may/june 2010

Triple Bypass Run with Rising Sun 4WD Club

by Ige Gustavson

Nine years ago, Bruce and Barbara Miller and a few friends ran the first annual Triple Bypass Run. The goal was to run three passes near Crested Butte, Colorado, in one day. With over 50 miles off-pavement, it’s such a fast paced day on the trail that you barely get to see what’s happening. My history with the Run began in 2001, when my ex (Paul) and I decided at the last minute to attend.

The trail ride began early Saturday morning, so we’d need to get there on Friday—the problem was that I didn’t get off work until midnight. Friday morning, I was up at 7 AM, packing everything and getting my trusty FJ60 Land Cruiser ready, then I was off to work for the evening. Around 10 PM, a coworker offered to punch my timecard and told me to hit the road. Having never been to Crested Butte, where everyone was camped, I quickly looked up directions on Mapquest while Paul loaded the last bits of food into the cooler and we hit the road.

The Mapquest directions were great until we got just south of Glenwood Springs. There, the directions said, “Bear left on local road,” followed by “Bear right on local road.” These great directions kept repeating over and over again until we were pulling out of the town we had been driving through and parked by what appeared to be a large pond. Convinced something was wrong, we went back to the main road and began again, ending up in the same place.
Fortunately, the moon was fairly full at 1 AM, so Paul pulled out an ancient atlas and began comparing its weathered pages with the mountain peaks silhouetted in front of us. He quickly determined that we were headed in the right direction, ignoring my pleas that Mapquest wouldn’t acknowledge trails and we definitely were not on a county road. A few miles in, even Paul admitted I was right—that we were on some sort of trail. A quick stop to lock the hubs, just in case, and off again we went.

At around 2 AM, we ended up in the remote mountain town of Crystal. After Paul excitedly tried to take pictures of the Crystal Mill lit up with the anemic headlights of my 18-year-old wagon, we headed into a field in search of the trail. With the brights on, I was still struggling to see where I was going, much to the dismay, I’m sure, of the field full of bow-hunters camped there. I was just waiting to see an arrow ricochet off the windshield.

Again, we’d missed something and we ended up at a dead end. I asked Paul to recheck the atlas. We drove back to the town and tried again. Still, something was wrong as we hit the dead end a second time. We looked at the atlas again, then headed back to the town of Crystal. Third time’s the charm—instead of turning right, we were supposed to go left, then take a quick right. Up the hill on the left we went and didn’t get far before I started feeling loose rock shifting underneath us and popped the 60 into 4-wheel drive.

By now, it was 2:30 AM and I’d been up for almost 20 hours—I was tired. When we hit the big street sign announcing Schofield Pass and “full size vehicles not recommended,” I’d pretty much had it. I’d never run Schofield or talked to anyone who had (all now say I would’ve been fine) but I remembered reading something about it. I pulled out my Charles Wells 4WD book and looked it up.

As I read about the worst off-road accident in history occurring when a 4x4 full of tourists plummeted to their death, all I could think of was, “It’s the middle of the night, no one knows where we are, I’m tired and I’m pretty sure an FJ60 is considered a full size rig.”

I subsequently determined that we would camp just back down the trail a bit. As I began backing down the loose rock, I quickly ascertained that I couldn’t see a thing, so I kicked Paul out to do spotting duty. A short spot down, there was an entry to another trail called Lead King. Once we got there, Paul started spotting me back up that trail to turn around. I should’ve caught the error—I suspect my lack of sleep and poor attitude impeded my senses—but when I heard a strange pop, it all came to mind. Paul was a bit surprised when I stopped and with panic in my voice screamed, “Unlock the hubs! Unlock the hubs!” After explaining the Achilles Heel of the Land Cruiser, Paul assured me it was just the sound of the shale rocks slipping under my tires but when I started moving, he stated that maybe we should twist the hub dials for safety’s sake.

Bruce and Barbara Miller thread their 80 series through the Colorado backcountry.

 

Tailgunner Wes Worek crosses a shallow stream on Pearl Pas.

 

Terry Tubb in his FJ40, crossing a flat section of Pearl Pass.

 

Italian Creek spreads out in front of Bruce Westlund’s 80 series.

Photos by Ige Gustavson