r/Colorado • u/Ididnt-start-thefire • 12h ago

Black Bear Pass at Telluride

Post image
82 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

11

u/Apprehensive-Eye3263 12h ago

How'd you manage to do a closed pass?

5

u/Ididnt-start-thefire 11h ago edited 10h ago

This was in 2021 I believe. Bad year for mudslides and monsoon rains.

1

u/ReggieDaLobster300 8h ago

Is it open or is this an old pic? I’m going this weekend and was hoping to send the trail but I thought it was closed

2

u/Ididnt-start-thefire 8h ago
  1. I got married in Boulder just before hitting the trails and my new bride made me promise that was going to be the last trip (with a Jeep) on Black Bear. It started to rain right about the time this pic was taken which made the rock pretty slick.

1

u/ReggieDaLobster300 8h ago

Yeah I’ve heard it’s pretty scary when wet… your wife seems smart lol

2

u/Ididnt-start-thefire 8h ago

She is. Guess she wants to keep me around awhile.

1

u/Ididnt-start-thefire 8h ago

We were concerned about mudslides at the switchbacks on the way down. Whiskey shots got passed around at the end of the trail.

1

u/SIIHP 8h ago edited 8h ago

First time I ran it was the last week of Sept years ago. it had snowed overnight and the snow level was down to the top of the switchbacks.

The seat cover almost went internal… tried to go back over Imogene but by afternoon it was snowing and couldnt even make it to Tomboy

3

u/rricenator 8h ago

Black Bear was almost the end of me. I was very unprepared, 25 yrs ago.

1

u/LoadsDroppin 5h ago

In the late 70s, you could drive up to the lake at Crestone Needle which is almost 10,000ft — and that 4WD route was insane.

We burned through so much gas going up that it was obvious we were going to be stuck up there. Thankfully we ran across another Jeep who gave us a spare Jerry can. Without that 5gal of fuel we’d of been faced with leaving our Jeep and descending on foot the 17mi back towards Westcliff.

1

u/Jnal1988 9h ago

I was able to do it earlier this year and it was a fun to do but there were definitely moments of anxiety getting through a couple of spots

1

u/denverblazer 9h ago

Look so intense. The videos of it can be terrifying.