drive the 130 miles all the way around the mountain. Both put us at 2.5 hours of drive time. We decided to take the highway drive and loop around through Montrose. The extra drive really beat the crap out of us but we were all done driving 3 mph thru bumpy roads. Once we made it back to Ridgway, we had dinner at True Grit cafe before calling it a night as we had to pack for Moab.
07/29: We hit the road about 10 AM and made it into Moab to have lunch at the Moab Food Truck Park. I had a really good Philly cheesesteak sandwich. We made it to the new ABNB and everyone was lounging around so I suggested we hit a trail. Everyone decided on Fins’N’Things. 100* in Moab is damn hot but glad we were coming from 100* heat with 100% humidity. It made it bearable for us. Good warm up trail with some good climbs and drops. Finally got that Moab Chirp. We had to cut off a portion of the trail to make it back for dinner. It was my turn to cook so cooked up some fajitas, sausage, and ribeyes. With our belly’s full, we had a few more beers before calling it a night.
07/30: We hit the road to run Top of the World (holy crap, make sure you factor in the hour to drive out there). Pretty fun trail In and out with awesome views at the top. Took us 5 hours to run it from the time we left our house. Everyone was ready to call it a day and leave Hells Revenge for the next morning but I persisted we go run it. I succeeded and convinced everyone to head that way. This trail had some great views, a lot of pucker factor as we had never wheeled anything like this, and we ended up having to take a couple of bypasses. We worked our way to Hell’s Gate. I could feel all the emotions from months of planning accumulating to this one trail. This trail was badass and definitely what Moab is about. Left me wanting more. Unfortunately, our main trail leader was headed home Friday morning so we decided to call it for the week.
07/31: with our trail leader gone, we all just hung around town and relaxed, hit the pool, and ended the day with Moab Brewery.
08/01: Made the 10 hour drive from Moab to Roswell.
08/02: Made the 12 hour drive from Roswell to south Texas.
We are already talking about the next trip. Such a beautiful part of the world. But we are considering setting our eyes on the Rubicon.
JLUR report: wheeled everything I threw at it. I’m very happy with the setup. My complaints are: cab room but it’s a Jeep and need to figure out travel clearance as the tires would rub especially when I had it loaded with all our gear. 3400 total miles driven and the Mopar lift is great in all areas. The Patagonia’s worked in everything minus when they were caked with mud and trying to crawl the Wall. Stock 4.10s weren’t a problem for me with the HikeIt. Would I like 4.88s? Sure I would. But I’m happy how it runs as is. My best mileage was from Santa Fe and Durango...20.2 hand calculated mostly in 7th running 75 mph. I ran most trails on 15-20 psi with a great contact patch. I ran 10 psi on Hell’s Revenge with great tire flex and never burped a bead on STOCK wheels.
Hope you enjoy the pictures/ videos.
7/23: After months of preparation, we hit the road from south Texas to Kerrvile on Thursday around lunch time. We made the 4 hour drive to cut the drive to Roswell. We were packed to the gills with luggage for 2 adults/ 3 children, tools galore, adult beverages, Yeti hopper, Yeti 35 full of frozen meat, and a bunch of misc crap.
7/24: We hit the road around 7 AM to Roswell and arrived there at around 3 PM. Our buddy was kind enough to smoke some pulled pork for us. So while we waited, we proceeded to go wheel some rocks down the road from my buddies house. I ended up chunking my Patagonia’s pretty good on the main obstacle. We were surprised how easily they tore the lugs apart but I was letting it eat pretty good. After returning back to the house, we made final adjustments to the Jeeps, had some adult beverages, ate pulled pork, and had some more beers before calling it a night.
7/25: We hit the road around 8 AM to make the trek to Durango and arrived around 3 PM. We decided to grab a table at a local brewery and began walking around downtown when we decided to forgot all that and hit the road to Ophir Pass. We hurried back to our vehicles, stopped by Serious BBQ for a quick bite (semi decent BBQ as I’m a BBQ snob), took some quick pictures at Pinkerton Hot Spring, then hauled butt to Ophir. Once we got to the trailhead, we experienced our first SJM monsoon season. The conditions slowly got worse by the time we reached the peak but had a good time doing it. ~1.5 hour to run round trip. Once we descended, we returned to Silverton just in time to have dinner at Black Bear Cafe (Handlebars had already closed). After finishing up dinner, we met and talked with Michael Maxwell (San Juan Mountain Trail Group-Facebook) and thanked him for all his efforts to get the trails open. We hit the road to our cabin at about 930 PM then decided it’d be a good idea to hit Lime Creek Road as a “short cut” to the cabin. Boy was I wrong. We were on the trail for almost 2 hours with piss poor visibility, fatigue setting in, and a group ready to just get to the cabin to rest. We would later laugh at our misadventure.
07/26: We were loaded up to the gills again and hit the road around 8 AM. We proceeded to run Black Bear Pass with almost no traffic on the trail. This trail offers some great pucker factor especially with rains slicking up the rocks before the descent to the waterfall. ~4 hours to run beginning to end. We had the perfect day with clear skies and cool temperatures. We dropped into Telluride for lunch at Steamies Burger Bar. Crappy burger, the vegan menu shoulda thrown red flags, but good selection of beer. We did some shopping but it seems no one had any large tshirts. After fueling up, we hit Imogene Pass. Nice, easy trail with a bit more traffic. ~4 hours to run. Once we made it into Ouray, we made the drive to our next ABNB in Ridgway and had our buddy make some tacos for dinner. Drank some beverages into the night.
07/27: We woke up late as this was our rest day. We had already put significant miles sitting on our asses so we decided to take it easy this day. We ran to Ouray for lunch and some shopping. MAGGIES KITCHEN is legit. Their patty melt and Serrano burger was awesome. This was the best place we ate all week. Mid way through our meal, I suggested we run a light trail. We decided to make the drive to Clear Lake and passed on Yankee Boy as the drive to the trailhead was significantly more. Almost no traffic and phenomenal views. ~4 hours to run. We then headed back for dinner at Ouray Brewery. The food was decent but nothing to write home about. Their chili/ hot sauce was tasty, don’t forget your Tums if you’re going to try it. Their beer was actually pretty good and grabbed some growlers to bring home. We then headed to the cabin for some Jeep preparations and beers.
07/28: We woke up early and got the show on the road about 9 AM. This would turn into a bit of a cluster fuck. I recommend you really map out your route and not completely depend on trail signs. Our trail leader for the day would be the white JK, he’s very new to wheeling but did a great job leading us around. We got onto the Alpine Loop, got to the Engineer Pass trailhead then branched off to Poughkeepsie Gulch. I have to say this trail was the most difficult we ran in the SJM but extremely fun. The pictures or videos don’t do it justice at all and we were surprised on a few sections considering we thought the only obstacle was the Wall. Once we ran the Wall, we had lunch and proceeded to keep going on the trail. At this point, we were just driving to find our way to Engineer. We somehow ended up running another pass (California? Cinnamon? Really have no idea) before finding Animas Fork then finding our way to the Engineer peak. I was under the impression we would just loop back to the trailhead we started on from Ouray. Unfortunately, we ended up in Lake City around 530 PM with two options: 1) drive the trail back the 30 miles to Ouray or 2) drive the 130 miles all the way around the mountain. Both put us at 2.5 hours of drive time. We decided to take the highway drive and loop around through Montrose. The extra drive really beat the crap out of us but we were all done driving 3 mph thru bumpy roads. Once we made it back to Ridgway, we had dinner at True Grit cafe before calling it a night as we had to pack for Moab.
07/29: We hit the road about 10 AM and made it into Moab to have lunch at the Moab Food Truck Park. I had a really good Philly cheesesteak sandwich. We made it to the new ABNB and everyone was lounging around so I suggested we hit a trail. Everyone decided on Fins’N’Things. 100* in Moab is damn hot but glad we were coming from 100* heat with 100% humidity. It made it bearable for us. Good warm up trail with some good climbs and drops. Finally got that Moab Chirp. We had to cut off a portion of the trail to make it back for dinner. It was my turn to cook so cooked up some fajitas, sausage, and ribeyes. With our belly’s full, we had a few more beers before calling it a night.
07/30: We hit the road to run Top of the World (holy crap, make sure you factor in the hour to drive out there). Pretty fun trail In and out with awesome views at the top. Took us 5 hours to run it from the time we left our house. Everyone was ready to call it a day and leave Hells Revenge for the next morning but I persisted we go run it. I succeeded and convinced everyone to head that way. This trail had some great views, a lot of pucker factor as we had never wheeled anything like this, and we ended up having to take a couple of bypasses. We worked our way to Hell’s Gate. I could feel all the emotions from months of planning accumulating to this one trail. This trail was badass and definitely what Moab is about. Left me wanting more. Unfortunately, our main trail leader was headed home Friday morning so we decided to call it for the week.
07/31: with our trail leader gone, we all just hung around town and relaxed, hit the pool, and ended the day with Moab Brewery.
08/01: Made the 10 hour drive from Moab to Roswell.
08/02: Made the 12 hour drive from Roswell to south Texas.
We are already talking about the next trip. Such a beautiful part of the world. But we are considering setting our eyes on the Rubicon.
JLUR report: wheeled everything I threw at it. I’m very happy with the setup. My complaints are: cab room but it’s a Jeep and need to figure out travel clearance as the tires would rub especially when I had it loaded with all our gear. 3400 total miles driven and the Mopar lift is great in all areas. The Patagonia’s worked in everything minus when they were caked with mud and trying to crawl the Wall. Stock 4.10s weren’t a problem for me with the HikeIt. Would I like 4.88s? Sure I would. But I’m happy how it runs as is. My best mileage was from Santa Fe and Durango...20.2 hand calculated mostly in 7th running 75 mph. I ran most trails on 15-20 psi with a great contact patch. I ran 10 psi on Hell’s Revenge with great tire flex and never burped a bead on STOCK wheels.
Hope you enjoy the pictures/ videos.
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BTW, you would have run California Gulch between Poughkeepsie and Animas Forks in order to get onto Hwy 2, otherwise known as Engineer Pass 
