Barbour Fork
They say that a day of wheeling in bad weather is better than a nice day at work. While we were airing down in the parking area at the trailhead it looked like that would be exactly what we would get. Mother Nature could not make up her mind -- it would rain and then it would hail, and then it would try to snow, and then there would be no precipitation at all. The sun never really made an appearance all day.
We headed up the trail not really sure what we would run into. The trail up to the base of the loop was damp but not really muddy. We reached the base of the loop and took a right turn to do the loop counterclockwise. This is the best direction to go because it isn't long before you come to the big hill. This can be done easily if you take the route to the right or a little more difficult up the left side. We all decided to go to the left side of the hill, of course.
Walt was first up the hill and tried the left side knowing that his independent front suspension would give him a more difficult time than the others in the group would probably enjoy. He got a tire pretty high in the air while trying to climb out of a big hole, and he quickly became a little too uncomfortable with it. He tried a couple of different lines but kept falling into the hole. He finally backed down and took the path on the right side of the hill.
Brian was next and he pointed his Jeep to the far left and cruised right up, making it look easy. It was a great line to take. Matt was last up the hill. The articulation on his Jeep made sure he had no trouble at all. He just pointed it up the middle and eased right up the obstacle.
We continued up the trail and it became chunkier as we climbed. We soon came to a "Y" intersection and decided to take the spur marked 246A which is marked as a dead end. This is a tight spur with one tight turn that feels more comfortable if you put your passenger-side tires on the rocks to get around. A full-sized vehicle would have some fun trying to get around this turn. The spur ended about 0.2 miles in, and there is only room for three or four vehicles to turn around at the end. The tight turn on the way back up to the main trail did not seem nearly as tight as it did on the way down.
We continued climbing up the rocky trail to the intersection. At this point Mother Nature decided it was time for snow. With the weather acting like it was we decided to save the spur to the right for another time and we headed back down the loop. The trail was soon covered with snow, but it was never very slick. The big downhill section was fun and we tried to pick the most difficult lines down the hill.
We stopped for lunch at the big roofed area even though it was kind of early to eat. We were not sure if the weather would let us eat out in the open later in the day. We could tell that the nearby horses enjoyed being under the roof as well at times.
We finished the loop and headed back toward the trailhead. There are still a few spurs off of Barbour Fork that we want to explore, so we will be back. We headed off to Devil's Canyon.
Reports from Other Days: 2
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Barbour Fork. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
