China Wall Anniversary Run
| The
4x4 group's "Anniversary Run" was long scheduled for today and,
sadly, rain is expedted for much of the day. Getting up at 5am and leaving home at 6:30am low clouds
and drizzle / rain was the norm. Jumping southwest on US-285 I saw dry
road sections with growing sections of blue sky. The China Wall area,
surprisingly, often has nice weather where the front range / Denver
area can have rain/snow. I'm crossing my fingers this holds true today. On US-285 up near Kenosha Pass (10,000 ft Elevation) there looked to be about two or three inches of new, wet, snow from the night prior. What stuck looked to be on parked cars and in the fields - leaving the roads clean. The China Wall event started dry and the group of us processed the main trail in-and-out with no rain. Back at "camp" rain was present. Scott fortunately brought along a large tent/cover and a grill. Those that stayed had enough space under the cover to enjoy a nice lunch. Some of us went back out again on the main trail with the difference of the ground being wet. Those that tried getting up the rock face found it quite different from the dry morning visit - a little bit of water makes for much lower traction. On the way back the black pickup popped the torsion bar for the right front wheel out of place. The group worked to get it repaired but in the end the plate that was hit was bent too badly for a full repair. The driver would take it slow (30 to 40mph) and drive the 100 miles to home. I followed in case he needed a hand. My head hit the pillow at 2:30am - a long day. |
| Low clouds for the freeway stretch down to the
Denver area. |
| US-285 wiht some blue sky - and what looks to
be fresh mountain snow for this second day of summer. |
| An unexpected sight - moreso the plow truck
than the fresh roadside snow. |
| Near Kenosha Pass |
| At the pass - a two inch accumulation perhaps |
| On the trail - a nice day though with cool
temps. |
| Pike's Peak |
| Video 1m 16s Different trucks working at getting up "the wall". This was after the rain and the ground was a bit wet giving a more slippery challenge. The first, the silver Range Rover had traction control. Traction control applies the brakes to the spinning wheels which forces energy into the non-moving wheel. For today's task it was un-successful at getting the desired result. The black pickup has some sort of automatic lock in the rear differential and nothing for the front differential. It was successful at getting the truck up the rock on one of the passes - where one front tire was in the air (front tires giving zero forward motion) and the right rear was in the air - meaning all forward motion was provided by the left rear tire with the rear diff locked. Copper colered Jeep - owner said it had no differential locking devices. Toyota at the end - unknown - they were folks from a different group. |