I know this topic is under "Arizona Backcountry" and as much as I love the great state of Arizona, there are a few places that any Arizona 4-wheeler should go to outside the state at least once in his or her life... one such spot is a Rocky Mountain region in southwest Colorado: The San Juan Mountains.
It's a completely foreign environment to an Arizonian like me. Mt Humphreys, the highest point in Arizona is 12,633 feet, and you have to hike to that. In the San Juan's, you'll be driving higher. The views are breathtaking. As with Arizona, the San Juan's are part of a large and colorful mining history, with many old mines, camps, and townsites to explore. The trails that traverse the region were actually a little more difficult than I thought they would be. Nothing real technical, but plenty of long streches where 4-low 1st gear was needed, and a spotter was often necessary... especially when maneuvering on a very narrow shelf road with a 500+ foot drop.
On the way there we pasted a few interesting places: Elephant Feet, Baby Rocks, and Four Corners.
In the San Juan's there are a few small, old towns nestled in the mountains like Silverton, Ouray, Telluride, and Lake City. We spent some time in each, looking around and enjoying the quaint atmosphere of the high elevation hamlets. But we were also focused on covering as much ground as possible. Much of the time on these trails you're above the tree line in the alpine tundra, which was kind of surreal. The temps ranged from the mid 30s to the mid 70s the four days we were there. Light showers roll in every day after noon, and here's something nobody else ever mentioned: There's good size mosquitos in the forest, and plenty of them.
First on the list was Corkscrew Pass (sometimes called Corkscrew Gulch). It was an easier trail that served as a good starter. Nice views of mountainsides full of iron oxide. The pass was about 12,100 feet.
Next came the infamous Black Bear Pass. I was concerned about the one-way hairpins on the way down. Corkscrew gave me a taste of what was to come and I was nervous. I had good reason to be. I got on 3 wheels a couple times trying to do 4 point turns off the side of extremely narrow and steep switchbacks. One wrong move would mean rolling a very long way down.
Here's a shot near the 12,840 foot pass and then starting the descent on the backside.
This is what it looked like over the hood (rounding an easy corner) as we got closer to the more difficult switchbacks (with Telluride in the background). The second picture is Bridal Veil Falls along the trail.
After Black Bear we did Imogene, the second highest mountain pass in the US.
Branching off of Imogene was Yankee Boy Basin and Governor Basin. Lots of waterfalls and wildflowers were just beginning to come alive. Governor Basin was blocked near the top by snow ice and we had a hell of a time turning around.
Engineer Pass was longer than most of the others and had some fair crawling in many stretches. All the trails had neat structures... here are a few from this area.
The panoramas from Engineer were perhaps the best. 13,000+ foot peaks lined the horizon at least 300 degrees around us. The pass itself was 12,850 feet. Here's a few pics:
Cinnamon Pass was one of the easier routes that ended in the old mining townsite of Animas Forks.
We headed back towards Silverton and did Arrastra Gulch. This area had a lot of neat mining remains including tramways with ore carts still suspended in the air on the wires. We were blocked again near the top by a snow drift but were able to just walk the last 250 feet or so to Gold Lake.
After camping we headed out of the San Juan's via Ophir Pass, the lowest and easiest mountain pass. This is a lake near our campsite and a picture going through the pass.
On our way out we went through the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and Hovenweep National Monument to check out the Indian ruins. Lots of crumbling remains 1000+ years old. We also passed by Goosenecks State Park to see the San Juan River snaking its way towards the Colorado.
Overall it was a great trip, a great adventure, and an awesome experience. We logged 1302 miles and had no issues of any kind. About the worst thing that happened is we lost a pair of sunglasses. It was from July 21 to July 25, 4 nights dispersed camping. I took 350 pictures and kept 180 of those. A book could be written on all the stuff we saw and did... but hopefully this gives you a small idea of what a tremendous place these San Juan Mountains are.
[ We also did Monument Valley, the Valley of the Gods, and an attempt at Coal Mine Canyon, which is in a different trip report ]