Trip Reports
| Red Cone / Webster / Radical Hill | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date: | Aug 9th 2009 | |||
| Trip Leader: | Rob Cooper | |||
| Members Present: | Mike Borum, Matt Dodds | |||
| Guests Present: | Kellie Johnson | |||
| Picture Link: | Mike's Pics Rob's Pics | |||
| Description: |
The trip started out with a call from Mike to me asking if "The Trip Leader" was going to show up! I was running late and still needed the necessities i.e. food, gas, and coffee! When I got to the parking lot Matt and Mike were waiting and ready to get going. We rolled out around 8:30 and headed to Webster the back way through woodland to hwy 285.
Once we hit the dirt we aired down and commented on how nice the weather was before heading up CR 60 to the trail head. The road out to the trail was pretty rutted out and in need of some major repair work but we managed to navigate our way through the land mine fields of potholes and washboards to the trial head. From the last parking lot the trail starts and splits, left is the bottom of Webster and right is the start of Red Cone. The last time I ran Webster/Red Cone it was 7 years ago so you can only guess what happened! About a mile in I realized that I had gone the wrong way when I finally looked at my GPS and noticed we were WAY off track. After turning around and getting on the right trail it was smooth sailing all the way through the forest and into the tundra where we all stopped and ate lunch. The views are pretty amazing and the weather was perfect. After about 20 minutes of chatting we all packed up and prepared for the assent to the top of Red Cone. The trail itself is very easy but the fact that you are driving on a ridge 12,000 plus feet up creates a pretty good pucker factor. We all skirted the high tundra trail with ease pausing to take a few pictures at the highest point in the trail, took in the views and then motored our way down to the saddle where Red Cone meets up with Webster pass. Matt and Mike decided to take Radical hill up and over to extend their wheeling trip, while Kellie and I took Webster back down. I've always enjoyed running Webster because it was the first off road trail I ran when I purchased my Jeep. I guess you could call it my "gateway" trail because after that I knew I'd be four wheeling for a long time to come. Webster starts with a series of pretty tight switch backs that climb down into a valley on the south side of Red Cone pass. The trail quickly changes from high tundra to a dense forest that follows the mountain run off all the way back down to CR 60. Kellie and I enjoyed the relaxing drive back down to the campgrounds commenting every 15 minutes on how scenic the trail is! We made it down around 4:30 and hit the pavement back to the springs. Mike's Report : After Rob and Kelly, Matt and I had negotiated the steep downhill of Red Cone, we stopped for a few moments and took in the scenic area of Webster Pass. Kelly had some obligations at home, so Rob decided to cut their trip short. Matt and I headed down the trail and soon we were climbing again to the high tundra. We were at a switchback near Radical Hill waiting for a couple of ATVs and a Jeep to descend, when I spotted a small family of mountain goats perched on a ledge of rocks at the very top of the hill. As we continued to drive our rigs up to the crest of Radical Hill, we kept a close eye on the goats as they made their way across the glaciers hanging along the edge. While the elders watched, a couple of the kids literally pranced about on the thick sheet of ice pack. Matt and I finally reached the plateau and jogged over to the edge so we could get a close-up of them. It was really cool to watch the patriarch of the group nonchalantly glance back in our direction, but who seemed barely concerned about us standing just a few yards away. Eventually, they crossed the glaciers and strolled out of our view, so we jumped back in our rigs and continued along the ridges of the several peaks around us. The trails literally crisscrossed the valleys and slopes of this spectacular area, and Matt and I stopped frequently to look at old mines built 150 years before, and now just piles of wood and iron. I don't recall the names of these forgotten structures, but it wasn't hard to imagine the bustle of activity there must have been in their heyday. Eventually we realized it was getting toward late afternoon, and we needed to head down to civilization. Though we had spent nearly two hours rolling along the tundra, it took merely minutes to find ourselves in the thick spruce forest below tree line. We found a turnout near a campground and aired up the tires, shook the dust out of our clothes, and headed into Dillon for dinner and a gas station. Our trip home was slow-going due to the typical crawl of Sunday evening traffic on I-70, and when we finally were able to attain the speed limit, a super cell of heavy rainfall greeted us just before we made the C-470 interchange. The rest of the trip was dry, but again the traffic ground to a halt, with taillights as far as the eye could see towards Monument Hill. We jumped off the freeway ad took the back roads to Palmer Lake and across to Hwy 83 and finally home. Thanks to Matt and Mike for coming along! We had a great time and I'm looking forward to Blanca next weekend! |
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