Completed:Green Ridge Trail 10-03-13

[plaen]

Started off as a planned outing with one of my sister's friends, and became 7 vehicles, a 2" lifted Jeep Wrangler, heavily modified Ford ranger on an explorer frame, a 3" lift Tacoma, a 2" lift 4Runner, me, and a stock Jeep Grand Cherokee, me being the tallest and had the highest clearance. Total of 10 people.

We all met up outside of Ft Collins at 5 am and drove to the start of the trail, about an hour into the mountains, took longer from one lane being partially closed for a marathon. After missing the turn into the trail by about a mile, we stopped and snapped some good pictures of Chambers lake.

Found the trail entrance, and started down a snowy/muddy trail. The first mile of the trail wasn't too bad, small mud holes nothing really to note. The first major hole, 12"+ of water, we came to freaked my sister out being her first time taking her Jeep on an actual trail.

After a bit the trail split, we went right, ended up adding another 1/4 mile to the trip, since we ran into a fence, got turned around and went left at the fork.

Another half mile or so came to a pretty deep hole, at least 36" deep, Tacoma went first, then my sister, I got out and walked it thinking I wouldn't have enough departure clearance to go through it. Decided to let the 4Runner go, since he had less departure angle than me, he made it fine, climbed in and gave it a shot. Made it over the first drop off and put the pedal to the floor since it was about 2-3" of mud and water on the ramp out. We all made it fine without issue, except the Grand Cherokee, some how they managed to deflate the passenger front tire.

After a bit of trail engineering for a suitable jacking surface(someone found a steel running board off in the woods), got them back up.

In another 1/4 mile, ran into what is labeled as the trough, a couple places were 4-5' deep water/mud, made it through there with no issue, the trail split again, we went right because about 500ft past that, the trail went into the forrest where a 2-3' diameter tree had fallen forming a triangle across the trail. Being that none of us had done this trail, we assumed it was the wrong way, and took a right after the trough.

This lead us up an ever decreasing trail that at the end looked like an ATV trail to the twin lakes. At that point, 2 of the guys wanted to keep going into a swamp like open area. Come to find out later, it was actually the lakes. The rest of us made the call to turn around and look at the tree across the trail since we all thought we were a lot farther along the trail. After deciding that we don't have the space or tools to move and disassemble the tree, we stopped for lunch at the trough(at 2:45 pm)

This lead to some idiotic things, like the Grand Cherokee trying to cross the trough perpendicular to it, getting stuck and needing a yank out of it. Then a few trips forward and backwards through it from the Tacoma and Ranger, and the Tacoma trying to do the same thing as the GC, and almost ripping off the front bumper/skid plate, and finally, the Tacoma driver running and jumping the trough only to land in a muddy wet section of weeds.

After lunch we decided to call it a day, since it was 3 pm, and after referencing the guide book, found we were only 2.8 miles into the 30 mile trail. We all lined up for pictures, snapped a few of the area, and got turned around on the trail.

One lingering thing that everyone talked about was the massive hole, we all made it there with no problem, and decided to let the ranger go first since he could bypass the drop off with the flex he had, and if we needed to yank anyone else out. Then the GC since he was stock, after 2-3 attempts and bashing the front into the rock/drop off, he managed to make it out by getting a running start and plowing into the rock. Then the Wrangler, no problems, then me, gave it a bit of gas, and got the front tires on the rock, the back end swung to the left causing the right front to clip the rock sticking out of the water. Took some of that rock with me in between the bead of the tire and rim, and left some aluminium on it from the rim.

The rest of the way out was pretty uneventful, minus my sister not being able to figure out how to shift out of 4 low, lol.

The full video is up on youtube, I still have to upload the other videos/pictures that people captured since I just got those...

Green Ridge Road - Every Trail

Every Trail Map

YouTube GoPro footage

[HARDTRAILZ]

Nice write-up but will have to look at links when not at work apparently.