For some reason our last few long drives have started very early. I woke up at 4am. As I got up and started rooting around and making noise, Audrey reluctantly got up and started moving. We got the Jeep hooked to the truck and was pulling out of the neighborhood at 5:15am. The best thing about an early drive is no traffic and crisp morning air.
 

The first fuel stop was in Enid. Breakfast was at the golden arches in Woodward. Highway 412 in the Oklahoma panhandle is a very bumpy drive; however I have never seen much traffic on it. We needed diesel again in Guymon and Lamar, CO. While filling up in Lamar, a local pulled up to ask me a Jeep question. "Hey, I have a Jeep and my cam is worn out. Can you recommend a place to get it fixed?" I told him I was from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He said that's Oklahoma and still wanted to know where I would take it. I told him to take it to Sam's Offroad. He said thanks and went on his way.

You never know who you will talk to in these small towns. One more stop at Subway in Lamar and we would be good until we hit Buena Vista, Colorado. Traffic picked up for the rest of the drive. I missed a turn in Salida and added some miles to the trip. We checked in at the hotel and got the Jeep unhooked. We drove through town and then headed north to find the Blackwell, Oklahoma group. It didn't take long to spot the flat fenders. Ken Levings aka Oklahoma Green and his wife Carolyn had their RV right next to Cliff and Jim. We visited for awhile and headed back to town. We spotted Sam, Tracy and Luke unloading at their hotel and then went to dinner with them.
 

The drive to Mt. Antero

Sunday started fairly well. Oklahoma Green led us to the trailhead for Mt. Antero. We aired down and headed up the trail. The trail led to a small open area where we regrouped before crossing the creek. Jody and Angelle pulled up and their Jeep died and would not start. Jody started working on it. The group waited for a bit then headed up the trail. It was an out and back trail so the group would return to Jody and Angelle. Audrey and I stayed with them. After tracing many wires under the hood and under the dash, Jody got the Jeep running and headed back toward town.

Audrey and I started up the mountain and contacted the rest of the group on the CB. They were on the way down so we waited for them and then continued down the rest of the mountain. Oklahoma Green suggested another trail before the afternoon rain moved in. Sam took his family back to town while Tony, Cliff, Jim, Oklahoma Green and Audrey and I headed up the Boulder Mountain Trail. The rain began shortly after we started and it wasn't much longer when Oklahoma Green came on the CB and said we should turn around and head back to town. The water was starting to run down the trail a little more than he would like. We turned around and called it a day.

A few of the old houses in St Elmo

Monday started with a trip to St Elmo to tour the old mining town and to let Luke feed the chipmunks. It is amazing how tough
 those people had to be to have a little town high in the Rockies and survive the Colorado winters. After some sight seeing and picture taking, we headed to Iron Chest Trail. The first 200 yards of the trail was absolutely put in place to limit the number of vehicles to travel up the trail. I'm not sure if vehicles with 31" tires and lockers could make it through that rock garden.

Once you get through the rock garden, it is an easy trail up to flag pole mountain. I'm really not sure if someone could survive a winter at the little mining shack at that altitude. The view was beautiful and we discussed the possibility of bears living in the caves in the side of the mountain during lunch. We returned to the main road, turned right and took the Grizzly Lake Trail. This trail has a nice, little ledge to weed out the stock vehicles. Similar to the Iron Chest trail, the trail is fairly easy once you get past this first obstacle. The trail is long and bumpy, but the lake is clear and beautiful. The rain started moving in on our way down the mountain. We passed many hikers on this trail.

This is the beginning of the Iron Chest Trail

The trail is not bad once you get past the rock garden.

I don't think Luke got to bring this souvenir home.

The group got a little smaller on Tuesday. Jody and Angelle had already been there a week and wanted to spend their last day in Colorado fishing. Sam, Tracy and Luke wanted to spend a day shopping in Buena Vista before heading home on Wednesday.

Cliff, Jim, Tony, Oklahoma Green and Audrey and I headed south to Johnson's Village. We decided to try China Men's Gulch. We stopped and played on every little group of rocks on the trail. Cliff provided the entertainment on this trail when he put on his Billy Bob teeth, bug-eyed sunglasses and his “Oklahoma Green is my Hero” T-shirt.

We finished the loop and found a shady spot for lunch. After lunch, we headed over to check out the top of Carnage Gulch. It is among some of the toughest stuff I have ever seen. Across the valley is Mt. Princeton and we decided to beat the afternoon rain storm and drive to the top of it.

We had two problems as soon as we started up the trail. Our Jeep was seriously over heating while climbing up the mountain. Not much we could do about it but sit still for a couple of minutes to let it cool down. Our second problem was the amount of people coming down the mountain. Mt. Princeton was our second trail for the day.

All the people that had spent the morning on top of the mountain were coming down the same time we were heading up. For those of you that have never been on these Colorado mountain trails (this was our first time), they are one lane roads with very few places for vehicles to pass when going in opposite directions. We met oncoming traffic around most of the corners, our Jeep was still over heating and we could see the afternoon rain storm moving in quickly so we decided to turn around.

Cliff honoring the legend known as Oklahoma Green

We all headed to the convenience store at Mount Princeton Hot Springs for ice cream. We said our goodbyes to Cliff, Tony and Jim. They had to head back to Oklahoma in the morning. It was raining on us before we got back to Buena Vista.

Oklahoma Green advised us to get a new radiator cap and earlier that week Jody suggested we change the routing of a couple heater hoses. It was time to find the NAPA store. And what’s a vacation without locating the local NAPA store?

Wednesday morning when Oklahoma Green arrived at our hotel, we were pleasantly surprised to see Tony behind him. We headed west to Lake Ptarmigan. This was a nice, quiet valley.

We never passed another vehicle once off the main road. We got out to look around and the view was great. We could see the main dirt road that ran up the valley. That one road, thousands of feet below us, was the only visible sign of civilization we could see.

Tony

Cliff

Oklahoma Green

We could not hear any man made sounds. I really like this place. We headed down the mountain to explore the 2 basins that drained into this valley. The first basin trail lead up to a shelf road. I was leading and we went as far as Audrey's nerves would let us go. It was a good thing we stopped. We would not have been able to drive all the way to our final destination.

A short walk led us to the mine at the end of this road. Oklahoma Green had driven to it in 1994 and the mine has caved in since that time. We walked back to the Jeeps and headed to the second basin. There was not much to see in this one. The forest service had closed the trail a little ways up the basin. A short trip back down the valley had us back to the pavement.

We turned west to go see Cottonwood Pass. It was further than I thought it would be. Oklahoma Green and Tony stopped after 10 or 15 minutes to air up their tires. Our Jeep wasn't real happy about driving that distance on pavement with the tires at 11 psi, but we pushed on. Once we reached the pass, I aired up the tires first thing. I just finished when the other two Jeeps came into view heading toward us. There we were standing on the Continental Divide. The wind was blowing incredible hard.

I don't remember exactly what Oklahoma Green’s thermometer said, but I’m pretty sure it was in the high 20's. Looking east, it was bright and sunny. Looking west, it was very dark, raining and very nasty looking. The dual-sport motorcycles were flying up the west side and racing the storm to Buena Vista. We didn't stay long before we did the same. We lost the race though. It started raining on us about 5 minutes from the hotel.
 

Ptarmigan Lake Trail                                                                          The icon of Oklahoma 4 wheeling is pointing out our next trail.

OK Green was able to walk in the mine in 1994.                         An old house we stopped to look at.

Thursday was just Oklahoma Green, Audrey and I. Oklahoma Green volunteered to take us up Mt. Antero even though he had just gone up it on Sunday. I'm so glad he did. I was just kind of assuming we were half way up when we stopped with Jody and Angelle on Sunday. Boy was I wrong. That was a long trail. We passed some hikers and a couple of parked Jeeps on the way up. I drove the Jeep to the highest point I could find.

 
Looking West.

If I remember correctly, the Lowrance GPS said 13,385 feet. We were up there! We were actually looking down on a rain storm. It was an amazing sight. If it wasn't so windy and cold, I probably could have stayed there most of the day just looking around.

We dropped down a few hundred feet to cross over to another peak. On the way down all the kids called us cheaters for driving instead of hiking to which I answered yes I am. Once over to the other peak, I couldn't pass up the chance to take a picture on a small snow field. Did I mention this was the last week in July and it was around 100 degrees back home in Oklahoma?

I scampered down the side of a hill a little ways to get to the snow. Audrey was not too happy with me for doing this. We got our picture and Audrey jumped in with Oklahoma Green. He had the full top on his Jeep and it was much warmer than just our bikini top. Down the switch backs we went.

We decided to go find the Mary Murphy Mine and Pomeroy Lake. I missed the turn for the Mary Murphy Mine, but there was still plenty to take pictures of on the way to Pomeroy Lake.

Mt. Antero  

The lake was beautiful so we got out and walked around for a bit. On our way back down, we turned a corner and there was what seemed to be thousands of kids walking down the road. They were on some type of summer camp outing and they all wanted a ride back down the mountain.

Our last stop for the day was Hancock Pass. It was a long rocky and bumpy road to get there. It was another pretty pass to end our week of exploring in Colorado. We headed back to the convenience store at Mount Princeton Hot Springs to air up and say our good bye to Oklahoma Green. He turned south to Salida and we went north to Buena Vista.

We passed Mt. Princeton on the way back to town. It was too late in the afternoon and the rain was moving in. We'll get that one next time. Right now it was time for a shower and a second trip to Pizza Works.

Old mining building.
 

Pomeroy Lake

Hancock Pass

Friday was Audrey's day. We headed north through Leadville and hit I-70 at Copper Mountain Ski Area, then east to Dillon and the outlet mall. We were lucky enough to find an Old Chicago Pizza for lunch. Breckenridge was next on our agenda. I had some very fond memories of Breckenridge from when my friend Dan Gable took me skiing there many years ago. I have always wanted to take Audrey there to experience the charm of this little town.

My goodness that place has really changed in the 8 or so years since I was there. It was condos as far as the eye could see. The traffic was bumper to bumper from one end of town to the other. The sidewalks and stores were packed with tourists. We did our shopping and got out of town. There were way too many people there for me. I can only hope it is not that crowded in winter. We went through Fairplay for a pop and candy bar on the way back to Buena Vista.

Breckenridge

Saturday, thankfully, was an uneventful trip home. XM satellite radio makes travelling so much easer than it used to be, especially when your co-driver likes to take naps. We had 2 people tell us to go east out of Lamar to Wichita instead of south out of Lamar to the Oklahoma panhandle.

I thought it would take more time to get home because of the towns we went through and the traffic on the two lane roads. I was wrong. It was almost the same amount of time. I hope it is not another 4 years before we get back to Colorado.

Submitted by Chris & Audrey Reeves of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Sam, Tracy & Luke enjoying vacation                                                  Sam's Family Jeep 1986 CJ-7 Laredo

Sam's Offroad Equipment
4345 South West Blvd
Tulsa  Oklahoma 74107

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