My cousin and his brother invited me to go snow bashing with them on a couple trips the last few weeks. On Feb. 28th, we were slated to run Yankee Hill. It was cold and foggy all night, which made for a neat picture that morning:


On the way to the trail we had missed a turn and ended up on Woodpecker Gulch according to google maps. The purpose was to find some snow and that we did. It was a shelf road pretty much the entire way with a large peaked drift running down the middle. The drift being deeper on the uphill side would always push you off the road. My cousin was breaking trail since he was the only one with chains. He did a great job because I never got stuck the entire day, or even had to backup and get another run.

here's the first long drift we encountered:


Digging - a theme for the day as all snow runs are:


Our path:



We had made our way thru woodpecker and onto Hamlin. Realizing that Hamlin lead down to Fall River Rd., we decided to try to go back the way we came since my tow rig was just west of Central city.

A typical spot my cousin would find his way into:


We were getting good at attaching straps to different ends of his jeep and using large clevis' as snatch blocks, were able to get him back onto the road each time. Neither of us have a winch...yet.



We couldn't get back up the road even after putting all the chains on the downhill side of the jeep to keep it from sliding. We even tried a chain on the front driver and the rear passenger, which actually worked the best, but it was just not to be.

So we headed back down to Fall River and made our way to I-70, thru Idaho Springs and back up to Central City. My bronco isn't the greatest rig on the street, but other than the bent leaf spring, I think it handled the highways just fine.

Fast forward to March 12th and another attempt at Yankee Hill. This time, I did a lot of research and found a way to the trailhead that involved much less intersections to get confused on. Once again, we parked at the cemetaries west of town. From there we drove west on Columbine C.G. road and turned left on a road just before a creek crossing. This was our shortcut road. While there was snow, we were making good progress in 2WD. We did come to our first drift and I slipped down into 4WD and made it thru without issue and 10psi in the tires. Ty, being at street pressure had some trouble and ended up airing down as well to get thru.


Once we got to the trailhead of Yankee hill, we were surprised by the lack of snow on the trail. We had done this trail in '05 and remember 2-3ft of snow in the clearings. This time, most of the lower part of the trail was bare ground. As we made our way up the trail, we didn't encounter a challenge until after the second parking lot. It took us both a few tries to get thru the shaded area and onto the next drift.

It wasn't too long until we found a long drift that we just weren't getting thru without chains


Even with chains, it's wasn't a cake walk






After lunch, we hammered onward








We finally met our match in a drift that seemed endless and bottomless.



We turned around and made our way back to my truck.

Not before a poser shot, which mimicked a poser shot we had done on our trip in '05


Picture from '05 (sorry, it's a picture of a picture)


Saw these guys on the short cut trail just a few hundred yards before Columbine CG rd.


It was still fairly early in the afternoon once I was loaded on the trailer so we decided to take the scenic trip down Hwy 6 into Golden and a stop at Golden Sweets for an ice cream cone! Good way to finish a great trip!

J.D.

Funny how you never posted up an invite, I see how you are. With your jeep friends, huh. Jk. Looks like a fun trip, thanks for sharing pics.

Yeah, I am sorry. We wanted to keep the group small so only the depth of the snow would end our day. IN the end, his brother bailed out on us both times, so we had room for one or two more, but it would have been last minute.

Just picked up some chains of my own last night and would love to go snow bashing again!

J.D.