Today was a dual-mission day. Mission one was to explore a couple of campsites that are close to the cesspool known as Denver Metro. Mission two was to do a reliability test on the Sammy, involving city driving, serious 4WD driving and changing altitudes from 5800 ft to over 8400 ft.
First, departing home around 8:30 I think, I drove to the city of Arvada (part of the Denver Metro cesspool) and picked up steering head bearing removal/installation tools from Brook R. He's a local airhead guru and I'm hoping that since URALs are pretty much a knockoff of old Airheads, the tools used on such might work on Scarlett, my 2014 Patrol once I get around to replacing the steering head bearings.
Tools picked up and since I was in the NW portion of the cesspool, I then took Coal Creek Canyon Rd over to a campground listed on Allstays.com as Winiger Ridge Campground. Took me about 1.5 hours total, closer to 2 hours I think by the time I rolled into the campground entrance.
The road to the campsites, all tent only by the way, was via FR 359 which was a pretty rough and at times quite technical 4WD "road" leading one to a parking area called "Lakeside Parking". It wasn't quite lake side of course, one must walk down a bit but not too far before being near the Gross Reservoir.
The Sammy did fine, and I did go into Low Range 4WD for the technical sections. Let's just say that the Ural sidecar rig would have had a rough time on some spots and leave it at that. Yagi, my TW200, would have been a blast to ride on that "road".
The view "lakeside" from nearby campsite 23
which was a steep walk from the parking lot.
Here's other views of the reservoir from different campsites that I checked out, looking for cell signal in case I lose my mind and decided to take up tent camping again!
If you look on the left of the top edge of the water,
you can see the Gross Dam
The above are part of Thorodin Mountain, but the big rock
formation on the left? Unnamed according to peakfinder app.
The above and below pics are views from campsite #4
I will be returning to Winiger Campground, if not to tent camp, to spend the day in what was almost absolute solitude! I saw one other car and the USFS Ranger's Jeep go by while taking pictures, that's it!
Returning back to CO 119, the Peak to Peak Highway, I turned north to the nearby town of Nederland. I wanted to check out the Rainbow Lake Campground that is accessed via the Caribou Road and later, FR 505.
The view near the junction of Caribou Road and FR505
The smoke/haze continues to make this area look like Los Angeles
on a bad smog day.
Sadly, it was getting close to 4PM by this point and FR505 turned into a pretty rough 4WD road. I decided to leave the campground exploration for another day and turned around, making it back to Nederland with no issues.
At the main traffic circle in Nederland, one can see the only surviving Bucyrus Model 50-B Steam Shovel. It's the only surviving one of 24 that were sent down to Panama to help build the Panama Canal!
From Nederland it was two hours to return home. Traffic was quite heavy on E470, the cesspool's beltway of sorts. At least the eastbound side moved, only coming to a complete stop two times, the westbound side was a bumper to bumper mess!
The poor Sammy struggled to maintain 60 MPH at times but did pretty good while staying mostly in the slow lane. Made it home with no issues just before 6PM. A good day of driving, exploration and testing to be sure! Oh, the Sammy did GREAT!
2 comments:
That was an relaxing enjoyable ride, thanks for taking us along. Glad to hear Sammy is running smooth again.\
No drama is good drama CCjon
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