Seeking snow with fellow Uralisti

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Today I had the pleasure to meet three other Ural owners and their lovely wives. We had corresponded via email over the last couple of weeks and had picked today to try and find some snow to see how our rigs would do. This was to be sort of a practice run to not only try some snow riding but if someone got stuck, to practice freeing the rig.

You see, the plan is to take the rigs to Grant, CO on Valentine's Day and participate in the Elephant Ride I'd mentioned in the previous posting. The meeting place was O'Brien's Cafe in Sedalia, located on US85 and CO67. Everyone arrived around 10AM and before we went in for breakfast we got this shot:

Over coffee and breakfast, I got to know my fellow Uralisti a little. They'd all ridden together before it seems and all seemed eager to go find some snow. More on each couple in a moment.

We left O'Brien's and headed west on CO67, heading towards Oak Valley Road just before Jarre Canyon. We were going to search for snow on Bee Rock Rd and I wanted to show them Bee Rock itself. Quite the novel experience for me, riding along with three other Urals behind me!

Here we are at Bee Rock

Deana and Jay

Deana and Jay with their '07 Patrol, Jay works with a mapping company which provides data for GPS manufacturers such as TomTom while Deana works in IT support for a different company. They bought their Ural from Unique Rides in Fort Collins, CO. Jay's first ride on a sidecar rig was the day he picked up his Patrol from the dealer! He's undergone the ABATE sidecar training course since then though and it showed in the way he and Deana handled the rig on the curves.

Cookie and John

Cookie and John, aka Spat, ride this white '08 Patrol. John had previous experience riding sidecar rigs before he got his own. In fact, both he and Cookie are qualified riders of the rig and swap out driving duties during the longer rides. John is a service tech with a telecom company and Cookie manages accounts payable for a different company.

Julie and Craig

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay

Julie and Craig ride a '07 Arctic GearUP Ural, nice color scheme I must say. Like Jay, his first ride was with Julie when they picked up their Ural from the dealer in Washington state and drove it over a period of two weeks back home to Colorado! Now that's definitely one way to get to know your new machine! Craig works for Lafarge Concrete as a driver and Julie is a Senior Electrical Designer for MKK Consulting Engineers. She was, in fact, the one who came up with the idea of using Unistrut for mounting the ammo cans on the front of their rig. It looks good and beats drilling holes on the nose of the rig!

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay

you can just see me on the left, shooting the above video as they rode towards me 

After the dissappointing amount of snow we found on Bee Rock Rd, I suggested we try Rampart Range Rd which was just a few miles further west on CO67.

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay

 Entering Jarre Canyon on CO67, heading towards Rampart Range Rd

We got there with no issue only to find the road was closed! Dang, strike one. We mulled things over in the parking lot and decided to try Dakan Road since John aka Spat said it went into the hills and met up with Rampart Range Rd.

courtesy of Julie and Craig

 Checking the map at the Rampart Range Rd parking lot, yeah, that's snow

 video courtesy of Deana and Jay

Negotiating a hair pin turn on Jarry Canyon Road

So we retraced our route back towards Sedalia, turning onto CO105 which is just before the town. Several miles later, we turned west onto Dakan Rd with John and Cookie in the lead rig. Soon after we ran out of pavement though, we were stopped by yet another gate, the road into the hills was closed for the winter! Strike 2!

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay

 At the farthest point open on Dakan Road

 So we mulled things over again, trying to figure out options. I happened to mention that Perry Park and its rock formations were close by and since no one in the group but me had been there, that's where we headed to next. I was hoping for snow where I'd been forced to turn back before, but at the very least, we'd have nice rock formations to admire.

We got back onto CO105 heading south and about ten minutes later were turning west onto Red Road Rd. We went past the housing subdivision, past the Perry Park Country Club and turned onto Wauconda Drive, past the houses nestled amongst the rocky ridge formations and turned left on Country Club Drive where the undeveloped portion of the subdivision exists. The road turns to dirt here and we set off for some exploration and snow seeking.

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay

 Approaching Camel Rock at Perry Park

Camel Rock

We briefly chatted with the man in the light blue jacket who walking his dog while we parked in front of Camel Rock above. He told us there might be snow further on up ahead but to make sure not to intrude on a local farmer's land as he could get quite upset.

Third time was a charm and we found some snow, not very deep but very slick in spots due to it combining with mud. We went past several of the large rock formations in Perry Park and soon were at the point where before I had always had to turn back when on two wheels. Not this time though! I was in the lead and managed to cross a deeply rutted section of road, almost getting stuck a couple of times on mud.

video courtesy of Deana and Jay

Here you can see how I almost got stuck the first time we dealt with the big ruts in the trail, gotta love that 2WD on Natasha!

John made it look easy! He didn't even spin his pusher tire as I did.

Then Craig and Julie crossed handily and here you can see Deana and Jay as they successfully negotiated the first major obstacle:

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay

  I've always wondered how I look from the back, now I know....the hikers that we passed must have been quite amused at our antics!

Turning around, we came back via a different trail back to the first major obstacle. We had some discussions but in the end we all negotiated it just fine with no issues. Here's Craig and Julie taking the "harder" route instead of the easier route the rest of us took:

The harder way

the easier way

Here's a video of John and Cookie as they negotiated the deeply rutted trail

video courtesy of Craig

We went through every trail we could find, the snow was there but not very deep at all. However the amounts of slippery Colorado mud we found almost everywhere made up for it in terms of practicing on iffy traction conditions!

Of the group, only myself and the Patrol ridden by Jay and Deana got stuck on deep ruts. I really thumped something on the underside of the sidecar but I could not find any damage. The three men and myself on the rig got Natasha out of the rut she was hung up on easily enough.

 

photo courtesy of Spat and Cookie

 yep, stuck with the pusher tire in the rut

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay
 Natasha after we freed her from the rut, man I was glad the guys were there to help get her unstuck!

After we got Natasha freed, both John and Craig rode their rigs across the rut that trapped me at different points and made it through just fine, here's Craig and Julie showing how it's done:

Craig and Julie

 Deana and Jay had minor issues with the rut that trapped me, but John was able to push them out singlehandedly

One long muddy trail led us to a nicely scenic location where we took the following group shots, getting to the spot was only mildly challenging so long as you maintained momentum!

Julie and Craig, uraling down a very muddy but just slightly rutted trail

 

Here's Deana and Jay getting mud on their shiny Patrol

 

A nice couple of rock formations for background

 

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay
Check out the rich colors on the rocks, we were there at the right time of the day for it

Making our way out of Perry Park, I elected to try the "new" road that was being built as a secondary way into Perry Park. It was nice and flat though a bit muddy in spots. We road in a line formation, with some space in between each rig as the rigs were throwing up clods of mud as we shed the stuff that'd collected while on the muddier trails.

photo courtesy of Deana and Jay

Leaving Perry Park on the "under construction" road

The dirt road eventually dumped us on Dakan Road and from there we got back onto CO105, this time heading north towards Sedalia. It was past 3:30Pm by the time we got to the gas station in Sedalia. We talked for a bit, took some more pictures and agreed we'd try and do this again if it snowed between now and Valentine's Day. I believe we're all planning on riding on the Elephant Ride on Valentine's Day, it should be quite the fun day.

courtesy of Julie and Craig
 Back in Sedalia at the end of the ride....four rigs went out, four rigs came back, its all good

It was great to see and hear other Urals and their riders, those newer machines are nice and quiet and their riders seemed quite happy with their machines.

Here's a link to more pictures of John and Cookie's Rig:  LINK

Here's a link to Deana and Jay's photos for today:  LINK

Here's a link to Julie and Craig's photos for today: LINK

28JAN10 Update: Youtube video from Craig, using the photos shot that day.