Wheeler Lake is a really fun trail located up in the high country between Breckenridge and Fairplay Colorado.  This trail has something for everyone, a little rockcrawling, some rough bumpy rocky roads, waterfalls , and amazing scenery.  It has been about five years since I have been on this trail, but little has changed.  We met up some Kurt from The Jeep Mafia, Kurt organized a trail ride for the Jeep Mafia Twitter followers in the Colorado area.  it is always fun to meet new people.  The group consisted of about 3 XJ’s, 2JK’s, a TJ, and a Toyota Forerunner.  We all met near the Montgomery Reservoir off Highway 9, there is a large parking lot staging area right at the beginning of the trail.  As we started up the trail there is  a large old mine that still stands crossing the trail, you actually drive under it.

Here is the Old Mine Building.

Not far after the mill is the first obstacle.  The obstacle is kind of a small V notch, it is usually wet, so less traction makes it even trickier.  Here is a video of me going up the first obstacle, on the right line.

The obstacle has two lines, one to the left, and one to the right.  The left line was the line all the rigs with smaller tires and open diffs choose to go up, Above is a picture of this line.

Here is Kurt on the same line I took.

After the group all made it through, we headed up the trail, and not too far away is the next obstacle, this has 3 different distinct lines.  The far left line is a pretty good climb, there are multiple opportunities on this wall as well.

 

Here Kurt is staying wide left, this line took some wheel spin fully locked up to make it through.

 

The rest of the group decided to go up the middle, this is a rock ledge that allows all the tires to touch the ground, resulting in a nice smooth climb.  Where everyone is standing, is the middle line.

I decided to run the v notch on the right, this is a fun flexy obstacle.  My JK does not flex like my buggy, but considering it is a pretty stock suspension, it did well.  As you can see from the last two videos, I am rusty with a clutch in these types of obstacles.  On my  rockcrawler, I converted to an automatic years ago.  My JK is a manual, and do not do much technical wheeling with it.  Having an automatic is so nice for these situations, you can put one foot on the brake, and one on the gas and just ease it up over, a manual takes a little more practice.

After these couple obstacles the trail mellows out for a while, the only thing you encounter is some water holes and brush that runs down the side of your paint job.  There are a few small ledges and some area that the creek is running down the trail.

The trail works its way up the mountain, until you come to bowling ball hill, the trail becomes more difficult here, the only reason is due to how steep and loose the rock is.  Everyone in our group who made the first obstacles made bowling ball hill.  I remember it being more difficult in the past, but it changes all the time.

Starting up bowling ball hill.

 

This is the most difficult part of Bowling ball hill, you take a hard right turn up a switchback and there is a wet rocky ledge, that is bigger than the picture shows.  Everyone in our group made it up just fine, after this it is smooth sailing to the lake.

 

Group Shot, the end of the trail.  This is some amazing scenery, that pictures just do not do justice.  There are several waterfalls running down the hills into the lake depending on the time of year, and some old mineshafts around the hillsides to explore.

We hung out up top for awhile,  being 4th of July weekend and all, group after group continued to reach the top, we waited for an hour or so, until the trail was clear to start heading down.  You do not want to meet anyone going back down bowling ball hill, there is not, much room to move over. We made it back down bowling ball hill, and most the group was behind be so I kept moving forward back to the trailhead, after a mile or so I stopped to group back up, that is when Kurt and Matt were still not behind us, we waited about 20 minutes until Kurt came driving up with Matt in the passenger seat, I realized right away, that’s not good!  Matt broke a tie rod end on bowling ball hill, but was able to pull off the side.  That’s when I realized I would be coming back up this trail again tonight!

 

Everyone else made it back down without an issue.

Matt, Zig, and I went into Fairpalay to Matt’s house, Luckily he is local, to get a spare tie rod end.  We also hit the store for more supplies, pizza and water.  We headed back up the trail and luckily everyone else was off of it, so we made good time in the JK getting back to Matts Jeep.  The repair was quick and easy.  We made it back to the trail head at about 8:30 PM, we were pretty tired, but I was staying at Zigs in Blue river, so it was a short drive back to his house.  It was a long day, but a fun day!  The first round trip up took us about five hours with a big group, it could be run in 3 hours or so with a smaller, group depending on how fast you go. This is a fun trail, with amazing views, I would recommend to anyone!