This is a really fun and scenic trail, located right near the trailhead of the Iron Chest mine trail, off of Hancock pass near St Elmo ghost town.  Right before St Elmo turn left up Hancock pass and keep an eye on the left for a group of houses, the trail begins in between the houses, it looks at first like a driveway, but you can see it is more traveled than a driveway. There is no sign, I heard a neighbor removes it because he does not like the traffic, but who knows?  This trail can be run on in conjunction with Iron Chest, Iron Chest took us about 3 hours round trip, and this trail took us about 5 hours round trip.  After finding the trail and it is not long until you hit he premier obstacle on this trail, it is a stream crossing with a muddy, rocky ledge coming right out of the stream.  Due to the fact the stream was running high while we were there, it made it very hard to get up in my JK on 37’s.  Zig first went up in his TJ on 42 inch stickies, and made it easily, Matt was next in his TJ with 37 inch TSL’s, the TSL’s did not like this obstacle, he really had to work hard on a few different lines to make it up.  We encountered several other people going up and coming down, we were not the only people who had issues going up this, winching was common.

I tried to crawl it several times but I could not make this without some serious tire spin, so I opted to save my stock Dana 44 axles for another day, and have Zig winch me up.

Here is me trying to crawl it.  This obstacle really does not look like much, until you see it in real life, if it was not muddy, it would be pretty easy, but the stream makes it difficult.  This obstacle gives this trail a harder rating than Iron Chest.

Here is another shot looking up with the stream below. The line to the left will put you into the tree, the lines to the right are vey off camber, the line is the middle needs high clearance.

 

Up next is a long steep loose rock hill, that is more challenging than I expected, I first began going up with my diffs open, but I came up to a couple ledges that caused my back end to kick out, this is a shelf road, and I decided not to mess around and just engaged my lockers, after that the climb was fine, but still more than I expected.  You can see scarred trees from people winching up this hill, This would not happen if people used straps around the trees, and kept the trees from being damaged.  It is also a reminder people struggle getting up this.

The trail gets more scenic as you go.

 

Here a tree had fallen and Matt hugged it pretty tight to make the corner.

An old mine shaft right off the trail.

A large scree field will make things real rough for a ways!

An old Cabin  hanging on after all these years. The trail has many old mining relics along the way.

 

This trail is definitely rougher than most, and even rougher than Iron Chest, but the scenery is amazing.

Up near the top, there is a water hole with enough room to squeeze through the brush.

Another shot, it is kind of tight, there is another option to the right, but there was no sign to say which way is the trail.  In situations like this, the harder way is usually the trail, and people who do not want to scratch their paint job make a new trail around the mud hole.  I believe in stay the trail, and try to stay on the proper trail, but sometimes you have no idea what is the proper trail.

The Parking lot at the top, is the end of the trail.  there were some people camping at the top, it was beautiful, but the bugs would drive me nuts, they were worse than I have seen in Colorado.  There are several nice camp sites, that would be great!

The lake!

It is beautiful, I did not bring a pole, but other people did and were catching some fish.

After an half hour or so, we headed back down the trail, it was uneventful, which is good.

There is a shelf road which leans you down hill, I did not notice heading up, but heading back down, it leans you uncomfortably down the hill!  I saw one spot where some slipped down the hill a few feet.  The pictures do not show it.

Some wild flowers in bloom.  This is a great trail, it is as scenic up, as it is down, I would recommend it to anyone!  Just remember, bring a pole!