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.