We had a nice turnout for the Outdoor Expo in Ignacio.  We had several different courses and games that were played for the crowds.

Easter Jeep Safari is one of the largest 4wd gatherings in the world and we are lucky enough to be next door and enjoy the 9 days of fun.

We were awarded the BFG Good Trails Award for our work on Black Bear Pass yet again!

Some old ones that made the trip.

Hell Roaring Rim trail

Lined up at the end of Hell Roaring Rim

Richard Smith on Kane Creek.

Jax Trax trail was our club run.

Glen Hood usually tries to have a fun snow bash at his house every winter. This year the snow was a bit deep as we spent more time pulling each other out than playing.  We even had a tractor come and help.

Great weekend camp out to enjoy the fall weekend.  A few of us camped at the bottom of Elwood Pass and we made our way over the pass to Stunner Pass, up to Kerr Lake, and down to the bustling ghost town of Platoro. Sunday a couple of us ran up to Quartz Meadow.
Lunch stop near the top of Elwood Pass.
Driving through where the town of Stunner once stood.
Fall colors were close to their peak.
Looking down Stunner Pass to the town of Platoro.
Town of Platoro.
Parked at Kerr Lake. More spectacular fall views.

Wasn’t much work to be done this year so we enjoyed the views.  The main thing we saw to be repaired was where some vehicles went of the road through a marsh which we put in some rocks and more signs.  On the way home most of us took Imogene Pass and a few took the shorter Ophir Pass home.

New ruts in the marsh that we had to block off.

The old road which we are restoring and looking very good after 9 years of work.

Morgan coming up the rocky ravine. 

Jerry and Kevin posing at the top of Black Bear.

Walking down the “Steps”

Lines up at the old mill at Ingram Falls.

Bridal Veil Falls and world famous powerhouse.

Mill at Ingram Falls.

We went back over Imogene Pass and had to stop at the overlook and look down on HWY 550 and Yankee Girl Mine.

Another great long weekend camping out above Silverton and of course the parade and wheeling.

Uncompagrhe Peak

Snow was still a bit deep on Engineer Pass.  Probably 25-30 feet deep. Kevin can’t even reach the top.

Billy, Kevin, and Monica parked at Oh Point on Engineer Pass.

Lunch at the Tomboy Mine on Imogene Pass.

Tomboy Mine on Imogene Pass.

Looking down Imogene Pass towards Telluride.

Kevin’s Jeep is ready for the parade.

Lined up for the parade.

Scott climbing on Chad’s tires.

Chad climbing on Scott’s tires.

Quick stop on Brown’s Gulch road.

Everyone lined up at the Brooklyn Mine on Brown’s Gulch.

Moose #1 that walked through camp.

Moose #2 that walked through camp.

Elephant Hill ’15

By Frank Taylor 

The Creeper’s Easter Sunday trail ride was Elephant Hill, located in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. The trail is rated a 5 and is also run twice during the week of Jeep Safari.

Most of us met at the Moab City Market at 8:00 and pulled out at 8:30. We had seven Jeeps on the run: Jerry & Viga in the “Short Bus”, Dixie Green driving “Lance”, Trevor in his XJ with his dad Tom as a passenger, Wendy in her CJ-5 accompanied by her three grand kids, Dwight & Bev in their almost new red 4 door JK, our daughter Lisa in her work in progress XJ, and Sandy and I as trail leaders driving the trusty CJ-7 relic.

We stopped at the turn off into the park to meet some of our group that had gone ahead. Wendy unloaded her jeep off the trailer and removed all her valuables from the truck/camper and secured them in the jeep Tuffy console for safe-keeping. (There”s more to this story involving how to break into the Tuffy console after the lock wouldn”t unlock. Ask Wendy for details, especially if you have one with the push button type latch). In the mean time, her cash, credit cards and driver license were definitely in a safe place. We stopped at the visitor center for a 10-100 and to air down.

This trail offers some moderate challenges and fantastic scenery. One of our goals for the day was to take our lunch break at the Joint Trail trailhead and then explore the narrows and slots of the Joint Trail. To get there it is necessary to navigate down SOB Hill and then return the same way. With time beginning to become an issue, we decided to have lunch at Devil’s Kitchen instead. We then drove the short distance over to the top of SOB Hill to have a look. With some expert spotting by Dwight, Jerry and Viga in the Short Bus and Dixie piloting Lance, drove down and back up the hill with no issues. Although it was possible for all of us, we decided it would have to be conquered another day. It was getting late and we had a long way to go to get back out.

Coming up the backside of Elephant Hill, Jerry noticed Dwight’s swaybar had somehow flipped around. After getting it back in it’s proper position and driving about a hundred yards it flipped around again causing a steering issue. This time the links were removed and the bar was tied up out of the way. We were then able to drive down the front face of the hill without any problem.

We got everyone aired up and headed toward Montecello for a late dinner. Montecello had pretty much closed up for the day but we did find a restaurant that was open. They did a great job in getting eleven of us seated and fed. We got back into Durango around 11:30 or so. It was a long but exciting day. Thanks to everyone who joined us for a great day of fun wheeling and wrapping up the 2015 Easter Jeep Safari.

Trevor Kraayenbrink almost to the top of Elephant Hill

Jerry McGeorge working his way down SOB Hill

The group working their way up Elephant Hill from the trailhead

Frank Taylor, Jerry McGeorge, and Dixie Green coming down the back side of Elephant Hill

Wendy Klemm and Dwight Stovall coming up the front side of Elephant Hill

The slots at Devil’s Kitchen

Dixie Green and Dwight Stovall coming up the backside of Elephant Hill

Our lunch stop at Devil’s Kitchen

Lisa Taylor slowly working her way down the ledge (Photo by Dixie Green)

Spring Safari Pre-Run ’15

The Creepers headed out early March to pre-run Steel Bender and Cliffhanger with Poison Spider and a bit of Spike tossed in on Friday.

We headed up the Poison Spider trail Friday morning and took a left at the fork to do Launchpad, Skyline Drive and ‘Zuke hill before continuing on and completing Poison Spider.  Not too many pictures of this trail as everyone was busy driving.

Chad coming up the waterfall.

Amy on the Wedge.

Saturday we started out on Steel Bender planning to run the long way.

The lineup.

Dixie Green on the “Tail”.

Chad going down the Tail.

Kevin trying out the long arms on his LJ

Jerry’s Short Bus on the trail.

Most eveyone took the hard lines.

Sunday saw some of the gang doing Cliffhanger.

Kevin in his new LJ on the cliff obstacle.

Short Bus on the cliff.

James came up from Farmington to join us.

Blanca Peak Work Days ’14

We had a good turnout for our work day.  On Friday Chris Stacey, Roger and Kyle Sterling and Dave Shannon headed out to nail down parking and camping at the bottom.   Saturday Scott, Kim and Curtis Click, Jesse and Jessi James and Bill Murray joined us.   Dog support was provided by Teton, Sweat Pea, Annie and Dylan

For a slideshow of pictures click here.

After getting the Jeeps loaded with camping gear we headed up the trail, Jaws 1 has a new line, after Chris took it the rest of us took the old line.

The first issue was a rock slide just above Jaws 2

Some work on Saturday moving rocks from the high side to the low side resulted in a safer passage.

Next up was a mud bog

Small to medium rocks were tossed down from a scree field above the pit while Dave’s TJ was pressed into service as a truck to haul bigger rocks.

The finished product, from a pit that required very high clearance and lockers to get out of to a safe/easy path.

The slide that we were informed about via email by a member of the Rising Sun club was pretty much a non-issue.  On Friday Chris drove right over it without realizing that it was a recent slide, the little guy (on 35″s) caught it and we spent a bit of Saturday working on moving rocks from the high side to level it out a bit.  The work went so quickly that we didn’t even bother to snap a pic of it.

Up top the flat area on the back side of the lake looked good,

Sadly after most of us left some dirtbags on ATVs decided to drive through it.

After the work day most of us went up to Blue Lake at the end of the trail.

Jaws 4 was tough and wet this year.

After coming back down to Clear Lake we visited with the folks who camped there then headed back down to our trucks/campers.  A bear had been bothering campers in the area and signs were all over warning people to take precautions.  It walked part way down with us and didn’t seem to be at all bothered by Jeeps invading his/her space.

Spring Ruins Run ’14

Ruins Run

March 2014 with the Creeper Jeepers

Our southwestern corner of the world is a treasure of archaeological sites, ruins and more. One little known area is the Navajo Pueblitos, near Blanco, New Mexico, in the canyons of Gobernador, Largo and Ice. The Pueblitos are Navajo Defensive sites, built in the late 1600’s to early 1700’s when the Spanish were pushing their way in to the Dinetah homeland. While they look somewhat Anasazi (or Ancestral Puebloan, to be correct), these structures were built several hundred years after the climax of the Chaco and Mesa Verde structures.

Pam and Doug Ramsey have spent much of the winter exploring the canyons and searching for ruins, based on very vague information from the BLM. Mapping and graphing locations (as defensive sites, these are very hard to find if just traveling the oil field roads). We decided to take a group from our club, Creeper Jeepers Gang on a March trip to share what we have found. The response was so big that we ended up doing two days, a Saturday (March 22, 2014) and the following Tuesday. Our goal was to lessen our impact on the sites while still allowing everyone time to explore.

Both days found us starting out bright and early and meeting at the grocery store in Bloomfield, New Mexico. Our group is outstanding at being on time, and we departed easily at 9:00am from the parking lot with no stragglers either day. Some had well over an hour and half drive to be there by 8:45am.

Heading out, we stopped to air down before entering the canyon. The roads are all oil field, but just rough and bumpy. Our first stop was Gould Pass site, perched on the edge of a canyon, you can climb into this one and come out on the top and see the entire Four Corners area, and the ceiling still had the original log vigas. After climbing around here and taking many pictures, we heading off down another bumpy dirt road off into the middle of the oil fields to look for the “Citadel”

The Citadel is considered one of the most awe inspiring ruins, perched on a rock outcropping, there is just one small door in the back that requires a pretty good scramble to get to. Easily defend-able against enemies, this is a beautiful ruin with the ceiling beams still in place. This area became our lunch stop both days.

We were fortunate to have Yvonne Lashmett along, riding in one of her friend’s jeeps. She is a professional photographer who does amazing work. She took this framed shot of the “Citadel” from the canyon below.

Another view, from the front. We couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. Warm and sunny, a spectacular southwestern spring day.

While in route to the next site, we were greeted by a small herd of Antelope. Unusual for us to see in the desert, they seemed to have no fear and stopped to pose for us, many pictures were taken of these magnificent animals. I’m sure they are used to the oil field workers traveling the back roads on a regular basis.

Next stop was Tapocito Site. This had been a standoff between Spanish explorers and Navajos and history tells us a number of Navajo’s were killed on this site. We did find a number of pottery shards on the midden pile below the ruin. We carefully looked and placed items back exactly where we found it.

Doug had done extensive research over the course of the winter and was more than happy to share what he had learned.

Lining up at Tapocito Site. We had everything from Jeeps to pickups.

A pretty good scramble to the top of another canyon wall, and this ruin perched on the edge of the canyon wall; we also found a number of walls off in the brush, indicating there was a well-populated site.

We explored several more sites during the course of the day and topped it off with a hike to an amazing petroglyph panel. The late afternoon sun was beginning to drop behind the canyon walls and it was time to head out. There are nearly 200 sites in this area and we have only begun to explore. We can’t wait to get out again and see what else we can find.