Red Cone 24 Jul 2021 Trip report
Had a great trip on Red Cone. Much better than last time when I had to help recover a flipped 4 Runner on Webster on the way out.
So I'm terrible with names and especially forum names so I'm going to forget at least one person's name.
The morning started out by me turning from Santa Fe onto 470 and merging right with Kenneth @KAFingerlos and his wife April in their copper TJ Wrangler "Penny". We drove up together and met for breakfast in Bailey. The one person who's name I'm forgetting, and who knows April, showed up with his awesome white XJ Cherokee and had coffee with us. We also met up with a friend of mine, Ben, who's not on this forum. He has his blue Ford Ranger.
We finished up breakfast and went out to the meeting point where we picked up Andy, @flashboiler, in his white JKU Wrangler.
After airing down and getting radios figured out, we headed up to the trail head.
I have to say I'm glad my skid plates showed up early on Friday and I was able to get them on. I ended up rubbing my belly on my near stock JLU Wrangler. I do have 35" tires but not that much ground clearance. Ben in his Ranger wasn't a lot taller than me and we both ended up touching rock rails and skid plates in nearly the same places. There's one pair of rocks that almost got me stuck but I hit my lockers and was able to take a different line. Scratched one of my wheels but not badly. Ben got stuck in the same place but with no front locker wasn't able to adjust. So we broke out a strap and got him up and over. That ended up being the only time anyone needed assistance.
We got up to the off camber parking spot shortly before the summit, right at the tree line. The XJ was dealing with a clogged fuel tank vent. We did a little troubleshooting and continued on. Got to the top with no issues and I'm glad I had my wind breaker. It was pretty cold up there with a good wind. Stopped for some photos before moving on to make room for the people coming up behind us.
After we got down into the trees, we stopped near the base of the switchbacks coming down Webster pass and stopped for lunch. Had some good conversation for a bit and then we pressed on.
Got back on the road and stopped to air up but some guy was making a fuss about where we stopped. We decided just to continue on all the way back to 285 and air up there. That ended up being a better place to stop anyway since the road (county 60) is full of potholes and having aired down tires made that a better ride.
We got aired up and said our goodbyes. All in all, it was a great run with almost no problems.
I started to put my pictures up on Google Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/fH4o69EMihC8dSKZ7
Others took some good pictures and will probably post them here. Ben sent me several and I'll see about adding them to my album.
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