San Juans passes, F150 driving?

[XterraRob]

First time poster, long time thread reader. Hopefully those with more San Juans driving experience can help me out here! (including sending any known existing thread that shows this info... my first search didn't turn up anything).

I'm planning a trip next weekend to the Telluride/Ouray/Lake City area and have some questions about doing some of the passes in my 2000 extended cab 4wd F150 truck. I have some 4x4 experience in CO but this would likely be more challenging than anything I've done before.

For peaks I'm hoping to do Sneffels, S. Hayden Mountain outside Ironton Park, and Redcloud/Sunshine over 3 days.

For driving I'm planning to go from Telluride to Ouray and check out Bridal Veil Falls (via black bear pass?), and then driving from Silverton to the Grizzly Gulch TH via Animas Forks (I think looks like over Cinnamon Pass, maybe others?).

Does anyone have information on if these routes would be the best ways to get from Telluride to Ouray, and then Ouray to Grizzly Gulch TH? And do you know if they are possible with the longer wheelbase and width of the truck/my relatively limited experience? Would be great to not have to drive via the highways the whole time and get some more 4wd experience under my belt. Thanks in advance and happy hiking!

OP

The worst thing you want to do is put yourself in a bad position far from home, especially up in the mountains. My advice:

Sunshine/Redcloud: utilize the Cinnamon Pass road for your travels between Silverton & Lake City, it's very manageable for an extended size truck. It has room for you, you may have to do a 3 point turn or two on the switch backs but you'll have the space necessary to do it.

Bridal Veil Falls: I wouldn't recommend attempting other off-road mountain passes just to stay within your comfort zone. If anyone suggests crossing over Black Bear Pass or Imogene, I would ignore it even if it's been done before. I'd make the drive north to Ridgway from Ouray, take 62 west to Placerville, 145 down south to Telluride. It's a beautiful drive with great views of the San Juans. I'd recommend driving through Telluride to the base of the road/trail up to Bridal Veil, park, and hike up. There are a lot of people who park on the road and along the switch backs near Bridal Veil Falls. Sometimes its super annoying to navigate around and I've even unintentionally pin striped a vehicle or two on the way down from Black Bear Pass because there wasn't enough room for two vehicles to get by.

Sneffels: Take forest road 361 SW of Ouray and this will take you close to Sneffels. I wouldn't recommend taking the truck up past tree line because the switch backs will be tight. You should be able to get to the lower TH with no issues.

Any other questions, feel free to PM me.

[TravelingMatt]

I was in Yankee Boy Basin last week and at least two F-150s had gotten well past the outhouse. Both had out-of-state plates; at least one made it all the way to the end of the road and the driver of the other one asked me how the road was before continuing up. I'm not familiar with the various trim levels of the F-series, but it probably helps not to have running boards and similar crap.

The road has a few small parking areas past the outhouse. You don't have to drive all the way.

You're driving in the places they film commercials for these trucks. you'll be fine.

[acidchylde]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'extended cab', since that could mean four full doors or just suicide doors for the back, and both can come with a long bed. I don't think the truck is as big as some people here seem to think it is. That said:

Black Bear is one-way from the top down to the power station, so going east over that isn't even an option. I also wouldn't recommend going west over it, because there are a couple of extremely tight switchbacks that even jeeps have to make multi-point turns on. While you can drive all the way up to the power station, and there is a TH there, if all you want to do is see the falls you're probably better off just stopping at the parking area at the bottom. Plenty of room, and aside from a couple glimpses along the road and at switchbacks, you can't really see much of the falls from any higher. The power station itself is a private residence that you can't even go down to.

Ophir, which is south of Telluride and comes out a bit north of Silverton, can be muddy in the trees on the west side below the pass. The 'worst' part is shortly after coming out of the trees where you will be on a narrow, rocky, shelf road that has two wide spots where vehicles can pass. It's not a particularly long section, but if anyone is going to have issues driving over it (particularly with heights or edges), that's the place. Particularly in a passing situation. If you intend to take this pass and then go to Ouray, you will have a bit of driving north on 550 to get there, and it takes 15 min or so south of Telluride to get to the turnoff. Imogene comes out basically in Ouray.

I am going to counter those poo-pooing Imogene. It's perfectly fine for a full-size truck. We first took a 2000 Silverado Z71 over it, and more recently an F150 FX4 (or whatever it's called) full four door but a short bed (so normal full size truck) just the year before last. The more limiting factor is your experience and comfort level. It's not the pass I would send someone up first, as it would be the most challenging of anything mentioned here other than Black Bear. The worst part is probably the section on the east (Ouray) side coming down from the 'second overlook'. This makes more sense when you see it, but basically the pass itself is on a ridge at one end where you can look down over Telluride, then you drive along that ridge relatively level to the other end where you can look out a different direction. From that overlook down there are a couple of spots where it's steep and rocky with limited visibility over the hood and some turning. If running the other direction of course these will be uphill and imho slightly easier. Between Yankee and Telluride, Imogene is faster than going back out and around - but again that's going to depend on driver experience/comfort and traffic. The 'only make sense' part comes from those factors.

Engineer would be fine (not the Mineral Creek approach, which starts closer to Ouray) but if you want Redcloud is basically the wrong direction/road. Cinnamon is the pass you want to take from Silverton to get to Redcloud, and of all the ones discussed would be my first suggestion for a relatively inexperienced person to hit in the area as it's the easiest/least uncomfortable in terms of exposure imo. For the most part it's fine, worst part being the switchbacks near the top on the east side. One of them in particularly usually requires at least a 3 point turn for the inexperienced (and sometimes for the experienced) but it doesn't have nearly the exposure as some other places. If a deuce and a half can make it, an F150 can. Making the turn onto Cinnamon from above Animas Forks (rather than continuing over to Engineer) can also be a bit tight because it's more of a Y you're coming up.

There are many threads discussing these roads. Searching on the pass names should net you plenty of results (Ophir, Engineer, Cinnamon, Imogene). You're extremely unlikely to be alone on any of these roads. If you get high-centered on any of them you were doing something really stupid with no common sense. On the one hand I have trouble picturing someone getting a suburban stuck on Cinnamon, but on the other I've seen some stupid people with no common sense at all up there, so yeah, it could happen.

[Scizzo]

Last week I took a stock 2014 extended cab F150 over cinnamon pass (east to west) and had no issues whatsoever. One of the switchbacks on the east side of the pass required a 3 point turn, but there was enough space to do it safely. The turn coming down to animas forks was tricky as well, but nothing I couldn't handle. I don't have a ton of 4x4 experience, so if I could handle the pass I'm sure you can too. I read about the other passes and decided it would be best to stay away.... Especially given that the truck was a rental.

[Wish I lived in CO]

Considering doing Ophir pass this weekend. I have a stock Dodge quad cab 4x4 truck, so large vehicle with longer WB, but with pretty good clearance. I'm not really crazy about the idea as I've had to put a lot of $$$ into numerous repairs recently, including a front end alignment and new ball joints. It sounds from this thread Ophir is pretty doable in said truck, and my 4x4 driving skills are decent, but I just don't want to beat my truck up too much. I realize it's not going to be a nice graded road, but I don't want to get into 10+ miles of busting up the truck over rocks and 5 mph (or slower) type road. So just how "nice" or "easy" is Ophir?

[pmeadco]

We drove over Ophir Pass a couple months ago in our Subaru Forester. The east side of the pass is fine; most passenger cars could get to the summit without significant risk. The west side is pretty rugged, due to the road spending a lot of time crossing a talus slope at the top. It is much easier going East to West so that you are going down the rough section and can ease over the bigger rocks. We didn't encounter any issues other than a couple loose rocks bouncing off the bottom of the car. I would be reluctant to do the pass going uphill eastbound without a 4WD low transmission. You need to be able to go slow so that you can creep over the bigger rocks, and that's hard to do without a low-range transmission. You should be fine in your truck.