My third trail ride was "thrilling" to say the least. We made a decision to follow this trail instead of that one. It was very steep and very rocky, the very diffinition of a black diamond trail. We rode about a mile and a half down, over big boulders, into big washouts. Way too difficult for a rookie like me.

We get to the bottom only to realize it was a dead end! Hey, always take a good map. We had no choice but to ride back up that awful trail. I learned uphill was more difficult than downhill. Twice I thought I was going to flip over backwards and my machine is the long wheelbase model (2 up). Several times I thought I was going to roll over. My buddy in front of me had wheels off the ground more times than I could count. The buddy behind me said I did too. I scraped up my Outlander on big rocks. My friend got hung up on a big rock like a turtle on a fence post. He could not dismount for fear of flipping backwards. We winched his machine off the rock. The hill was so steep I had trouble walking up, almost had to crawl on all fours. Then I had to follow him. I somehow made it over that rock. Wow!

We made it back to the top without injury to man or machine. Eighty percent of the ride was merely "moderate" according to my OHV trail map, with difficult sections. We did the Empire Loop and rode to Bill Moore Lake and the ghost mining town of "Red Elephant". I also saw bristle pine trees, likely hundreds of years old. They grow sideways due to the sometimes fierce winds up at 11,000 feet.

Here are a couple of pictures of the more sedate moments of our ride. I am looking forward to our next ATV adventure.

David

 

Great report. Thanks for posting. That sounds like a fun trail, so please tell us what trail you rode, if you know the name or number.

 

The trail was unmarked. I should have known better. It was a dead end trail.
My friends have ridden the area many times. I followed them. They got me good.

I can't recommend this trail to anyone even if I did have the number. Too dangerous for a quad in my view. And certainly not suitable for a side by side or Jeep. I'd call it a rugged hiking trail at best.

We rode 28 miles in a little over 4 hours. I developed a whole new appreciation for the engineering that goes into our ATVs. My machine took a beating and kept on ticking. The engineering in the tires, suspension, drivetrain, frame, plastics, et.al. is very significant to survive such a beating. I am impressed.

David

 

Cool pics thanks for posting !!

 

Nice pics. If my friends wanted to go down a trail like that I would have told them go ahead, I'll wait here while you check it out. I would've been scared and wouldn't care who knew it.There are a few of us on this forum that don't bounce back like we used to when we were young.

 

I hate those trails that you go down and barely survive, only to learn it dead ends and you have to back through the nightmare again. It's happened quite a few times with us.

 

The trouble is I knew nothing about what I was getting into. Neither did my friends, but they have years of experience trail riding in the Rockies. So the first downhill was a little rough, and from then on you would be hard pressed to turn around. I didn't get any pictures of us on that trail. By the way, the trail is called Red Elephant Trail going south off the Empire Loop. It's a black diamond for me.

David

 

I love mountain riding like that. I need to come over there some time and ride the trails. Thanks for posting.

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/c...l-empire-trail

 

Thanks for the video. The Empire Loop is what we road. I could not tell in the video if they road down the Red Elephant trail. I did not see the rocks that we had to cross. It's hard to tell, but I didn't see the steep grade of Red Elephant Trail. Pictures often don't reflect the actual. But I did see a dirt road next to a sign that said I 70 at the end of the video. We thought the trail dead ended. Maybe not.

Those dirt bikes were moving much, much faster that we were.

David

 

Pictures, or video, never do justice to how difficult something is. I looked at several videos that said they were from the Red Elephant Hill Trail, and all the videos of Jeeps or ATVs would go on for 15 minutes showing a Jeep trying to go 50 feet over a rock section. The motorcycle video actually showed some of the trail, because they were moving so much faster. That is why I posted the motorcycle video.