Imogene Pass

After spending great five days in Durango, Colorado with the family in a VRBO. I did a little research and thought driving up and over Imogene Pass would be fun. Imogene Pass connects the mountain towns of Silverton and Telluride. I couldn’t find what I thought was an accurate description. Some people on TripAdvisor said it was hell-raising and took four hours. Considering it was only 11 miles, I figured it couldn’t be that bad considering I’ve driven in the woods for 35 years. Best description I saw that it was an easy Jeep trail to 13,000 feet as a plus we could camp along the way. Oops

Just a bit of pucker factor here as the road slopes to the left

In reality, Imogene Pass is an easy trail for Jeeps, but for a loaded down, basically brand new, Tacoma it was challenging. The road is a steep road with some pitches having up to a 30% grade up rock ledges with a 10% outslope. It was a bit nerve-wracking because I don’t know the tip-over point is and I Really don’t want to find out. The road grade was steep enough that I used FWD with low range in second gear for most of the of the drive. In places I had to go into first gear and engage the rear locking differential in a half a dozen places in order to creep up 12 to 15 inch rock ledges..

It took us about 3 1/2 hours to cover the 11 miles including several stops for photos and to allow traffic to pass us. And places the road is very narrow but most of the time it was wide enough to allow two vehicles to pass each other. Probably 90% of the vehicles were Jeeps. We did see tow other Tacomas.

The views from the top were stunning. And the drive down into Telluride was simply gorgeous in the afternoon sun. To sum it up I’d highly recommend it to people with 4 hours of time, with either a Jeep or a slightly lifted pickup, and a driver who knows how to pick a route through rocky terrain

Exploring Baja - Week One: Tecate to Bahía de los Ángeles

Our first camping experiences