Medano Pass

Hello All.

Here are some pics from my excursion in Alamosa, CO visiting Sand Dunes National Park. Pics are from my voyage thru Medano Pass. It's about 20-30 miles from one end to the other. It's rated a class 2 in http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=53. But it was a bit challenging for a long a$$ CM. Thanks @ColoradoTJ for the recommendation!

Here is the west entrance to the trail. Decided to go west to east leaving the dunes vs coming back and ending in the sand dunes.


First part of the trail was very sandy. Had to keep low gear and drop into 4HI in some spots since I'm running stock Michelin and started to slide and dig into the soft sand in some deep spots.


A little tight between 2 trees.


I counted about 4 water crossings. Deepest one was about 6". Streams are not high this time of the year.


Gratuitous Tundra and scenery pics!





Some more scenery pics of the trail


Old burn area from 2002.


It was a pretty tight trail. Had to pull my mirrors in sometimes and brushed up against some branches and bushes along the way. Got some CO pin striping along the way. Is that Ice-T? No, it's lemonade man!!Sorry. Couldn't help it.


Made it to the top of the pass!


Guess what vehicle was arriving at the same time coming from the other direction? Well a Tundra of course!


Eastern side of the pass was much smoother. No big rocks, water nor steep terrain. Just a lot of down branches from the forest service still clearing part of the burned area.


Trail on the way up was a little rough on a stock Tundra. Hit some pretty big bumps along the way and the truck was a little to long and wide in some places. There was one spot that took me a few different maneuvers in order to get around 2 large boulders on each side of the trail. There are no hairpin turns to worry about in a CM. There were some spots where the skid plate hit pretty good, but did not bend in any spots; no bad for a stock skid plate. N-Fabs on the other hand got hit pretty good 3 or 4 times along the trail:

They ended up dented and scratched as you can see. I have the 6 step bars, so front and middle got hit with the front one dented (on both sides). Oh well. Adds character I guess. Best thing I did (by luck) was travel the trail west to east. I think if I would have gone the other way and end at the dunes, the front of the truck would have taken a beating for sure due to the weight up front with the engine and not having the clearance for more down travel.

Was a fun trail for sure. And another positive was that my wife finally realized how a lift would have helped and I should have one It was a win-win!

Happy trails.

 

Fantastic trip! Love Colorado

 

Holy crap

 

Nah. Didn't have time to check out properties. That's gonna have to be another trip. Will check out Dawson's Ranch one of these days. Sounds like a nice drive.

I only saw some Subaru's on the first part of the trail. Saw one jeep Cherokee and one Nissan Frontier. Other than that, not much else on the trail since it was a weekday. Which was nice; nothing but you and the road.

Yeah, went with soft top this time. Taco had a hard shell. Was cool, but PITA to remove when you need an open back again. So opted for the soft top so I could put on or remove in minutes. And stores nicely in the garage too. Thanks for the reco on the trail. Will reach out when I need more ideas if I'm in that part of the state again.