Rocky Mountain High, Colorado trip log. Day 9. Wednesday, August 14. Our 7 vehicles can be seen at the bottom center of the photo.
On the first day of our 4WD workshop we had breakfast at 8 am - eggs, sausage & hash browns… very yummy. Our guides Mandy and Kendrick talked about what to expect and guidelines of 4WD trail driving. Uphill has the right of way but sometimes it doesn’t always work out that way. Soon we were all loaded up in our vehicles. Our group had 7 vehicles and 14 people. Mandy & Kendrick were in the lead vehicle, a Tacoma 4X 4 truck. Next was Rick & Teresa in another Tacoma 4X4 truck. They were followed by a Jeep Gladiator named Gizmo driven by Aaron with his daughter Mekenzie and her friend Avive. Ryan was next in his Jeep Gladiator and he was a super experienced driver. Then our driver Rob drove a Jeep Gladiator followed by Jay and Tracy in their Jeep Wrangler. At the end of our caravan was Chris in a Lexus version of a Toyota 4-Runner.
Here are the places we visited:
Cunningham gulch (10,800 ft elevation)
Velocity basin (11,310 ft elevation)
Hurricane pass (12, 730 ft elevation)
California pass (13,000 ft elevation)
The group used hand held walkie talkies to relay information about oncoming vehicles or vehicles passing members of the group. This helped the group stay together and also to stay safe. Some places where we had to pass a vehicle or where we would have to move to the edge of the road for others to pass could be pretty scary… often there was not much room to the edge of a steep falloff. We bounced back and forth and learned about Jeep movements - pitch is the angle front to back and roll is the movement side to side.
Every site we visited had stunning scenery and sweeping views of the mountains. Riding in the Jeep Gladiator was fun and not at all as frightening as I had thought it would be. We enjoyed the day and soon we were back at camp and having a wonderful meal of burritos with freshly made guacamole. The food was yummy. We turned in early since we had a 7 am breakfast scheduled for the next day.
Absolutely stunning and I love hearing about your adventures! I was born in NE Colorado and have always love that state, even though I didn't grow up there!
