Trip Summary:
Drove down from FTC on Friday May 24th, checked out Bishop Castle then headed further south and camped off Medano Pass in the National Forest.
Saturday drove over Medano pass into Sand Dunes, grabbed a primitive camping spot up the sandy Medano Creek road in the National Preserve, continued into Sand Dunes to the Medano Creek parking lot where we checked out the creek and got our feet wet. After lunch we headed in to check out the visitors center main part of the park. Headed back up to the campsite in the afternoon to make a fire/dinner.
Sunday we headed out of the park via the Sandy Medano Creek road, at the parking lot for the Medano Creek access I let a ranger pass on the one way road. The ranger got out of her truck and started asking me questions, "Is that 4wd?" "Is it 4wd or AWD?" "Do you actually have a lever you can shift into 4wd?" "We don't let AWD vehicles back here because they get stuck in the sand, block the road for hours and require wenching to get out." I told her that I had come over Medano Pass the day before and had already been down and up the sandy creek road the day before. She seemed taken aback by the fact I came over the pass, she also kinda had a blank look on her face when I told her that I had aired down my tires, had 4.54 gears, 6:1 low range, and a rear locker, I'm not sure that meant anything to her. After getting out of the Park and refueling in Alamosa we headed north on 285 towards leadville, just outside of lead we turned east and headed up Weston Pass, we camped out there for the night and on Monday morning headed up Weston Pass. I had never been over Weston pass before so I was unsure of the trail conditions, I got fairly far up from the Leadville side before the snow on the road became too deep for me to proceed. We turned around and headed back through Leadville and I70.
To start off, a few Panoramas:
