A couple weeks ago, my Pathfinder, my family and I took a road trip/vacation to Ouray, Colorado. After a day and a half drive (855 miles one way) we made it to Ouray and met up with my sister-in-law who has an Xterra, and my in-laws. We did some hiking, some walking and shopping around the town, took lots of pictures, and drove several 4WD trails.

Ouray is a very scenic small town in the mountains of Western Colorado. It is known as the "Switzerland of America", or the "Jeep capital of the US" (at least some people say that). There are many 4WD trails in the area around Ouray, Telluride, Silverton, and Lake City. It was a great trip.

The trails we did are: Ophir Pass http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=106,
Imogene Pass http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=80,
Yankee Boy Basin http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=81,
Engineer Pass http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=76,
Corkscrew Gulch http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=83,
and California Gulch http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=78.

All of these trails were rated "Moderate" difficulty in the book I had, but in general, they were plenty hard enough for me. All of these are very scenic trails - that is the main reason I like this area. In general they are more rocky than muddy, and most have some degree of exposure -- where the road is very narrow and there is a 1000 foot drop off one side . I would say Engineer Pass was the hardest of the bunch. There were several times when we came upon a really rocky or nasty looking patch of trail and I thought - "How am I gonna make it over this?" But the Pathfinder did great, just put it in 4LO, first gear, and it will climb over about anything. I was glad I had the new OME lift and the supsersliders. The suspension did great - only hit the bottom of the truck once while going through a muddy patch. I thought several times I would hit some rocks with the supersliders - but no didn't hit them either - darn!

Ok, finally - here are some pics, enjoy!

Here is a pic of downtown Ouray:


Ophir Pass. This pass goes from near Silverton to Telluride. On the back side there is this long shelf-road. It looks bad, but it really wasnt.




Imogene Pass. There was still a lot of snow up on the trail.






Coming down Imogene - the GPS started showing a road!


Yankee Boy Basin:


Engineer Pass: THese rocks dont look too bad in the picture, but they were kinda nasty.

My two daughters and I... I let both of them drive some of the trails.


Corkscrew Gulch - Towards the end of the week, about 250 Toyota FJ Cruisers showed up in town for a rally. On our last day, we ran into quite a few on the trails. Before that there wasnt much traffic.


One of my favorite pics from the trip - red mountain.


California Gulch:




More pics at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdslug/set ... 425933736/

Cool pictures. Looks like a lot of fun.

Great pics! Any way you could post up a topo showing the roads you were on? It might help those who make it out that way & want to do the same thing. Certainly looks like you had a nice trip.

Beautiful pictures! Another trip I will definately need to take!

Awesome photos. Must have been great

Did you consider running Black Bear pass? I'm curious how practical it may (or may not) be trying to run an R51 down the steps.

Also, what book is it you have?

Wow, wonderful pics!

I particularly like the pic called "Yankee Boy Basin".

Would you mind to enlighten me about speed, aperture of diaphragm and so on? I love the "fluffy" look of the waterfall.

My latter tries with my camera (Panasonic FZ50) focused on similar sights turned out to be crap. For sure I can do it better!




Shaluzz

Shazzbat wrote:Wow, wonderful pics!

I particularly like the pic called "Yankee Boy Basin".

Would you mind to enlighten me about speed, aperture of diaphragm and so on? I love the "fluffy" look of the waterfall.

My latter tries with my camera (Panasonic FZ50) focused on similar sights turned out to be crap. For sure I can do it better!




Shaluzz

soft waterfall pictures like that are due to long exposures. set your camera to shutter priority mode. start with a shutter speed of 1/30 second (or 1/15 second), and adjust it to get the effect you want. you can probably go as slow as 1/4 second. you WILL need a tripod for this... or at the very least, a place to set you camera down while the shutter is open. you can also use built-in timer so that you are not touching the camera anytime the shutter is open.

by using the shutter speed priority mode, the camera will adjust the aperture and ISO to suit the scene.

be careful with harsh lighting, or bright sky in the scene. very bright lighting can screw up your metering, and depending on how your camera meters the scene, you may end up with a poorly exposed image.

~mike

Oki dokey Mike. Next time I go out there will have a try.

If OK (hope so) I will post my art here .

Thanx a lot


Shaluzz

Great Pictures...I like your new navigator

lol.....last time i was on ophir pass we got stuck in a small freak sleet/snow storm. just enuf to get the rocks all slicked up. absolutely terrifying ride down. my buddy's gf walked behind the truck (2door..safety dictated none in the back seats) and we sat in the cab, hands on the door handles, truck in granny gear. every 20 ft' or so, the truck would just start sliding toward the edge. took forever to get down

normally such a nice fun trip....i think i did the equivalent of 2000 crunches w/ as much as my stomach was in a knot for the entire way down. we drank a bottle patron at a bar in telluride and spent the night.

beautiful picks though...spent a chunk of my teenage summers playing up on those trails.