07.03
Webster, Colorado – Please excuse this article as this is my first for the Rover Xchange. Although I read every issue (I have to since I’m the live-in editor for Nathan), I’ve never written for it. I am schooled in the art of journalism, but not for Rover readers. My knowledge of Land Rovers is little to none because to me they’re just chunky vehicles that get me to cool places. So please excuse the lack of technical lingo and the more intense concentration on colorful topics such as animals, meals, and potty breaks along the trails. Did I just say potty?
My morning started way earlier than it usually does, 7am to be exact (I don’t pry open my eyes ‘til 8am on workdays and even then I’m not coherent til after my 1 st Pepsi). Nathan and I had spent the night at Josh White’s house because it’s supposedly closer to the trailhead than my bed in Longmont . After popping the kinks out of my back from a wonderful night on Josh’s couch (buy another bed, dude), we made PB&Js and turkey sandwiches for lunch, hit McD’s for some breakfast and proceeded to dodge slower drivers along US285 to get to Webster Pass trailhead by 8:30. You have to understand, Josh is a videographer for Fox News which means he drives to breaking stories at insanely high rates of speed, so when I say dodging slower drivers I really mean like 4-alarm ambulance “someone’s going to die” high rates of speed.
We met up with the Molters at the trailhead (they led) and aired down our tires (I could be like the cool Land Rover guys and say tyres, but I’ll refrain because it screws up my spellcheck). This would be a good time to point out that Nathan and I were driving with Josh in Josh’s truck. We decided to leave the “Camel” at home for the weekend and play tourist and let Josh do all the intense driving. We were standing around hoping for more vehicles when another Disco ( I do know my Disco from D-90), pulled off 285. It slowly rolled towards us and then passed us. Two guys looked us over and then kept moving. We watched after them and wondered who they were and if they were looking for us. Minutes later they returned and inquired what we were about. Jim did a great job of explaining the Solihull Society and our day trip we were about to start and invited them along. They seemed interested and pulled in line behind us. After a few more minutes 4(?) more Rovers pulled off and pulled in line and we were ready to start out. Jim introduced himself to everyone, briefly went over the trail we’d do and we were off. It was decided 2 of the trucks would turn around after desending Red Cone to do a loop and return to their other car they were leaving behind.
The trail started out great, blue skies, birds tweeting, engines rumbling, both Nathan and Josh jumping in and out of the truck to get video and photos of the group as we chugged along for the newsletter and website, and then bump and crack and THWAP, THWAP, THWAP. We were maybe 10 minutes up the trail and the passenger side motor mount on Josh’s truck decides to disintegrate. OK, granted it could have happened anywhere, it was just normal wear and tear, but did it have to happen today, only 10 minutes into the trail? We all pulled off the trail, the guys pulled out all the tools they could find and promptly pulled up their pants, turned round their ball caps and leaned heavily onto the front of Josh’s vehicle peering into the engine compartment. “Yep, broken motor mount,” they all agreed. Phew! I’m glad they got that figured out. After about 30 minutes of knocking around in there (because that’s what they really do when they’re in there—just use different tools to hit the engine so it sounds like they’re busy) they removed some plastic surrounding the fan so it didn’t THWAP and it was decided we could proceed on the trail as long as we kept an eye on the temperature gauge.
Back in the truck, discussions turned to the difference between men and boys (I started this one because I was obviously in a truck full of boys), Seinfeld quotes, and the state of the Solihull Society. All this was accompanied by the soothing sound of a stream trickling parallel to the trail. We ascended into blooming alpine meadows above timberline and stopped for lunch just before our ascent of Red Cone. Although the day was drop-dead gorgeous, and Mother Nature is almost always that, it was a bit blowy and chilly at our lunch spot. After lining the vehicles up for photo ops, we unpacked lunch and sat on the leeward side of the vehicles to get out of the wind (I don’t know if leeward applies here but it’s a term carried over from my boating days in Hawaii meaning downwind).
We watched as a few vehicles returned down off of Red Cone and some that went up only to turn around (wussies? Not sure, although they weren’t driving Land Rovers). We got back into our vehicles and slowly started our climb to the top of Red Cone. It was at this point that I was made aware that my driver (Josh) had only been down Red Cone once and that was with no clutch. Hmm. I contemplated switching vehicles. I hesitated and changed my mind after noticing the trail had dropped to a couple hundred foot plummet on either side. Blue sky was all I could see leaning back in my passenger seat and bracing for the summit. Josh and I joked that we could here the clatter of the roller coaster engine straining to pull us to the top and then release us over the other side. I had only ever seen Red Cone from the bottom of the other side so this was a new experience for me. I’d done Radical Hill before at that wasn’t as exciting as Red Cone. I’d heard tons of horror stories of vehicles doing this or that over Red Cone and had the impression this was the mother of all hills in Colorado . “You can still see the drag marks in the loose rock on the side of the mountain from that truck that had to be hauled out of here after tumbling off the side,” I could hear in the back of my mind. Great. What was I thinking. Should I walk down? Do I trust Josh after the way he took 285 this morning?
At the summit, Mary and Nathan switched seats. (This way Nathan would get down first and be able to get some photos of us going off the side of the mountain.) Actually, Mary did a fantastic job of talking Josh through the moguls of Red Cone and Josh put me in charge of filming the descent from the back seat. There were two, “I’m sliding off the seat into a wedgie,” parts of the downhill but they really weren’t that bad. Back on level ground, we rearranged our drawers and I remembered to start breathing again. It really wasn’t bad at all and having to film it while doing it, probably helped keep my mind off the plunge to either side or the possibility of tumbling headlight over taillight down the hill.
We all stopped to look back at the “cone we conquered” and said goodbye to the two vehicles heading back towards their car at the Webster Pass trailhead. Three of us decided to head up and over Radical Hill, while the other two went on down through Monteczuma and Keystone. There was a bit of snow still blocking the main trail at the base of Radical but a suitable bypass was available. We noticed the Adopt-a-Trail sign hadn’t changed to Solihull Society yet so hopefully someone has gotten to it by now. We switched back and forth and easily climbed to the top and were rewarded with a beautiful view. It was then that I was reminded why I moved from Hawaii to Colorado . After 18 years of island paradise, I moved here to experience mountain majesty. And there’s nothing like literally climbing a mountain in a Land Rover to get you to appreciate this awesome country. It’s also at this wonderful unobstructed altitude that we were able to make an uninterrupted cell phone call to Land Rover Flatirons and get new motor mounts ordered for Josh. Ah, technology!
We hoped to see the herd of mountain goats that usually frequent the area but there were a number of other non-Land Rover vehicles making quite a bit of noise along with some hikers and dogs off trail distracting from the view and probably scaring off the goats.
My bladder discreetly reminded me that I was in urgent need of some facilities and I silently cursed boys and their fixtures able to relieve themselves wherever they pleased with just a turn of the back. Thankfully, CHIEF9 knew the quickest way off the mountain and I’m sure it could have done it without Jim & Mary in the vehicle. Down in Breckenridge, they invited us to their home to “take care of business” and air up our tires. It was a nice break to stretch our legs before getting back on I-70 for our long drive home. In the esteemed words of a great trail leader, “a good time was had by all.”
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