Visit the North Sand Hills and assorted trails.
| Leave Fort Collins about 3pm and decide to try the "over mountain" Hohnholz Lakes / Sand Hills Road trails instead of taking the highway all of the way to the North Sand Hills. The Hohnholz Lakes trail was muddy and in the end blocked with snow that became too deep for us to travel through. Reviewing the maps after the fact, there were about four miles of "un-visited" over-mountain trail - we weren't close to crossing over. A task for another day. |
| The purple dots show the trail that we desired to travel. Snow at the eastern end blocked us and a tree across the trail at the western end was a block. |
| Heading up Hwy 14 - low hanging clouds on a damp day. |
| Not many cars out enjoying this gloomy Friday. |
| The white line is a row of "jersey barriers" following an access road to the outlet of the Laramie-Poudre water tunnel. It's a tad over two miles long and brings Laramie River valley water through the mountain to the Poudre River. |
| Heading north from CO-14 up the Laramie River Valley. |
| A nice ranch to our left. Everything is GREEN with the spring water. |
| A tad bit of blue sky is appreciated. |
| Ah, the sloppy, muddy road. The hood of the jeep is not too covered - yet. |
| The comfortable travel speed ended up being the "just right" speed for the mud to release from my tires and fly into the air. |
| Video Flying mud |
| Half of the mud road is complete (we'll have to drive back as the road ahead is blocked by snow). |
| Nothing to see here, move along... |
| The "black dots" are cattle. |
| Hmmm - the difference encompassing mud flaps make. |
| The mud on the soft top was accumulating enough to stress the fabric. |
| Higher up the trail we had a fair bit of snow to work through. This did a nice job of clearing mud from the wheels and lower frame of the jeeps. |
| Around a couple more corners we were presented with an uphill section with 3' of snow depth. No chance of pushing through it so we decided to turn back. |
| Panorama Click for a larger size |
| A nice mix of snow, mud, green. |
| Panorama Click for a larger size |
| This is as muddy as the jeep will get. About four or five miles (round trip) of sticky mud road. |
| Now to make a bee-line to the North Sand Hills to set up camp. Will the fuel stop at Woods Landing be open? I hope so - I'll be cutting it close. |
