Road trip; Florida to Alaska

[Mr. I - Man]

Originally Posted by Quicksilver

Thanks. Whats the scoop with Imogene Pass? I'll be in Telluride just before Moab. Is that open around then? What do you mean you did it backwards. Any other SW CO drives?

Well this is story I took the trail from Ouray to Telluride on August 7th following a trail book I bought a gift shop in Ouray to find out later the book was written in 1999 and when I got home I found this trail report on the net. Imogene Pass
Uncompahgre/Ouray
970-240-5300
Closed
8/11/06
COMMENTS:
8/11/06 - We have already reported on our experiences in June and late July. But it might be worth reporting that scuttlebutt has it that Imogene has been pretty bad since the first of August. It is a fact that a jeeper from Texas was killed by a rockfall on the Sneffels-Ouray section around the end of July, as reported in the Ouray News.
8/2/06- We came from the Ouray side & the trail was closed at the Imogene Trail head. Apparently there are 2 landslides that they have not cleared.
7/27/06 - The road is open -- sort of, as of the 27th. We traveled Imogene on the 27th, and found it to be rougher and rockier than our previous trip. Our party had an unmodified Rubicon and a stock Liberty, and some places on the Ouray side were marginal. Torrential rain on the afternoon of the 27th made it much worse. Rockslides and near washouts between the Sneffels intersection and Ouray were severe at 5:00 PM.
6/29/06 - The trail is open all the way. We traveled it from Telluride to Ouray on 6/29. The Ouray side is rough, and wet and muddy in spots, especially the last two miles or so from the Camp Bird locked gate to the Sneffels intersection.
6/23/06 - Plowed open, but is icy and muddy at the top. Use caution.
5/13/06 - Imogene Pass was snow covered from just across the bridge that crosses the creek.

Italian Creek Road/Upper Reno Divide
Gunnison/Gunnison
970-641-0471



I got to top of the pass the trail was difficult coming for Ouray, it was raining like a beyatch, I thought the landslide part was of an obstacle, became best friends with my locker button and only had three off the once. Not to bad I thought for have my wife who has never been in the mountains and has never off-roaded before, be it as may she walked the last mile to the pass cursing me and threatening divorce every step of the way. She felt better when this old guy Rich a jeep tour drive asking where I was coming from I said Ouray, he made this face and said that he had done Imogene Pass about 2000 time and he does even go that way. He said how did you do it. I said locker. He just laughed as said he thought I had kicked my wife out of the truck and made her walk, and he told Lori that she was safe in the truck because I was a helluva driver. The he told me that trail from Telluride to Ouray is a 4, but the way I did was rate an 8. So we followed him down to Telluride, because my wife felt better follw someone who what he was doing, that turned into a fun game of follow the leader on the way down we were flying. There was couple of tights spots on the way down to Telluride that part of your tire hung off the shelf road ( trail) by about 2 inches and the other side of the truck your rim and rock rail where scraping the rock. All in all a fun ride just be sure to check trail conditions before you roll and follow an up to date map. And go the right way.
One day I will post the pics. I just get lazy with those new larger capcity memory cards the pics sit in the camera forever