After a great day picking up garbage in the Argentine Basin, we camped overnight down along the creek with another member of Rising Sun 4×4. The next morning, we got up, made pancakes, and then got underway to head up Argentine Pass.
Our campsite had a fabulous view of the willows and grass along the creek.
Heading along one of the side roads toward the old town of Waldorf.
The old Santiago Mine site is now closed to the public because it is too heavily contaminated to be safe. Soon the USFS will remove the topsoil to try and get a handle on the situation.
Looking toward the general area of Argentine Pass. It is out of the picture behind the right shoulder of the close mountain.
Heather with the 4runner at the Santiago Mine site.
Up on top of Argentine Pass looking down into the basin on the west side. I need to get out there to explore some of those trails! The little trail in the foreground is the old wagon road that has all but disappeared. Now it is a trail that the CDT follows.
The mountains dwarf my truck.
I’m not sure if the cut off poles were for a power line or for a telegraph line. Now just stubs remain.
I can’t take enough photos of my truck at neat locations!
We took the 4runner up to the Argentine Basin area on Saturday to help out with the annual Rising Sun 4×4 Argentine Pass Trail Cleanup event. Last year when we went on this run, I was driving my old 4runner (the gold-painted one) and it was my very first club run. After a year of 4x4ing across the western USA and with a much more capable truck, this year I went and did all of the more difficult trails in the basin. I also collected a lot of garbage in the Trasharoo that I won at the raffle. That Trasharoo is the first thing I’ve won as part of Rising Sun!
This is the shelf road on the south side of the creek. The road is closed most of the way up to treeline. There are still some decent views on this trail and there are a couple of places to camp along the way.
We stopped to cook lunch at one of the switchbacks on the shelf road.
Looking north toward the Argentine Central railbed.
A few Toyotas coming down the shelf road as viewed from across the valley.
Splashing through a creek crossing in style. (Thanks to Travis for the photo!)
Another deeper creek crossing (thanks again, Travis!)
In the upper basin near the Waldorf townsite.
At the Waldorf townsite.
Heading over to the old miner’s cabin, we saw a moose out in some tall willows.
The old miner’s cabin has seen better days.
People still occasionally use it although I wouldn’t recommend staying inside for long. The whole building is getting unstable and is starting to collapse.
An old pail left on a tree (photo courtesy of Heather).
Some of the rigs on the run.
Heading through dense willows across a marshy area.
A little original Toyota Hilux pickup in a beautiful place!
After the main cleanup activities were done, several of us went up McLellan Mountain. We encountered a hussy of hummers coming down the trail. Those drivers have some serious skills to fit the very wide hummers up and down some of these tight switchback trails.
At one of the many switchbacks.
Crawling up the old Argentine Central Railroad railbed toward the summit.
A 40 series followed behind me.
Tacomas, Hiluxes, mini trucks, and a 40 series rounded out our little contingent.
Up on top of the overlook to the north of McLellan Mountain.
All of the rigs parked at the end of the road.
Denver is out there somewhere.
Up on McLellan Mountain near the final bit of road we stopped to check out the view and the drop-off (photo courtesy of Heather).
The Honey Badger (this particular Tacoma) was parked right on the edge. On the other side, it falls away for at least 1000 feet before you’d meet anything to slow you down (photo courtesy of Heather).
It’s a long way down!
I think the rail line ran further up the mountain in the past but now the road stops where we stopped. At one point, there were plans for the railroad to go all the way to the top of Grays Peak but that never came to fruition.
This is a really gorgeous place.
Looking toward Grays and Torreys Peaks.
Heading back down off the mountain.
Rigs on a lower switchback.
This must have been an epic line to ride on. It was the highest non-cog railroad in the USA when it was in operation.
Heather and I joined the Rising Sun 4×4 Club Argentine Pass trail cleanup run for some Toyota 4×4 fun. We all met up, aired down our tires, and switched on our radios to prepare for the journey up Leavenworth Creek Road and McClellan Mountain Road to the Waldorf Mine site where the Argentine Pass trail cuts away from the rest of the roads. Different 4×4 trail websites report different names for some of these roads. The old Argentine Central Railway grade is listed as the Leavenworth Creek Road on Google Maps and is the more gentle route up to Waldorf Mine. This route is also known as the “high road.” If a person was careful, a stock Subaru should be able to make it up that road without too much difficulty although your mileage may vary. The McClellan Mountain Road follows down below toward the creek and has two water crossings. These crossings were rather deep. I chose not to go this way in my stock 4runner. The McClellan Mountain Road is also known as the “low road” in this area.
We had an impressive array of Toyotas all ready to go at the trailhead.
At the split between the “high road” and “low road.”
Heading up the “high road” to stay away from those multi-foot-deep creek crossings. Later in the season the creek crossings are much more manageable but today there was a great deal of runoff.
We found quite a bit of garbage heading up the “high road.”
There was a lot of junk off to the side of the road!
Lots of pretty flowers near the junk, too.
Starting to approach treeline.
The “high road” leader coming back from checking out a couple campsites off down toward the creek.
What a lovely day in the mountains!
The three of us in the “high road” convoy tried to go on to the Santiago Mine after making it to Waldorf. A large snow drift stopped our progress while we extricated our leader from a slippy situation.
Heather scouted out some pretty wildflowers while us boys and our toys worked to pull out the white Land Cruiser.
My 4runner has a little bit of a snaggletooth after all of the hi-lifting we had to do the other weekend.
Down at Waldorf for lunch and to meet up with the crew that took the “low road.”
It’s a gorgeous view no matter which way you look up here.
The whole crew parked at the Waldorf Mine site.
This winch on an FJ 40 came from Harbor Freight, of all places. The owner reports good performance. I’m thinking of picking one up the next time it is on sale and grabbing some synthetic line from E-Bay.
Supposedly it has a 12000 lb rating on the 1st layer. That’s pretty awesome considering the pricetag.
Some built rigs at lunch.
So many great and diverse Toyotas!
The lunch crew.
A bunch of beautiful Toyotas (and a Lexus) getting ready to head up toward Santiago Mine again.
In one particularly large drift, I snow plowed right up almost to the end. The truck in front of me helped pull me through the last few feet.
Our fearless leader decided to have a run at a particularly large and challenging drift on the way to the Santiago Mine.
We all parked and went up to help him dig out.
It was a gorgeous place to spend a half hour bashing through snow.
What a beautiful place to park!
RIP my little snow shovel. It wasn’t up to the task of the icy layer.
Looking for a bypass road on the MVUM that the forest rangers gave us earlier in the day. There was no way to bypass this snow drift because the potential bypass road had an even bigger drift on it.
Bashing through the snow.
Further up the road, an even bigger drift stymied our progress. The mine was just 1000 feet further on. With a storm closing in, we decided to turn around and head back down the hill.
He made it quite a ways across but then had to be pulled back.
Also there was some danger of slipping down this snow field and making it difficult to get back onto the trail.
I walked over to the mine while our snowbasher was getting pulled out.
The mine looks pretty interesting. I’ll have to come back up here once the snow is a little more melted to check it out.
A somewhat incomplete panorama of the mine site. I didn’t have enough time to really explore. Another time!
Our convoy stymied so close to our goal!
On the way back down, we had a little bit of an issue with the first truck through the big snowy area. It was nothing that a snatch strap couldn’t fix.
The remaining crew down at the bottom airing up tires. Several rigs stayed up in the basin to camp out overnight and several left early to make it back to Denver or to avoid the oncoming storm.
After a great day picking up garbage in the Argentine Basin, we camped overnight down along the creek with another member of Rising Sun 4×4. The next morning, we got up, made pancakes, and then got underway to head up Argentine Pass.
Our campsite had a fabulous view of the willows and grass along the creek.
Heading along one of the side roads toward the old town of Waldorf.
The old Santiago Mine site is now closed to the public because it is too heavily contaminated to be safe. Soon the USFS will remove the topsoil to try and get a handle on the situation.
Looking toward the general area of Argentine Pass. It is out of the picture behind the right shoulder of the close mountain.
Heather with the 4runner at the Santiago Mine site.
Up on top of Argentine Pass looking down into the basin on the west side. I need to get out there to explore some of those trails! The little trail in the foreground is the old wagon road that has all but disappeared. Now it is a trail that the CDT follows.
We found quite a bit of garbage heading up the “high road.”
Bashing through the snow.
