Quote:
Originally Posted by 1976gmc20
I was talking about up above the town of Tincup.  Tincup Pass used to be real easy, just a rough dirt road, but I guess it has eroded and/or been tore up in the past 30 years. Summer of 1989* I took the wife and kids up there one evening in my 2wd pickup, and we met a young couple in a 69 Impala coming over from the east. That first little stretch down the west side was a bit rough for them.
I never went up Mt. Antero since we spent most of the time on the west side. Living and working up in the mountains you just get busy and don't really get out to play all that much. And I spent so much time being banged around on cats and skidders that 4 wheeling sort of lost its appeal for a long time. I preferred to just go for a hike. After my wife wrecked her Bug, for a while we used it as a dune buggy on jeep trails. It did practically everything but just couldn't climb the steep hills at high altitude. We couldn't get it up Flag Mt so we just drove back down to the saddle and hiked up Italian.
*PS: actually I think it was in 1989 when some kids rolled a jeep off a trail on the south side of Fairview Peak. There were fatalities. I didn't know them but I knew people who knew them. |
Ah, the
town of Tincup...Duh. Didn't think about the town as we usually drive through on the way to Taylor to hook up with Taylor pass or Reno Creek. Now the trail of Tincup at least to me is still pretty much rough dirt road. There are still some rougher parts, but for the most part a stock 4wd truck could handle it with a few scrapes on the underbelly. It's not for crossovers though. We came across a Mazda a couple of years ago within sight of the summit coming from the west side. We all laughed like hell when we saw it. Beat to hell is the best way to describe it.
Some guys in a Toyota ran into us at the summit and gave us the scoop. The driver was trying to get to Salida and some local in Taylor said Tincup pass was the most direct route (Cottonwood pass was closed then as they were paving it). He had walked to their campsite on the east side below the summit asking for help to get a call out to get a tow truck up there. I'm pretty sure he was going to be in for a very expensive tow out of there.