Crested Butte 2024
|
Day
two of a three day link of lost in the mountain trails. The plan is to
head up Express Creek trail to Taylor Pass then down Taylor Pass trail
to Taylor Park Road. The desire is to head up an optional Tellurium
Creek trail and find camp in the area. The plans for Tellurium Creek
will get pushed to tomorrow as today will have another mechanical issue
that took time to repair. |
| Panorama Sunrise at Camp 2 Click for a larger image |
| Another rainbow - a nice way to start the day. |
| Turn the telephone on.
We're hoping for a phone call from the Taylor Park General Store to see
if they have gasoline. They called and yes, they do. This removed any
fuel range concerns. |
| A nice old Power Wagon roaming the mountains... |
| An
unexpected bit of asphalt. We were coming from "the end of the road"
though. We'll enjoy this smoothness for only one mile before turning
right into the trees. |
| In 5.5 miles we'll be up at Taylor Pass. About an hour to hour and a half. |
| Filling up with mountain spring water (to be filtered). |
| Panorama Click for a larger size |
| L>R Colorado (dark blue), Illinois (dark red), Montana (light blue), Maryland (white), Wyoming (orange), Florida (tan), Colorado (purple-ish). The colorado vehicles drove from home to the trails. The rest of the vehicles were trailered - Florida being a trailer behind a fifth-wheel camper. |
| Taylor Lake |
| We'll
spend a bit of time in this valley. Camp 3 will be down by one of the
green grassy areas. The fuel stop will be several miles down valley. |
| "just right" clouds for the photos. |
| The
trip will have a bit of a mechanical issue to tend. This is the spring
hanger for the left rear leaf spring for the Wyoming (orange) jeep. The
debate - fix it here or "ratchet strap it together" and limp to camp
and tend it at camp. Decision - fix it here. The trail was wide enough
to let traffic pass. Everyone in the group helps out where needed. The
welding kit on my jeep was put to good use. The frame on this jeep is a C channel. The bottom of the C has pulled away from the frame - still attached to the top of the spring hanger. |
| Pull my jeep into position for the welding cables. |
| I
am running the stock jeep alternator as the welding kit has given
problems to the electronics in the jeep. I brought the welding
alternator if it would be needed. I need to swap out the alternators. It
takes about 30 minutes. |
| Source some spare metal from one of the other jeeps as reinforcement material. |
| The best welder in the group to the task. Arc strength determined by the engine speed of my jeep. |
| On the gauge, the middle red area is listed as the welding range. The welder kept asking for lower power. |
| There was a passing shower - keep the important guy dry and comfortable. |
| Trim some reinforcement metal. The jeep's engine needed to be adjusted from welding speed to 120vDC output power speed. |
| The repair held for the full trip - perfect! |
| Moving down trail - 2h 20m for the event |
| Decision time - to turn left up the Tellurium Creek trail or look for gas and a campsite. Gas and camp it was. |
| Trail / Road 742 is what we're on. Two wheel drive, high range, fairly smooth aside from the occasional pothole. |
| Taylor Park Reservoir the gas stop is off to the left of the picture |
| Heading back 13 miles to Camp 3 |
| Camp 3 I went for a spot with morning sun. The rest of the tents were in the trees, behind the picture. |
