Posted By: Evan_Hikes Info: Road is clear all the way to the gate at 12000’. I don’t know if I’d be able to get a 2WD sedan up there. Dry all the way to the top but there’s a fairly gnarly final pitch. An AWD sedan with decent clearance could do it fine. Never had any issues in a Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk. | ||||
Posted By: burnhamc Info: Easy road, saw an Impala at the top. People drive very fast along the road. Tons of parking around 8:30am on a Sunday | ||||
Posted By: BillMiddlebrook Info: Dry and in decent condition this year all the way to the 12,000-foot trailhead. | ||||
Posted By: 719BR Info: If doing Horseshoe, when taking the 4wd road ("on the left, near 11,600") as mentioned in the trailhead directions, you can only get up to about 11,900’. There are two very large snowbanks crossing the 4wd road that cannot be navigated. One is at 11,900’, the other is just shortly beyond. | ||||
Posted By: wolfgangstiller Info: Road is clear and in the best shape I have seen (been driving this for over 20 years). I | ||||
Posted By: JJProwe Info: Despite a few inches of snow that fell overnight, road was totally passable until 0.25 miles from the summer gate. AWD with modest clearance should be plenty to get you up; we parked alongside a Tacoma, an outback and a forester and we made it fine in our RAV4 w/ AT tires. | ||||
Posted By: spoony Info: Was able to make it easily to the turn-off for Horseshoe in stock Chevy Colorado. There is definitely some snow/ice, mud, and ruts around Leavick but its pretty manageable. | ||||
Posted By: 14er101 Info: Disclaimer: Given the lineup of large storms, this will likely not stay true for very long. Dry and 2wd to winter trailhead. Plowed beyond the winter trailhead all the way to the gate. Plow took away all the snow and there is now 1 to 2in ice mixed with dirt/rock. Although we, HondarHRV, parked in the winter, we regret not going further. Until the next storm (tonight) a good awd vehicle with decent tires should be able to go as far as they want. | ||||
Posted By: rhammond530 Info: Road was not passable beyond the winter trailhead before four mile campground on 4/16. Look for to the "stop here" sign, it is hard to miss if you are paying attention. There was one short stretch of unavoidable rutted snow near the horseshoe campground. It should be passable if you take a good line, there was a sedan at the winter trailhead. | ||||
Posted By: 14er101 Info: Most vehicles were able to make it to the winter trailhead but do not attempt to go any further. There were some deep sections on the way to the winter trailhead but our momentum was working its magic! | ||||
Posted By: stomblin7 Info: There are a few deep spots prior to the Horseshoe campground you will want momentum to get through. After Horeshoe, we (Rav4) followed a newer model Rav4 up to the Winter trailhead parking location. They had chains on, and both of the vehicles got stuck in deep snow, but were able to get pushed through and make trailhead. After the initial drift just after Horseshoe campground - the road is manageable though still snow covered. I am told they also got stuck on the return as did we (slid off existing tracks, high centered, about 12" deep ruts in the snow now), and dug ourselves out with some jeep friends. The jeep blasted through and had a rough ride (video on fb). Previous comments recommended 4wd - I’d add high clearance if you try it or hike in from the campground. | ||||
Posted By: artemavovk Info: 4wd can get to the winter TH (the "ya gon’ get stuck" signs). There’s a couple of snowdrift spots past Horseshoe Campground that might cause problems for 2wd vehicles (esp if temperatures warm up and it turns slushy). | ||||
Posted By: 123tqb Info: I got my Subaru to the Horseshoe Campground, but it was pushing it. Got ourselves stuck in a snow drift and had to have our buddy pull us out. The Jeep made it all the way to the winter closure but just barely. | ||||
Posted By: _coloradical Info: On Saturday 2/25/2023 @ 7:30 AM, the road to Levick was not plowed. We stopped about 6 miles away from Levick, and opted for another option. We did spot a set of tire tracks on the road but don’t know how far they made it; and with 8" of soft snow, we didn’t want to get stuck. We did see one car slide off the road and get stuck on our way out, so something to be mindful of. | ||||
Posted By: JJProwe Info: Arrived at CO-18 ~5:30 a.m; made it to roughly 8 miles from the trailhead before needing to turn around. We were in our RAV4 TRD, which admittedly isn’t as capable as other off roading vehicles, and were sliding around the road. There was a single track of tires going further than we made it, so someone may have made it all the way to the winter trailhead. At the point of turning around, there were ~6 inches of snow on the ground. | ||||
Posted By: AndrewJCraigie Info: Cars were parked about 3 miles from trailhead - snowy past that point, with signs of cars recently been dug / pulled out. | ||||
Posted By: bryanpeck3 Info: Vehicles making it to about a mile from Leavick on minimal snow before then. Quickly becomes difficult for vehicles past the signs saying vehicles will get stuck. | ||||
Posted By: air_septa Info: Made it up to the gate at the trailhead this morning in my 2WD sedan, (Passat, if it is relevant) though I would really recommend against going all the way up with a 2WD low-clearance car unless you have experience navigating rough roads. I was able to get up without bottoming out but not without a lot of criss-crossing around the road and picking the right path through the rocks. The info in mgl45’s post is good - I’ll add you won’t be able to drive all the way up to where your navigation ends (if you’re using Google Maps, at least). There is a gate around 0.3 miles from where Google understood the trailhead to be, preventing you from going any further. Right before this is where the pretty gnarly rock hill was. | ||||
Posted By: mgl45 Info: I went on a scouting mission today of the access road for an upcoming ascent of Sherman. Here are some details I learned that I thought were helpful: *As documented elsewhere, the rough part of the road starts about 1.5 - 1.7 miles from the trailhead (the gate). *In the "rough" section the first half mile or so has lots of rocks and a few ruts. I was in a 2WD Dodge Promaster van, which I think has higher clearance than a typical 2WD car, and really only a few rocks were large enough that I though there was a clearance issue and navigating around them was manageable. *After the first half mile of the rough section, it’s pretty easy going until the last couple hundred yards to the trailhead. There is a hill which has lots of rocks and the rocks are bigger than the previous rough section, many which game me clearance concerns. There are also several big ruts on this hill. I made it up the hill but there was a moment where I was was kind of just going for it. I also don’t have much experience on rough roads so it might have felt worse for me than for an experienced person. In a couple places on this nasty hill there were large sharp looking rocks that were horribly positioned in an otherwise clear line. On the way down I stopped and moved these couple rocks to the side of the road. *There is parking just below this nasty hill, which is at 11,800feet or is only a few hundred yards from the trailhead (12,000 feet). *Overall, managing this road with 2WD is not a traction issue, it’s a clearance issue. *Regarding "when the road is wet". I arrived at the road in the early afternoon and it started lightly raining. I proceeded with caution and found that a light rain really doesn’t seem to cause much of a problem with traction. The only possible exception is the nasty hill on the last few hundred yards mentioned before. On this part of the road the natural drainage for the mountain is the road. When I got there there was a small creek zig zagging down the road. I made it but it hadn’t been raining for long. Again, there is parking just before this nasty hill. The official trailhead description mentions "during the spring" in the statement of caution about when the road is wet. I can totally see that - if there was a lot of run off happening, I could see that changing the traction dynamics significantly. | ||||
Posted By: amalesh Info: The dirt road is a little rough but should be passable at a lower speed in a sedan. Once you get past the 11,000 ft altitude or so, the road does get quite rough - lots of big rocks, and some potholes. I was driving an AWD Ford Edge, but did see a couple of sedans up all the way to the 12,000 ft gate. The quarter mile of the road or so had to be very careful with picking my line and going slow as that was the roughest part of the road. | ||||
Posted By: mholloway987 Info: The road up to the trailhead was bone dry the whole way on a Monday morning. I stopped maybe 150 feet away from the gate at 12,000’ due to a medium sized snow drift because I was already right at the trailhead. The road was rough but my Toyota Highlander did fine with it in 2WD and without any special equipment and I was especially impressed to see a couple sedans that made it a few hundred feet away from the gate. Summer conditions, indeed. | ||||
Posted By: Carl_Healy Info: Only drove to the turn off for Horseshoe Mountain and road was bone dry. Saw plenty of cars of in the distance at Sherman’s main trailhead. The big mound of snow still very much blocking the 4WD road onto Horseshoe. | ||||
Posted By: TheSpaceForce Info: At 0615, plowed/solid road, 3 cars in the lot. By 1000, very muddy near trailhead. The 2WD CR-V made it all the way up and down, but a couple of spots require some thought. Would NOT want to be driving up at 1000. | ||||
Posted By: bsiegs Info: Road is plowed and completely passable to the larger parking area a bit below the 12000’ gate. |
