Top of the Rockies: Ouray, Colorado: The Jeep's Inauguration (2020.4 miles)

Today was the day we (and many of you, maybe) had been eagerly anticipating for days! We finally got off the road, and we couldn’t have had more fun wheeling through Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. As I drove and dad spotted for me, we took a few excellent (at least by our standard) GoPro videos, both of the stunning scenery and of the extreme 4x4 situation we found ourselves in at the end of our journey. We’re excited to share in the experience with you...this is what the blog was created for!

The video I’m posting is six minutes long, and is the Jeep handling a steep 20-25% grade with large, jutting slate slickrock to navigate through and climb over. Before you watch, consider a few things that will help make the video as real to you as the experience was to us. First, we have the GoPro mounted onto the driver’s mirror in an effort to capture the big picture and scenery around us. That means that much of the rock on the right side is obscured, so, as you watch, equate a high-right, low-left orientation of the camera to us traversing rock on the right side of the Jeep. If you have to turn your head to make the camera angle straight, you can get a sense of the great side tilt we got as we ascended, and if you notice the camera isn't straight often, you're getting the feel of things. We were never straight. Ever.

Secondly, remember that the GoPro’s lens alters depth perception and that the true size of the rocks we climbed isn’t reflected until the GoPro is practically on top of them. Take your eyes off the climbing and look at the rocks ahead of us and right below the camera to get the most true feel for what the Jeep handled.

Without further introduction, here’s the video.

(If the embedded video doesn't work, click here!)

The fact that we were even in such an extreme off-road situation was a bit of a surprise to us. We had just finished the scenic (albeit moderately difficult in a few spots) ride down the “Eye of the Whale” trail, bringing us to an area where few other vehicles (or people, for that matter) ever travel. For the first half of the trail, we were the first tracks of the day, and while we aired down our tires to ascend a particularly steep hill made more difficult by deep, sometimes impassible sand, a chartered expedition tour passed on through. Besides that single car, we didn’t see another vehicle until we had finished all of the off road features and had gotten back on the graded dirt path heading towards the main paved road. Regardless, as we finished the “Eye of the Whale” and turned back toward the gravel road, we never realized that the 1.8 mile trek to the gravel road would be the most treacherous (and risky) part of our trip. The terrain was extremely rugged. The six minute video we took was about all we could handle while worrying about camera shots and the trajectory of the GoPro, as all of our attention quickly turned to choosing lines and avoiding too much Jeep damage. There were three ascents similar to the one we just shared with you; frankly, the difficulty increased to a point where serious damage became a real possibility. Slickrock protruded from the trail in ways that made scraping the underside of the Jeep impossible to avoid. However, we picked a few good lines and came out of the trail with only a few scrapes to the rock guards and skid plates underneath the truck. Most importantly, we had a wild ride and a lot of fun.

To a serious rock crawler, this trail would have been of moderate difficulty. For our largely stock Jeep, it was an extreme test....a test we couldn’t have been happier to pass.

After finishing the trail, we aired up the tires and made our way through the mountains and valleys of Southern Utah and Colorado, heading towards Ouray, Colorado, the Jeep Capitol of the World. On the road, we encountered heavy rains and a snowplow pushing mud off of the road, which was a first for us. Also, the temperature dropped dramatically between our two waypoints, beginning at 95 degrees in Moab and ending at a cool 57 degrees here in Ouray.

We're extremely excited to hit the trail again tomorrow.

Enjoy the video and these pictures!