Central City to Yankee Hill to an attempt at Apex
Man oh man! Arrived at the cemeteries at 8:45, crew arrived after 9ish, once all arrived hit the trail around 10ish. From the cemeteries you head west on FS 176.1 to 739.1, go right (W) onto Yankee Hill road or 175.3(pic of the S-10 was the first uphill with ice and snow packed road conditions, which proved to be a challenge for some), up 175.3G and over to 175.4(this is the first of my photos) and on up Yankee Hill(pics of us at top) to do the loop(N.East part 175.3H) then come back around to the S. part(175.4A) and down to 271.D and over to 271.G, over to 271.F. Attempted to run the upper loop of 271.F off camber narrow section with 40"? drifts, backed down and went lower 271.F(Sheridan Hill) back to lower 175.3. The guy's still wanted more snow.....so.....up 772.1A and on over 772.1 to head to Apex. Colins friend Austin had a Jeep Comanche that did extremely well getting us as far as we did, I think this is why we pressed on, honestly thought we could do it. Then you hit the N.East side of the uphill where we stopped, Rick was the one trying to get through this, basically biggest to smallest type rig set up. After trugging Ricks hook thru 3-4' difts 3 times and Ricks truck was basically plowing at that point, I did not want to continue and Rick agreed. Colin and his friend Justin? hiked up past to just take a look to see how much farther we had to make the 1st of 2 more summits to get to CO 4. We still had 200 or so yards of 3-4'
solid snow across the entire trail, Colin then agreed to that we were done and needed to go back the way we came. Colin and his crew went up first and got out with some carnage, while we were waiting I decided to put my chains on to ensure less struggle. My carnage was cracking the rear fender and pulling it away from the body. Very minor compared to everyone elses. Rick, Cliff (and wife), his brother and wife (sorry on the names Cliff) made it out, I had to pull Cliff's brother Jeep up some of uphill slog(glad I had the chains on!) to get him back out. I am very impressed with how my Jeep did thru all of this run. The dark pic is of Denver from one of the mine overlooks along the way back. We eventually made it back to the cemeteries at 12:00 midnight, Aidan was quick to point out is was already Monday. I arrived home at 12:45am. Only took so many pics, others took more I believe. Whew, what a trip!!
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I'm with Tom on that! Yikes!
