You gotta love Colorado. The Rocky Mountain weather, baby. Are you kidding me? Well, it’s been three long years since I did my telluride to our a solo trip down Imogene pass in my 80 series. And in that three years, a lot of things have changed. For instance, I no longer drive a Land cruiser. I built a purpose built Toyota forerunner. And in this four runner, I’m going to run the trail from ourayeendhouse to Telluride, and then from Telluride back to our a. Imogene Pass was closed when I arrived there twice this year, and I finally came back on July 4, and I caught opening day, and I made my way through this trail.

Now, this trail has claimed a lot of lives over the years, and I’m going to show you some of the things on this trail that can keep you and your family safe, let you enjoy the trail more than usual. And I’m going to point out a lot of things that you would probably not even notice while traversing the trail, from world class waterfalls to animals that you will only find at this particular elevation. You’re going to see it all in this video. So you’re going to want to sit back, relax, and check this out. What do you need? You good? Good? That’s my dude.

Yeah. What lift is my dude? I don’t know what that means. What’s your channel? There’s trucks behind me. You need help, man? We’re trying to fix it, man. Slave selling. We went out. We’re working on it. All right, cool, man. Cool. So, for all those people that are new to the channel, I’ve currently been overlanding the United States for the last ten months. I left home in September of 2023, and one of the spots that I wanted to hit, that I always hit, is the town of Ouray, which leads to Imogene Pass, camp, bird, and eventually telluride.

Now, I had got there a couple of times, only to discover that the snowpack was so heavy in Colorado, the trails were yet to be open. So I decided to kill time and push west out to California, the Pacific Northwest, Oregon, etcetera, etcetera. And I’m going to show you some of those places, because it’s all germane to this particular story. I wasn’t able to hit Imogen until July 4, and I was one of the first vehicles that actually made it through the pass. The second that it opened, because I arrived on July 2, and it wasn’t open as of yet.

But let me show you some of the things that I did stumble upon on my quest to make it up the mountains in killing time. Because it’s stuff you’re not going to see anywhere else. And things you’ll never see unless you were there with me. And it’s pretty amazing. So here we go. I take a lot more than words and eyes a whole lot more than Richards and my soul the hands of many must join us one together we’ll cross the river more than words and I control I more than riches and my soul every mountain chant of many much joy as one and together we’ll cross the river than what? And together we’ll cross the river together cross the river together we’ll cross the river nature, nurture heaven and hope never will cross the river together we’ll cross the river as you can see, I covered a lot of ground.

I used up a lot of gasoline, I used up a lot of rubber, and I used up a lot of film. Even though you don’t use film anymore, you use SD cards. But that’s irrelevant. I figured after two months coming back to your a, surely I’d be good to go. I contacted everybody I knew in the area and asked about the conditions of the trails and couldn’t quite get a square answer. So it was what it was. I turned tires and I headed back east, back to Colorado, back to elevation again. The path that I took from the west coast back to Colorado brought me through Colorado Springs.

I wanted to stop in, do an oil change on my truck, check everything, make sure everything was copacetic, good to go, make sure the truck had no weak points. And I did that at my buddy’s shop at Redline land cruises in Colorado Springs. And after that, I started heading towards ouray, which brought me to Monarch Pass. If you’re familiar with Monarch Pass, it’s an 11,000 foot mountainous. And as I rolled in there, storm clouds were gathering, so there was no way I was going to push through for the night into ouray. Driving mountain passes in really, really bad weather, it’s just not a good idea.

It just isn’t worth it. So I stopped and found a place to camp for the night. So, based on absolutely nothing, I’ve just constructed this tarp shelter with magnets that I carry. And I’m. I’m expecting that the rain’s gonna come this way. Oh, I better get up there and close my screens, too. So, here it is. Here’s the life that everybody envies, apparently. But remember, it is a very rare event that I get a hotel unless I’m trying to edit a long video and I need the Internet bandwidth, but otherwise this is my night. Just pulled over.

I’m at 8900ft, a little short of breath. I noticed this trip around I’ve been a little short of breath. I guess that just comes with age, you know what I mean? So here’s what it is. But hopefully my magnets and my tarp keep me from getting soaked. Mosquitoes are luscious. They’re beautiful little fellas. Those things are called the zone. They’re supposed to keep mosquitoes and bugs away. They seem to, but this is as bad as the ozarks right here because I’m next to an actual trout stream coming out of the mountains and bushes. It was the only place they had to park, so I took it.

I’m watching my, uh, I’m watching my movies that I keep on an SD card for when there’s absolutely no Internet and the storm is right above us. Now, I love my alucab and I’ve never had one collapse, but it is kind of my biggest fear. You’re sleeping and the wind closes the tent on you. That would be exactly like being inside of a casket, which would probably freak you out if that’s how you woke up. You know what I’m saying? So let’s see what happens. See how well my little shelter holds up here. The rain, tarp and magnets.

You know what I mean? Now, even though it was a rainy and windy night when I woke up the next day, my camping spot was incredibly picturesque. I stayed at a place called Sargent’s and apparently it’s been there since the 18 hundreds. There’s a very, very small town right here in this valley at the foothill of Monarch Pass. And there’s people that live here year round. Now these are solid, hardy working Americans because you have to be to live up here. There’s no easy way to get any place and you’re pretty much self contained. There’s a funny sign that was inside the store that said nameless, shameless women.

And it always made me wonder if this was a stop off or a brothel of some sort back in the day. Today, they don’t serve women, but they do make homemade ice cream. They do make food, fish and chips, hamburgers, etcetera. And they do serve alcohol because sometimes when you stop over here, you could be stuck for, well, the entire winter. Fortunately, I wasn’t. And after waking up doing a little bit of filming, it was time to cook some breakfast because a buddy of mine gave. Gave me some fresh eggs from his chickens and I didn’t want them to go to waste or get broken in the truck.

So it was time to break out the Jetboil genesis, the ultimate off road, off grid cooking apparatus. Screw the partner stoves. They’re big, they’re heavy, they’re clunky, and the jetboil genesis gets it done twice as quick. Jmo. So with a little bit of olive oil, some hash brown potatoes in a bag, english muffins, and some fresh farm eggs, I was in fat city, no pun intended. But it didn’t take all too long to get this going. Took about 20 minutes altogether. Cooking hash browns, eggs, and english muffins all in the same pan, and it works out incredibly well.

I don’t usually eat this well. This is. To me, taking 30 minutes to cook is kind of crazy. I’m not. I don’t roll like that, but I should. At any rate, you get the point. Go eat out of the pan. Clean the pan. Good to go. Now just drink this in. This is where I camped for the night, even with the rain. So with my breakfast out of the way, I cleaned up the pans, I shut down the tent, I wrapped up the truck, threw the mountain bike on the back, and I headed east. I only had about an hour or so to make it to your a, and I was just hoping that the trails were open, because, once again, trying to get any information, it was astonishing how difficult it was to find out if your a and Imogene pass was wide open.

I could find out that your a was open to the summit, but you couldn’t get through. And that you could go through from Telluride to the summit, but you couldn’t get through. But I had to think, come on, man. It’s July. Surely the snow’s out of the way by now. One of my favorite things about Colorado is it shows true american history. Like, many people drive right by this museum, and they don’t even notice it because they’re on their way to your ray telluride or other destinations, and they don’t really notice things like this. Fortunately, my timetable allows me to stop and film these things, which I do, because many people will never get an opportunity to see this in their life.

And this is the real deal, the real McCoy. The reason all of these places even exist for us to go four wheeling on is because people came here before us, wherever, with donkeys, horses, buggies, and covered wagons, looking for gold, silver, beaver pelts, and whatever else they were looking for. A new life in America, basically. And this stuff really encapsulates all the history that you just don’t see in the books or even on the Internet. You know what I mean? So getting an opportunity to see it in real life and film it for you to see is phenomenal.

The thing I don’t like about Colorado, well, as I get older, I don’t love the altitude because I live on the Atlantic Ocean. I literally live at 1ft above sea level. So the elevation does tend to get to me. But then there’s things like this that just absolutely make zero sense to me. You tell me what you think in the comments. You want to see the worst idea in the world? I’m on route 24 west, heading into the Rockies. You see the guy that’s laying on the ground with the flag you can barely see riding in the.

I mean, what the. How stupid are people, man? Seriously, how dumb is that? He’s lucky I didn’t roll right over him. In Colorado, man. What an ass clown. But no matter what you think about any of your interactions or things you run into like that, Colorado still rules. Like, we’re gonna get to imaging in just a couple of minutes. I told you this was a movie and I wasn’t kidding. But check this out. I stumbled upon this purely by accident, and my timing was impeccable. Even though I didn’t know I was timing anything, this was astonishing to me.

Me it now this bad boy was a real deal. No two ways about it. Coal driven steam train. If you look at the bottom of the train, you can actually see the flames from the coal furnace blowing out the bottom. I was amazed. It was pure happenstance that I came across this. I had stopped at a rest stop real quick and I noticed a really old rustic bridge. Anything that’s old from the 18 hundreds. And I’ve got a camera, I’m filming it. And then I heard the train whistle. At any rate, here we go. Finally. Finally, I make it to the town of Ouray once again.

And it is the 2 JUly. So spirits are high, tourists are coming in, there’s jeeps every place you look, and people are ready to get busy on the trail. But sadly, on the 2 JUly, the peak was still closed due to snow. But at this point, and after waiting all this time, I didn’t care. I if I had to, I was gonna film from Ouray to the summit and then drive all the way over to Telluride and do it in the opposite direction and just leave the summit out. I’ve got plenty of footage over the years of me at the summit, etcetera I could fake it.

And I was planning on doing exactly that. So I rolled into town. I went to my favorite gas station with the ethanol free, super unleaded, filled up the truck, had a little breakfast at ducketts, the food market there, first thing in the morning. No one’s out in the streets yet. I got the whole place to myself so far, and I have no complaints with that. It is just such an amazing place. The Switzerland of America is what it’s called for a reason. Now, before I get into imaging, because we’re gonna hit the trail right now, before I get into imaging pass, why is it I feel obligated to make these videos every year to such an extent? Well, I’ve done imaging pass so many times that I’ve been considered an expert.

And television networks from Japan, Germany, and the United States have reached out to me over the years because every time I’m on Imogene Pass, somehow, some way, a jeep or some vehicle goes over and the people are killed. I don’t know what the deal is, but that’s what makes me feel obligated to make these videos, because I try to show people the safest way to traverse this trail. This is not an amusement park. This is a trail where one wrong turn and you could plummet a thousand or more feet to your death. Straight up. No exaggeration, period.

Don’t believe me? Watch this disaster on this scary stretch of road, popular with tourists and known as one of the most dangerous in America. Now it has claimed new victims. Two nurses and their tour guide driver, killed after their jeep plunged over a cliff along Camp Bird Road in the Colorado mountains. How dangerous and treacherous are the roads in this area? There’s a million unforeseen things. This haunting photo of a jubilant Diana Robles was snapped shortly before the deadly crash. The 28 year old and her aunt, Ophelia Figueroa Perez, both dedicated nurses from Yuma, Arizona, were on a vacation, taking in the breathtaking scenery.

Ami Robles is Diana’s grieving sister. Did you know they would be on such a treacherous road? I didn’t have any idea. Off roading expert Richard Camido has driven the dangerous stretch. These are one lane twisting, curving roads carved into the side of a mountain, with 100 to 1000 foot drops on either side, no guardrails. It is probably one of the scariest things you’ll ever do. Now, I never considered myself a talking head, but if it helps, I’ll do it. The only problem I had is they did cut this and edit it and I didn’t say everything that I said, but you get the point.

People don’t understand that this is not an amusement park where, you know, rent a jeep that you’ve never driven in your life. You hit the trail and hope for the best. The trails can get very, very congested and literally, one wrong move and you can go over the side. And when you go over the side, it’s a wrap. For instance, I parked off the trail in a little cubby hole to do some filming and somehow that attracted every single vehicle that was going up and coming down. And everybody stopped in front of my truck. The only problem is they’re stopped on the trail so people will try to squeeze around them.

And again, there’s no guardrails, you know what I mean? So trail etiquette is something people should learn. Google it, look it up. It’s easy enough to do. Figure out what the local rules are and understand the terrain before you hit it. And if you’re gonna rent a vehicle to go, you know, show off to your wife, kids, girlfriend, etcetera, know how to use it. Once again, Google. I’ve seen people trying to come down 13,000 foot passes riding their brake instead of having the truck in four wheel low like they should. You’ve only got so much brake.

And I’ll tell you what, I’ve got power brakes on my truck and you still don’t have 13,000 foot descent worth of brake pads. You will lose your brakes. So remember that. At any rate, here we go. Welcome to Imogene Pass. I’m going to show you the ride from the parking lot all the way up the mountainside, which is a 3000 foot ascent. Just so you can understand, the road up to the actual trail can be quite dangerous and you need to pay attention. Don’t believe the other guy is looking for you. Look for him. Be smart, Sadeena.

While you’re making your ascent up to the Imogene trailhead, use caution. This is a two lane roadway from top to bottom. In many places, there are choke points that have a cliff on one side and a rock face on the other. Don’t depend on the other guy knowing youre coming. Make yourself known. Oftentimes when I come around a blind corner, I also lay on the horn just to let the other guy know that I’m coming. There are no guardrails. The drop to the left right here goes down about a thousand feet. This is some of the most beautiful terrain and beautiful country you’ll ever see.

Stop. Pull off the road. If you’re going to take pictures. Sightseeing while you’re driving can end up in a catastrophe. It has happened. It wouldn’t be something new. So keep that in mind. So, here we are entering Imogene Pass. Now, right off the bat, you have two choices. To the right, you can take the bridge. To the left, you can take the river crossing. Your call. But for me, every time it’s going to be the river. The moment you come out of the river, you’re going to take a left hand turn and you’re going to be facing your first climb.

It isn’t hard to do whatsoever at all. Put it in four wheel low if you have to. Now, this is the part of the trail that you’re going to come into. Some obstacles made of rock. Just take it easy. Get out and take a look at them first if you have to. But it’s all like driving down a driveway. If you’re going to do Imogene Pass, you probably don’t want to have a bike rack or extended trailer hitch because it will make a lot of racket it. As you continue to move forward, you’re going to come across one of the first water features on the trail.

At this altitude, I always feel safe filling my canteen and drinking straight from it up here. I mean, we’re at 11,000ft. Now, one thing you need to know is you don’t have to have a monster four x four build to do this trail. Many people have done this trail in passenger cars and subarus every one of the obstacles you’re looking at right now, if you get out and look, there’s a way for an average car to get by. And then if you go slightly to the left or right, it might be a little more higher skill level, we’ll call it.

Just be careful that you don’t get yourself into a jam, because the trail just opened that exact morning. There was lots of residue from the winter left over, things that weren’t necessarily there. The trail is always changing and evolving with weather and conditions, so be aware of that. Things like this, for instance, it. So now you’re out of the proverbial woods, you’re heading towards the waterfalls and you’re starting to climb. You’re going to come down this little trail right here. And as soon as you take this left hand turn, there’s a really old shelter to the left.

It’s an old cabin. Hikers use it, people use it during storms, etcetera. It’s an old mining cabin. And when you’re on this trail right here. The tree line is only single trees, and then it’s a sheer drop off down to the camp. Bird mind, when you go over to take pictures, use caution. I can’t stress it enough. There are no guardrails and it is a long way down, but it’s definitely worth your time. You can’t even tell that you’re driving on a cliff face like this unless you look at it from a different angle, I suppose something like this, I would guess it.

So, at this point, you’re going to head down a little. A little tunnel of trees and rocks that’s going to bring you out to where you start climbing, where you start actually heading towards the summit. And I can’t stress this enough, and try to remember this always. And those would be mountain guardrails right there, just not a lot of them. Don’t forget that. Now. This is where the trail becomes epic. This is what you came to Imogen Pass for. This is amazing. Now, the beauty of the trail just opening meant the snowpack was still melting and the waterfalls were better than I’ve ever seen, ever.

They’re absolutely astonishing when you’re making the climb up the crushed rock. These are to your left down in the valley. A lot of people never look at them because they’re so terrified of the fact that they’re on a cliff face that’s going straight down. But I assure you they are there, but you’re just scratching the surface. We just started the trail, so here we go. It. Now that you’ve gotten yourself off the shelf road and passed through the stream, you come to this large, open area, which is very special to me and many people because it’s a good camping site.

And this area is adorned on either side with phenomenal waterfalls. There’s also a grave up top that’s marked for someone that had died at this particular location. You might want to check that out if you want. And there’s also lots of old mining ruins and other artifacts just laying around. It’s pretty amazing. It’s a pretty amazing spot. But if you do work, if you do camp up here, make sure if you start a fire, you put it out completely and totally, period. But now that you’re at this particular location, you’re now heading up to the summit.

Everything from now on is going straight up. No turning back now. This is where it gets fun. So, here we go. As many times as I’ve run Imogene pass over the years, this one particular rock ledge up here always bummed me up, because with a six inch lift with 37 inch tires and a very top heavy land cruiser. Every time I did this pass right here, it always felt like I was tipping and I was going to go over, which would be a considerable fall. And to be honest, I was pretty concerned about it coming up here in the four runner.

But I got out, I walked it, I double checked it. I set up some cameras. If you ever have any doubts, stop the truck, put it in park, hit the e brake, and walk the trail. Don’t trust people you don’t know telling you which direction to go. Because most people want to see a crash. Because it’s great fodder for you two. You see what I’m saying? Sad but true. You know where we live. So with this worrisome obstacle under my belt, I continued on. There was a stock four runner from West Virginia with a guy in it that was pretty free with the throttle pedal.

And he was following me. And at one point, he almost rolled his truck right on top of mine. It was pretty crazy. If you don’t care about your vehicle, doing the trails is a heck of a lot easier. Speeding on the trails will break parts. I crawl, and so should you. Easy, easy, easy. Rear locker. I have to mute the volume right here because Led Zeppelin’s playing in the background and YouTube will smite me. So after I spot the guy from West Virginia in his white forerunner, it’s my turn and I’m at an awkward angle. This is a 180 degree turn that goes from fairly flat to going straight up.

For the first time on the trail, I can see the snowpack and I can see the summit. We’re at 11,000ft and heading straight up. This trail is tougher than it appears, but it’s absolutely doable in pretty much any type of a vehicle. You just need to pay attention and understand that no one can hear you scream up here. So if you come up here, make sure you bring first aid. Make sure you bring tools. And make sure you bring a knowledge of how to drive the vehicle that you’re navigating this trail with. And then suddenly, I notice the West Virginia guy again.

So I wait, giving him plenty of time so that way we don’t end up bumping into each other. And then finally, I find myself alone, very close to the summit. But I am where I want to be right now. This is the part that was closed because of the snow and we couldn’t get up here. And now I’m up here. So I’m one of the first people to see this place after the snow melted enough for the trails to be open, and it’s pretty amazing. And I’m getting. I’m up there getting footage and I look around and then suddenly I notice, somehow I passed the guy in the white forerunner.

Which doesn’t make any sense because there’s only one trail. And in my haste to separate myself from him, I put myself into a bad spot. Because even though the trails are clearly marked, there’s trails that go off the trails to more difficult obstacles, so forth and so on. Now, bear in mind, I’m at 12,000ft and I’m at an incredibly steep angle. Stepping out of the vehicle, you fall backwards. You see what I’m saying? And you’re basically walking on. On scramble. So it’s. It’s a tough situation. And I almost. I mean, I got to admit it, I was scared and wasn’t sure how this was going to work out for a few.

This is turning into a bad day. If I’m out of the truck twice for the same obstacle, that’s a rarity if ever. And I have no idea if I could make this. All I do know is I have to keep going forward because I can’t turn around without tipping the truck over and trying to back up. The truck just started to go on its own, sliding backwards wildly, which would lead to a flip over. My day has just taken a really bad turn and I did not see this coming. I’ve run this trail so many times, it’s ridiculous.

And this still happened. It is what it is. It. So with that behind me, what else could possibly go wrong? Fortunately, I got out and thought about it more than once. Because you’ve only got one shot here. If you screw it up, things end up poorly and you end up on the news. And that would be incredibly ironic. But I’ve got the summit in my sights now and I’m on my way. The purpose of these videos isn’t just to entertain you, but it’s also to educate you. Because if you take on tasks like this, especially alone, when things happen, you need to know what to do one way or the other.

So after what appeared to be a certain rollover, I was well on my way. I was at the top. I had crested 13,000ft and the sign to imaging pass was in sight. Finally, I was making my way to the top of the mountain. This entire thing just shows you that no matter the amount of preparation, etcetera, things still go wrong. Mistakes can be made. It’s just how you handle them. And up here, you’re just a speck on the earth right now. Every once in a while you run into somebody else. But it’s rare and oftentimes up here, people will see you in peril and just continue to drive by because they’re on their phones or whatever.

It just is what it is. If you’re going to take on tasks like this or you’re going to take on imaging, do a crumb of research and understand what you’re getting into. Many times I’ve come up here on a day when it was 80 degrees, only to find a blizzard at the top. That happens to last year, I believe. And anything can happen up here. You’re in a whole different atmosphere. But finally, finally, we are at the top of Imogene Pass. But you know what’s funny? We’re only halfway through this because now we got to go to Telluride.

And we will. Here we go. Before I head down into the Telluride side, I want to walk over and double check the road because there is not enough room for two trucks. And I’ve had two hummers try to push me off that road before in my land cruiser. So always double check before you head down. There’s only one direction now we’re going down. Self chosen. At least so the prophet says. I could eat the bun. Yeah. Only direction we’re going down. All down. All down. All down, down. Oh, down. My pain is self chosen. At least I believe it to be I could either drown or pull off my skin and swim to shore now I can grow a beautiful shell for all to see.

River of the sea goes down beyond that direction where flow is down, down. All down, down. All down, down, down. Odone. All down. Pain is self chosen. Yeah, pain is self chosen. Down. All down, down. All down, down. All down. Well, that wraps it up. That was part one. Part two will be coming out in the next few days, and that will be the return trip as well as the rest of Telluride, etcetera. Sadly, I’m in a motel and I won’t have time to finish this. I’ve been working on this video for four days. Part two is going to be equally as long and probably a little bit more impressive.

Or I’ll try to make it like that. At any rate, if you enjoyed this video, please like share and subscribe. Hit that little bell next to the subscribe button and tell them to notify you of all new videos. Also leave a comment below and I will return the favor. I am out.
[tr:tra].

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