I was very warm and comfortable in my sleeping bag when I woke up about 5:30. I had to make breakfast for everyone so I took my time waking up. The wind was gusting occasionally and a the rain would come and go in small drizzles.
I'm not sure what the temperature was, but it was probably the high 30s or low 40s outside. But inside the tent was surprisingly comfortable when I finally climbed out.
I put on thermal bottoms, my jeans, and a long sleeve plaid shirt. I'd forgotton any sort of waterproof pats, but I don't think I have any except for the neon green frog togs that I wear on the motorcycle and I'd rather be cold and wet than wear those with this bunch of guys to tease me.
I had a nice fleece jacked on under my Marmott ski jacket and it all kept me pretty warm.
I decided to give nature a call before starting breakfast. Thad had been in charge of setting up the privy and for some reason he'd set it up on an incline. It was facing uphill right next to a large hill. So to unzip the tent I had be facing downhill and bend way down to reach the zipper. I nearly fell over twice just trying to get the door unzipped.
Then I had to turn around and carefully waddle backward down the hill over the seat. I'm sure I looked like something out of a 1930's slapstick comedy trying to get situated and not fall into the hole. If I had an ounce of gumption I'd have re-dug and re-positioned the latrine, but I didn't. And despite all the funny tales from everyone else about the same things, no one else moved it either.
After communing with nature (baby wipes are for the bottom, chlorine wipes are for the hands and toilet seat, don't mix them up) I headed back up to camp to make breakfast.
I fired up my griddle which helped warm me up. I cooked link sausages, hashbrowns, and pancakes for breakfast. I made allot of everything so there was no shortage of food.
After breakfast I had a babywipe bath and changed into clean clothes. It was still raining most of the time but I prepped for the ride as good as I could. I had brought some chicken salad and rolls to make myself a sandwich for lunch. There were plenty of snacks including jerkey, fruit, chocolate, gatorade, vitamin water, granola, trail mix and others. We all stocked up and prepped our gear and rides for the trail.
Steve had a horrible night in our big tent last night resulting in a splitting migraine headache. I guess the tent had dripped on him all night preventing him sleeping and soaking his sleeping bag. He opted not to ride with us today. Ryan had a poor night as well but he wasn't so bad. Even Blake had been dripped on. I was the only one who had dry sleep.
As we got ready there were 8 vehicles. Dave W and I in his Can Am side by side. Troy in a rented 4 seat razr, Rob in his tricked out 4 seat razr, Ryan in his 4 seat razr, Dave B on his ATV, Roy on Dave B's 2nd ATV, Thad on his ATV, and Blake on his ATV.
Roy is from Vancouver. He is a friend of Dave B. It's his first time ever riding an ATV.
Thad is Dave B's brother. He is last years winner of the most costly accident. He rolled his ATV 5 minutes after leaving camp and busted a couple of ribs.
Rob, Ryan, and Troy are the speed demons of the group. We were only about 10 minutes out when they called a halt and said they just wanted to zoom ahead, then stop somewhere and wait for us. Dave gave them directions and off they went.
The rest of us followed at a more leisurely pace dictated by Roy's comfort but we still moved along. 10 more minutes down the road we came to the first fork, and sure enough, RR&T had turned right instead of turning left. The went up the East side of the canyon instead of the West side. We continued up the correct path hoping they'd reach their dead and and come back, or we'd eventually see them and direct them back over.
Dave and I went hunting for them. We stopped by a group of miners to ask if they'd seen a group of UTV's on the trail. The guy said "Yes, and the white one in the lead was really flying".
As we were about to continue up the road I heard the FRS radio crackle, then Dave B talking to the other guys and directing them back down the road. We backtracked and caught up with the rest of the group pretty quick and proceeded climbing up Hurricane Pass.
We took a couple of side branches off the road just because they looked like they'd go somewhere interesting. We got a few beautiful pictures of the clouds swirling up the valleys but for the most part everything was covered in clouds and mist.
We didn't stop long on Hurricane pass because it was well named with the wind was really whipping the rain sideways.
I was starting to get a bit cold by this time, especially my hands because I kept pulling them out of my gloves to take pictures, then put them back in wet. If I just kept the gloves on I'd have been fine, but there were too many pretty views that needed to be captured. My legs were also getting pretty wet but not too cold because of the thermals.
From Hurricane pass we descended just a little before starting to climb up to California pass. As we got to the top of California, Dave said to me "Don't freak out and hold on, it's not as bad as it looks", then without waiting for me to complain, he turned the Can Am 90 degrees from the trail and gunned it up the side of the ridge. I didn't hold on and I did freak out just a bit. We climbed 30 or 40 feet up onto a little narrow ridge jutting out over the valleys around us. I took a few pictures then Dave did a 3 point turn on nothing, and without being able to see the trail that dropped steeply away under the nose, he dove us back down to the trail and we continued on.
The rain had been coming and going all morning with 5 on and 5 off sort of consistency, but finally it seemed to let up a bit as we descended from California pass. There were lots of switchbacks but the road was pretty good. As we neared the bottom we saw an old mining building right beside the road so we stopped to take a look. It was one of the slucing buildings built in steps up along the hillside. There were many big beams and a few large iron funnels about 6 feet across perched on top of those beams.
Ryan pulled up in his Razr, took one look and said "COOL" then proceeded to clamber up the side of the building to perch on a funnel for a picture. He scrambled all over the whole building poking here and prodding there. He found an old J hook that must have been used to suspend something from a ceiling and tossed it down to keep as a souvenir.
Someone has been adding extra beams, braces, and cable stays to stabilize the building or it surely would have crumbled by now. After we had looked for a while there was some honking from the road by other vehicles asking to get by and we all scrambled back out to the vehicles only to find the rain had come back with a vengeance. It was now pouring hard and steady as we headed down.
We reached the ghost town of Animas Forks which really is a major 4 way interchange of various trails. There were historic buildings so we all hopped out to try and wait out the rain.
I asked Dave B how much farther the trail went and he just shook his head and said that we hadn't even reached the Apline Loop yet. We were just on the roads that led to the loop that he wanted to ride. We had stopped for so many pictures and wrong turns that we'd take 3+ hours to do what he thought should have taken 45 minutes.
As we all huddled in the vacant buildings of Animas we discussed our options. It was nearly 1:30, the rain was pouring down and the temperature was dropping. No one felt like riding another 30 miles and 5 mountain passes. We decided to keep descending from Animas toward Silverton and just try a few side roads. That should keep us a bit lower and warmer.
We piled back into the vehicles and the speedy bunch took off down the road. About 5 minutes later we caught up with them at the start of a trail off to our left across a stream. Once they saw us, they took off up the road with the rest of us trailing.
We were about a mile up the road when we rounded a bend and saw Rob's Razr in the middle of the road with the rear while splayed out to either side and very un-natural angles. His rear stablizir bar on the right side had broken which cascaded into 4 other major breakages.
We parked all the vehicles and gathered around in muted silence like the funeral of our dearest friend. It was a very sad scene. Rob said the exact same thing had happened on a recent trip to Mexico, and that they'd managed to get the Razr back up and able to drive the 40 miles back to their camp. I think we were all very skeptical that this vehicle was going anywhere under it's own power.
We started by getting out a little hydraulic piston jack and lifting the rear end up about 5 inches. We shoved a rock under the back end, let the jack down, propped it on another rock, lifted the end and swapped in a bigger rock. We kept doing this as people searched for bigger and better rocks to cram under the rearend or under the jack. All the while the whole things would shudder and shake a bit as various rocks settled or slipped. It was precarious and a bit nerve wracking.
Finally Troy said "Dave, pull your Can Am up on that hill there and let out your winch cable". We tied the winch cable to one of the Razr's roll bars with a tow rope from Thad, then when Dave reeled in the cable, it rocked the Razr right up on its side with no effort at all. We'd spent 30 minutes getting the wheel a foot off the ground, but with one flick of the switch, now the wheel was 3 foot in the air and pretty darn solid, none of this shaking or settling.
There were so many ideas and commands being issued from every direction that I figured it was a good time to eat my chicken salad sandwich. I climbed up to Dave's Can Am, fished out my food and stood there watching as the sway bar was removed, the strut (which was broken off) was pried away, and various other ideas were tried to get the wheel back into a runable position.
I wasn't down in the thick of it, so I don't know what all went on. They re-attached the broken left tie rod and a few other things, but eventually everyone got back in their vehicles except Rob, Dave, and I. Ryan and Troy went to get Robs truck and trailer and the rest went to do more exploring.
I came down and the 3 of us stood looking at the broken skeleton of Rob's Razr.
I asked Rob, "What did you do the last time this happened?". Rob described what they'd done and the 3 of us started re-producing the patch. We ran a ratchet strap from the swing arm to the tow point and pulled the wheel back into position. As it pulled over, the twist came back out of the swing arm and the wheel became vertical again. Then using Dave's winch to raise and lower the whole Razer, we guided the strut back onto it's broken mount. We wrapped another ratchet strap to hold the strut in place. Finally we used sheer arm strength to push the sway bar back into it's mounting and pound the bolt through and tighten it down.
Once Dave lowered the Razr to the ground it was sitting in a pretty normal looking position with all 4 wheels vertical and in line with the body. We tossed most of the rocks back off the road (we left one massive one in the middle of the road) and put away the rest of the tools and straps. Dave drove the Can Am down and Rob hopped into the Razr's driver seat to fire it back up. He carefully backed it down hill into a tight 3 point turn while Dave and I held our breaths. Everything held up.
Slowly Rob drove the Razr back down toward the main road. Even though he took the smoothest route that he could, a few times that right wheel had to drop down off a ledge or climb over a large group of rocks and every time my breath would catch. I really didn't want to see that beautiful machine squat in the middle of the road with the wheels splayed out again.
He made it all the way to the bottom and crossed the stream back onto the main road and stopped. He didn't want to push his luck any more than that. About 5 minutes later Troy and Ryan showed up with the trailer. Dave and I watched them until the Razr was up on the trailer and down the road.
Dave asked me what I wanted to see. I was very cold after standing in the rain and wind for nearly 3 hours, so I didn't really want to go climbing mountain passes. I pointed to the road right next to us that we'd seen 8 or 9 other vehicles go up. Dave said it looked a little tame for him but he humored me.
Almost immediately we were deep into a pine forest with switchbacks and long climbing sections. It was a very beautiful section of road. Every time we came to a fork we would take the uphill turn.
We climbed up out of tree line to some wide wind swept alpine grasslands. We continued climbing until we came out on a long ridge line leading to the highest point around us. The road ended there with breathtaking views all around us.
I pulled out my phone and ran the Navigon app to figure out where we were. We had climbed to the top of Eureka Mountain. It was only 12,000 foot or so, but it was beautiful. We took a few pictures and tried to see the town of Eureka below us bit it was blocked by the bulge of the mountain.
Dave turned us around and we headed back down. Dave was all for retracing our morning path over California and Hurricane passes, but I was frozen so he took pitty on me and we took the road down through Silverton and back up to camp.
When we arrived at camp, I noticed that our tent was covered by a big tarp. Steve said that the tent had a major failure during the day. He tried to take a nap and was woken by a huge wind and rain storm. The tent fabric had become waterlogged and dumped water over everything in the tent. It turned out it had dumped on everything but my gear. Again, I was saved by being in the middle.
Steve opted to sleep the rest of the time in the back of his big SUV. Ryan put up his own tent, leaving just Blake and I in the monster tent. We pulled our stuff into the very center of the tent and hoped for the best.
Steve and Blake had dinner. They had brought BBQ brisket, beans, and coleslaw from a local BBQ place. All they had to do was heat it up.
Troy had brought a big gong shooting target that he carried out to the rim of the lake and setup. When you hit it you get a big "BONG" sound. So everyone brought out their rifles and lined up under the 2 awnings and began trying to hit the gong. Troy and Ryan was the 2 most consistent to hit the gong, but everyone hit it. I hadn't brought any rifles because I'd had no time to get ammo or double check the weapons. They shot until Steve announced that the food was ready.
My goal tonight was to make it past 8:00, but shortly after dinner was over, the rain started to come down hard and my resolve gave out. I made it to 8:30 before crawling wearily into bed.
Roy on a quad for the first time
Dave W in his Can Am
Looking down from a scenic overlook at the clouds below us
Looking at our group through the clouds as we near the top
Looking down from our perch on California Pass
Looking back from California Pass
Looking down at the rest of the group
Selfie with the clouds below me
Ryan climbing on the old mine building
The old mine building near Animas Forks
Ryan with a big cheesy grin on top of the building
Inside the sluce building
Inside the sluce building
I wonder if the building was pre fabricated and just assembled on sight by numbers
View out from the mine building at the quads
Jacking up the broken Razr
Rob's broken Razr with Troy trying to jack it up
Another shot
Using Dave's winch to lift the Razr
A few of the Razr from above
Repaired Razr ready to load on the trailer. Notice the yellow ratchet strap holding the right wheel in.
The view from the top of Eureka Mountain
The road from Animas Forks towards Silveerton
Lots of color above Silverton
A beautiful view below Animas Forks
Ryan shooting at the Gong while Blake makes Dinner
