Midwinter Rockie Mtn Drive between snow storms

robhamster · 12-30-2012, 12:29 PM

Had to take the old girl out for a run through the foothills before the next storm. The car is recovering from a batch of bad gasoline that I purchased in October. I had to go throught that tank with a lot of misfires as the injectors got plugged from time to time. I ran two tanks of good premium and then had a 1/2 tank with a can of bg44 to clean the whole mess up and the car is running as designed.

Nickshu · Nickshu's Garage

Nice! More snow forecasted up here tonight. P-car is up on jackstands in the garage with pedal cluster out for rebuild, and new front shocks, ball joints, and mounts in a box ready to go in. Will be out there soon...

Craig_D · Craig_D's Garage

Ditto what Nick said! Nice! I saw a few aircooled P-cars out today in Boulder. And like Nick, my car is up on jacks in the garage...complete suspension/brake rebuild. In between snow storms.

Great to see you got out!

Winter · 12-30-2012, 05:22 PM

Ha! Shoulda taken mine out, missed a good opportunity. More snow on the way tonight but long term forecast for the first 10 days of Jan looking sunny and warmer.

gint · 12-30-2012, 07:54 PM

I took mine out today for a quick cigar run. Long enough to get it up to temp. And hardly any dirt!

Gary De · 12-31-2012, 01:26 PM

Thanks for pictures. I miss those between storm winter runs out US285 to Fairplay. Moved from Conifer to the metro Detroit area back in 05. Still have the 911 but really miss blasting up Turkey Creek canyon. Those were the days.

Matt Monson · 12-31-2012, 02:01 PM

Still waiting for Santa to deliver my new pedal box. I think his sleigh got stuck in the snowstorm out in the East where he picked them up...

robhamster · 12-31-2012, 05:06 PM

Gary, I love the run up Turkey Creek. I have the Morrison Road canyon down and love hitting all of the other roads nearby, but that is one of my favorites. You are always welcome back for a fair weather run.

Gary De · 01-01-2013, 06:21 AM

I'll have to get out for a mountain run. Have some great memories driving the canyons west of Denver. I lived about 1 mile off of US285 past Conifer up behind Long Brothers Garage. It is nice having the extra HP at sea level. I would give up the HP to have those roads in my back yard.

Jess · Jess's Garage

Hey Rob,

Got you beat!

I woke up the day after Christmas, realized I had a very clear calendar and drove through the mountains to Newport beach and back. Had a great time surprising my parents, seeing my sister, BIL, and nieces. Pulled into my driveway last night after a pretty nasty run over the passes. Total drive time back was just over fourteen hours averaging 71 MPH, including stops. Other than a heat soaked starter, car was flawless.

A few pictures:

Jesse

zotman72 · 01-01-2013, 10:23 AM

Way kewl Jess! What type of tires were you running on your CA and back jaunt?

Jess · Jess's Garage

Hoosiers!

Nah, some type of Dunlop all season. They do horribly around town in the snow. On the way out Utah was snow the whole way and on the return, Vail was stupid snowy. They seemed to do well in the snow at speed.

Jesse

robhamster · 01-01-2013, 10:49 AM

Now I am jealous. Had to be a great drive. I am from Orange County myself and have made that run in the pcar in good weather, but I never had the guts to run the passes in snowey weather with my '84. I have a Panny 4S with snow tires that will go anywhere, but what is the fun in that?

Congrats on a great drive. Now go wash the salty crap off that beautiful Targa.

Jess · Jess's Garage

Thanks Rob!

I've done the drive in my old 70 E, during the summer but this was quite an adventure.

Before I left Denver, I checked the road conditions here in CO and it looked great. Didn't occur to me that Utah could be bad; really somehow never entered my mind. Leaving GJ, the snow started and didn't let up until I got to St George.

The return trip, I was much more studious of the weather but there wasn't much I could do. The maps predicted that I'd hit snow in The Rockies and I sure did.

I could have driven my Duramax four wheel drive and had heated seats and a great defroster but where would the fun in that have been?

Off to find a heated carwash. It looks much worse now that the sun's out and the salty crap has dried. I must say, last night was the first time in my life I was grateful for mag chloride!

Jesse