The wife and I just got back from Jeeping in CO for a week. I hated to come home, was wishing for just one more week. We stayed 3 nights in Crested Butte and four nights in Ouray. We did: Paradise Divide, part of Schofield, Pearl Pass, Yankee Boy Basin, Ophir, Black Bear, Imogene, Corkscrew and Last Dollar Road. I wanted to do the Alpine loop and Engineer but we ran out of time. It was quite different than the wheeling we do here in OK and AR. I have a bad fear of heights so it was especially fun for me. I think Pearl was the hardest and scariest, Last Dollar was the easiest and Imogene was the funnest. Here's a few pics.

Ophir shelf road west side of the pass


We don't have dropoffs like this where I live


Black Bear start of the steps



Black Bear as seen from Imogene


Pearl Pass


Off-camber boulder field west side of Pearl

Narrow shelf road Aspen side of Pearl


At the top


View of Maroon Bells Wilderness Area from Pearl


We ended up on the shelf road on the opposite mountain


Imogene tunnel


Another at the top


Some scenery


More scenery


Imogene Pass

 

Right on!

I love that area and visit as often as I can

 

Glad you enjoyed the trip! Thanks for sharing the pics. Happy you got to finally conquer Black Bear?

 

Yes I am happy to get that one over with. It was easier than I had imagined, the step ledges were interesting but the rest of the trail was pretty easy, including the switchbacks. I didn't want to come home, that was the best vacation I ever had. However, when you ask about this or that trail on here and one of the locals tells you "it's just a gravel road", don't believe them. Every trail we did was scary. Even Corkscrew, which is a green trail in the guide book is scary. If you have a fear of heights like I do they are ALL SCARY! The only one we did that was not scary was Last Dollar, now that one by my standards is "just a gravel road".

 

Oh, I hear ya...lol. I was in the Buena Vista area last week and ran up Mount Antero which is a 14'er. That trail gets you a couple hundred feet from the top. Same thing....skinny shelf switch backs. Not bad really, but there was one spot that was off camber and you're leaning pretty good looking over a very sharp drop that would send you a long ways down the mountain. Typically that stuff starts feeling uncomfortable way before it's dangerous.....but I looked in back and kid's car seat leaning sideways and he's holding on for dear life. LOL, Was time to get the kids out and creep through alone.

 

Yeah the first day there we made the mistake of doing Pearl, and I thought it said it was a blue (moderate) trail in the guidebook. After we got to the top and were halfway through my wife looked at the book and it said it was a red (expert). I decided then that we didn't want to go back through all that we had done, so I decided to go on to Aspen. It was even tougher on the Aspen side with a couple off-camber ledge sections that really had me concerned, especially being our first day. I don't recommend doing that one alone, we only saw one other Jeep going up from Aspen for the entire 21 miles. There was also about 30 yards of snow we had to cross but that wasn't so bad. It was the off-camber ledges that scared me, and both of them were off-camber to the bad side.

 

Wow that looks awesome. This picture here are those bug guts on the windscreen? At first glance it looked liked two cheering ghost clouds. "YOU'RE ALMOST THERE!"

You said book I am wondering if you have the same book I do. It's from Fun Treks. I head out to some of these based on their recommendations "Okay for stock SUV with lo gears and high clearance." I think awesome I can handle that. Then I get there and poo my pants.

Was Imogene fairly easy? Or did it have a lot of technical stuff?

 

Yes they were bug guts, I know I was sometimes praying for a cheerleader lol

Yes we had the Funtreks book, but I didn't find it that useful. They also sell an app for $59.95 that has all the Western US trails and you can use it like gps and it might be useful. He just uses three difficulty ratings, green (easy), blue (moderate) and red (expert). I would like it better if each trail had a 1-10 rating. I didn't always agree with him and his ratings.

Imogene was a blast! We did Black Bear from Ouray to Telluride, and Imogene back to Ouray which makes for a pretty good day loop. Imogene has lots of steep climbs and descents that were not off camber. It had a few technical spots but not bad. Lots of old mines to drive around too. I would rate it about a 6. Black Bear a 7 and Pearl a 9. Pearl for me was 1st and 2nd gear in low range for 90% of it's 21 miles.

 

This is a screen shot of the app I used. It's called GPS Tracks. To use all its functions it costs $10/year. Imogene is displayed here.

You can get all the western US tracks here free:

* * * * * Jeep the USA - 350 Western US Jeep, SUV & ATV trails.