Bill Moore Lake 8-11-07 (Dial up Beware)

[Peter Hoffman]

Took a little trip to bill moore this saturday, few pics from it:

This one is about half way to the lake.
http://jimsrover.afraid.org/rover/peter/bm1.jpg

Vehicles involved :p
http://jimsrover.afraid.org/rover/peter/bm3.jpg

Was still clean here :crazy:
http://jimsrover.afraid.org/rover/peter/bm4.jpg

CLOSED Mud pit. To the left of it is a very rutted...mud pit. :rolleyes:
http://jimsrover.afraid.org/rover/peter/bm6.jpg

At the lake, in front of the log cabin.
http://jimsrover.afraid.org/rover/peter/bm8.jpg
http://jimsrover.afraid.org/rover/peter/bm9.jpg
http://jimsrover.afraid.org/rover/peter/bm12.jpg

Finally...the beautiful lake itself.
http://jimsrover.afraid.org/rover/peter/bm13.jpg

Cheers! :beermug:

[DamnHippie]

That new mud pit next to the closed one was pretty fun when I was up there a few weeks ago. I took the path through the deepest rutted part of it, and I think the only reason I didn't get stuck was momentum and my skid plates acting like a big surf board.

Next time you're up that way, try taking a right onto the road marked "Mill Creek" rather than the left towards Bill Moore. The Mill Creek loop has eroded a bit and it's a nice fun trail these days. (A few years ago it was an easy drive.)

There's a really cool cabin on the Mill Creek loop called The Empire Hilton. It's available for anyone to use, it's got beds and a stash of food and kerosene lamps and stuff. Just take nice care of it, leave it cleaner than when you found it.

[Green Machine]

I lost my factory nurf bars on mill creek 2 years ago, got pinned on a rock and almost went through my driver rear tire, fun stuff. There are a lot of fun rocks on mill creek, however it was stock at the time with 31's but nothin else. What makes for a really fun day is throwing red elephant in the loop. Was up there last year but we hit a big snow drift at the top where it meets mill creek. Not only that but I saw my buddy destroy his truck when he fell off the trail at "the tippy spot".

[Peter Hoffman]

Yeah, i went straight through the mud pit, the rover had to circle around because his auto height was not working...hahaha :D. I scraped a little in the front, but that was because i took it about 10mph too fast :)

We were gonna try red elephant and mill creek but ran out of time. I had heard about the empire hilton, the guy in the rover has seen it before, said it's pretty neat.

There is a fork after 3 switch backs to the left from where all the people park their trailers that is really rocky (2-3' rocks) on a steep embankment that i tried. PML was just not enough lol..woulda scraped my doors :(

[DamnHippie]

You can do that rocky fork with just a PML, that's all Martin has on his Frontier (and slightly oversized tires, like 1" bigger) and he makes it. Hmm, he has sliders, tho, and I'll bet they kiss a couple rocks on the way up.

Red Elephant hill killed my truck a couple years ago... it was how I learned that you need aftermarket steering with a lift and big tires. I snapped 3 tie rod adjusters and had to camp on the hill and hike down the next day. I got SLR to overnight me their beefy TRAs to get me down off the mountain, then installed the whole SLR system the following week. I've been down the trail 3 times since then, but haven't yet tried it again in the up direction.

[Green Machine]

I ran it safley with 3 inch body and 3 inch suspension, and 33's with a handycapt in passenger seat, untill we hit snow at mill creek. It turned out OK it was one of the difficult trails of colorado compared to carnage. But a real good time lookin foward to the next time. But we had to create a new trail at the tippy spot 1\4 mile up the trail to back my friends truck down, that was no fun. Dents all over, hit 20 trees at least, almost tipped if the high lift wasnt used.
P\S just in case napa has heavy duty tie rods and adjusters avail. for you X. With life time warranty!!!!!

[DamnHippie]

Napa's so-called "heavy duty" tie rods are the ones that I snapped. I don't think they're even as strong as nissan stock. They're nothing like the ones from SLR or Calmini.

But the problem isn't the tie rods or adjusters anyway, they just end up being the "fuse" in a failing steering system, the real problem is the centerlink, and only the re-engineered ones (from SLR, L&P, Calmini) have a strong enough design for heavy offroad abuse with oversized tires.