Well, we are back, maybe not all in one piece, but back none the less. Started off as a really great vacation and then the 24th of June was the "DAY FROM HELL".


More to follow along with pictures.

I hope it wasn't anymore kindling.

Kindling was a piece of cake compared to this mess of a day. Lets just say the wife was first and she rolled her X2 upside down on Cumberland Pass road. It wasnt hurt to bad and after getting it righted she head back to the cabin with it.

Nic & I were up above Pitkin cutting firewood (they are making a road wider and a sign said free wood so we stocked up). On way back to cabin Nic had a little problem.

Here are the Pics

I cheated, looked your pics over from a previous thread before heading out to work.

Has been beaten to death here, was Nic wearing a helmet???

In a word, NO. He had it with him and I told him he needed to be wearing it. Course why would a 16 year old step child listen to me, I know nothing.

John - even the flesh & blood 16 year olds don't listen! Hopefully he'll wise up and wear the helmet.

Looks like you did a lot of cutting on that tree. We've come across a tree or two when riding but not one that big.

Good to know the wife is okay and the quad is still running.

Glad the damage was limited to what can heal or be replaced. Does he have a different perspective of helmets now? He got off cheap there. I am surprised he got off as easy as he did. I couldn't imagine what it would feel like knocking the head on a rock as you are going through a tumble like that.

Yes, he is looking at it a whole lot different now. If he would have had a helmet on, he would NOT have been straped to the back board, which I guess is really uncomfortable, for about 4 hours.

quote:

Course why would a 16 year old step child listen to me

I feel your pain on that one. My 14 is getting to tht point.
Are the quads insured? The damage looks pretty bad.

That boy best count his blessing he got away in pretty good shape THIS TIME! I know a couple years ago when I had my tumble on NAPOLEAN that had I not been wearing a helmet I wouldn't be here to talk about it. I know of at least 3 times that I hit my helmet that I have no doubt, would have killed me other wise.

If old age has its benefits
Youth must have all the luck !

Great pics (makes me wanna be there).

Glad ya'll made it back. Anything else exciting happen?

I'm back now too, from work that is.

Glad he made it through to see another sun rise sunset. I guess next time he'll pay more attention to you. A tough lesson to learn.

Pictures are great, as a fellow ATV'er, Thank You for clearing the trails.

Ok, story time is now, as time permits while at work.

6-19-09 Arrived at cabin at about 8:30pm. Hurried and unloaded the ATV's and got the cabin all opened up.

6-20-09 Woke to rain coming down fairly hard at 6:00. After breakfast, I head to garage to work on the new ATV. Got the winch, brush guard, front rack ext., rear box, mirror & GPS mount installed by noon. It was still raining, so started working on the lawn mowers. Along about 3:00 it stopped raining so Nic & I got the ATV's out and headed up Waunita Pass road. At top we came back down by way of Trail #763-1C or G which ever way you go. From Waunita to Pitkin it is marked 1G, but from Pitkin to Waunita it is marked 1C. This is a really neat trail that keeps you off the main road.

6-21-09 Started swathing the yard about 9:00am. Since the riding mower wouldnt start, we finally got done about noon with 2 push mowers going. After eating a bite of dinner, we head out for a ride. Head to Trail #765-3A Napoleon Pass. Head up and notice the "Water Bars" they have put in. Spitsalotofchew had said there was a tree down across the trail on the Pitkin side, so I had the chainsaw in the box. Get to tree and start in cutting the branches off and getting them clear. Then go to work cutting the tree. My little 12" Stihl took some work to cut thru the 16" tree. Due to the angle this thing was laying across the trail, I ended up cutting about 20' out and rolling off trail. Head on up and get to a snow patch about 60' across. I try it a couple of times and am making progress until I get so far and just loose all the speed I had built up. Get Nic to try it and he made it a little further. I then told him to try a new spot, thinking he could stay on top of the snow. That worked and once he got thru, I got out one of my 50' tow ropes that I made and he pulled me thru. I then get out the other 50' rope and hook it to Lisa's X2 and the 2 of us pull her thru. This is the bad thing about the X2, lower ground clearance and a LOT heavier than the Sportsman, if not for 2 of us pulling we probably would not have made it thru. We make it to top of pass and there is a lot of snow just over the top on Tincup side. We turn around and head back down. At the Graphite Creek Trail we turn and take it to the end. We head back to Pitkin and I decide to take a trail that I had never been on. Trail #779-1A leaves Pitkin and goes up and up and up. You will end up on the Depler Park Loop. We took the left and came out at Middle Quartz Creek.

More to come

Glad to hear he is ok John.

6-22-09 ATV up Halls Gulch Trail #770 from Pitkin and down to Cumberland Pass road on Trail #766. Head back toward Pitkin to Alpine Tunnel turnoff. Head up #839 to the Hancock Pass #299 turnoff. On the way up, they have put in a lot of "Water Bars", some of these are going to be really dangerous, the worst was right after Tomichi Pass turnoff where the trail was already steep and then they put up a 5' tall pile of dirt without tapering it very far. Get to about 300 yards from top and get stopped by snow drift. Decide to play it safe & turn around and head back down.

Spent the afternoon up in Quartz Creek Properties cutting firewood. They are widening a road up there and had already cut the trees down, with a sign that said free wood. The woodshed at the cabin was all but empty so I started cutting. Got a full pickup load of mixed aspen & pine.


6-23-09 ATV up Cumberland Pass road to mile marker #8 where the ATV shortcut is. Took that on to top of Pass. At top of pass, took the Trail #765-E that goes down by the mine and ends up back down on the Cumberland Pass road. Followed the Cumberland Pass road on toward Tincup and turned at the Slaughterhouse Gulch Trail #765-K. They have put in the "Water Bars" on this trail also, which in the really washed out area they also filled in the wash and smoothed it up. On to Union Park and to the "Nugget" for a great hamburger dinner. At this point, decide to head to American Flag Mountain by way of Trail #759, Italian Creek road. Made it to the Star Mine buildings before snow turned us around, which GPS showed at 1.8 miles (as the crow flies) from the top of mountain. Head back to Pitkin by way of Cumberland Pass road. By the time we got back to cabin we had 98 miles on the ATV's for the day.

More to come

I just got back too. John, sorry I was not able to meet up with you at the General Store. We did not make it to TP until Thursday. I attempted to contact the store, the TP Marina which I had written down as the Post. Anyway I could not get the number from anywhere.
We turned off 70 onto 24 at about 830 on Sunday night. About 8 miles down the road, the truck in front of me hit two deer and I tried to avoid the mess, ended up in a field to the right of the road and the trailer axles were damaged. The Truck was beat up and the kids were the so quite, I could hear a pen drop
More later.

6-24-09 The beginning of the "Day from Hell"

Started out with the plan being to head to Tincup General Store to meet with "Redbone" from here on the forum and go for a ride with him and his boys. As we are going over Cumberland Pass road, at one of the hairpin corners my wife got into the washboards and started sliding sideways, when it grabbed it rolled upside down with her landing in the trees. She got it on its side and then a couple of guys in a jeep got it on its tires. I got there soon after. After making sure it was in working order, she said she would head back to the cabin instead of going on. I told her to take it easy and off she went. Nic & I continued on into Tincup and got there about 5 minutes after I was to meet Redbone. We sat around for about 30 minutes with nobody showing up so we head back to Pitkin.

Nic & I go up to Quartz Creek Properties to cut firewood. Nic on the ATV, me in the pickup. We were using the ATV to pull the logs down to the road. Got one pickup load cut and hauled to woodshed. Unloaded and headed up for another load. Got another load cut and its about 4:30pm. Head down to the cabin with Nic on the ATV behind me. I get to just outside of Pitkin and am able to see Lisa's car sitting at the lodge. I go on and unload the wood and Nic doesn't show up. I just figured he had seen his moms car and stopped there to talk to her. I get on my ATV and head for the Lodge to see whats up and here comes Lisa flying around the corner in her car. She was frantic and screamed Nic was in a wreck. I go on over to where it was and Lisa shows up with her "Nurse Made" first aid kit. The Pitkin EMT crew showed up soon after and took over. Lisa then told me that she was in the Lodge talking to the owner when a guy runs in and hollers "Call 911, there is an ATV accident on the edge of town". Lisa said she would head down to see if she could do anything and went into histerics when she found out it was her son. Anyway after a ride to the Gunnison Hospital in the Ambulance and waiting there for about 3 hours, they release him and we get home at about 9:00. I sat down and drank a beer.

6-25-09 Didnt do a whole lot this day. I did go up and cut another load of firewood. Fished late afternoon.

6-26-09 To Gunnison to do laundry and shop. Fished most of afternoon in the streams above & below town.

6-27-09 Cut firewood all day. Instead of using the ATV to pull the logs, I used the pickup and a snatch block on a tree stump. Using one of my 50' ropes and the pickup to pull, I was pulling up to 14" dia. logs that were about 40' long up from the downhill side of the road. Pull up, cut, pull up, cut until it was gone. This was a lot more work, but with a little thinking, it was a lot easier to pull the logs up than it was to cut and then carry the pieces up by hand.

6-28-09 Decided to go exploring on the trails that branch off the Cumberland Pass road. First one we tried, we came to a spot that would have required a lot of work to get over the rock obstacle and I just told the wife that we couldnt do it instead of trying to get her to do it. Looked like if you knew where the other end of this trail was, you could come down pretty easy.

On up, which the next one was above the Halls Gulch turnoff about a mile and is the Sawmill Gulch Trail. There is a wooden sign nailed to a tree on the Cumberland Pass Road that says "5451 County Road 765" and there are usually cars parked just off the road. I had always thought there was a cabin just off the road, but there is not. There are a lot of cabins up this trail and going by my map, the trail should have ended at an old mine building. Find that the trail kept going and we ended up on the top of a ridge that if not for snow would have taken us to the top of Green Mountain. From were we stopped, we were looking down on Duncan Hill. Should mention here, there is no switch backs once you get so high, it is just straight up the hill.

From here we went to see if Napoleon Pass was open yet. Got to top and there was still a good amount of snow just over the top. We head back down and then we try another side trail. This one is just above the Upper Quartz Creek campground on the same side and is marked on my Topo program as CR765-A, Mosquito Creek Trail. This was a beautiful drive and the canyon you follow is great for pictures. There are tons of trees that have fallen over and made bridges across the little creek. Up a ways, you come to a fork in the trail and we took the left fork. We went to the end and then turned around and headed down. At the bottom, there was a guy that had a cabin up the right fork and he said the right fork will take you up higher. Will try that one on the next trip out.

Wow!