Red Elephant Hill
Once again this trail proved to be more challenging than it looks! When you first look at it you would think it's just a fun hill to climb on the way to Bill Moore Lake, but like last year the trail showed us it was a little more difficult than that.
There was an accident on I-70 at Idaho Springs and a lot of us got caught in it, so we started late. We weren't on the trail long before Robert stalled for the first time (no fuel injection). Monica pulled him to a flat spot and he got it running again.
Then we took a wrong turn (don't turn left on this trail!) and ended up finding a fun hill to climb but eventually a dead end. The trail got more and more overgrown and we found ourselves at a fork in the road. One fork dead-ended and the other fork was a little too tight between a rock and a sink hole. It took us awhile but eventually we got everyone turned around and back to the crossroads where we made a wrong turn. We had spent such a long time getting lost that Derek had to go home, so he left us when we got back to the crossroads.
Then it got interesting as we headed up the big hill. Robert stalled again and though he worked on getting it started it never cooperated and he had to leave and go back down the trail. Ed stayed back to help him figure out what was wrong and it turned out his fuel pump wasn't working very well.
Wayne's transmission was slipping, which is a scary thing on a hill like this one! He decided not to risk it so he had to leave us too.
The hill was a nice surprise, filled with lots of places to get stuck. Alanna and Landon both had some issues when they were completely flexed and still couldn't get a grip in the loose dirt.
Almost everyone made it to the top and connected to the Bill Moore Lake trail. This trail is a blast and a great way to make a loop out of Bill Moore Lake.
Reports from Other Days: 7
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Red Elephant Hill. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
