Ophir Pass - A Crazy Colorado Mining / Shelf Road - 4x4 Off-road Trail 

Yeah watching it again myself had me really missing this drive and the sick views! That's pretty crazy you had a wall of snow there in July of 21, 2023 was pretty crazy like that on some trails as well, I know Imogene Pass we saw a pretty large snow wall on the shelf portion too. We actually pushed our trip back a few months as in May and June there were still a good number of trails closed to snow blocking the roads.

I hear you lol, it's definitely a crazy feeling seeing just how big of a fall it would be if you go over the edge. I have to say though the one on the top of Engineer Pass was the one that had me sweating haha. After that I felt a lot better about the others I've done. Glad you made it through in one piece ✌️

Hey awesome, yes we did in fact register for the various Jeep badges and they arrived a month or so after, they are ok the Jeep now, lovin it! Thanks for watching, this trip was amazing and we can't wait to hit more trails this year; current plan is Moab and some other local Colorado trails, but I'm really missing the San Juan's so I'm sure my wife and I will be back in that area soon. ✌️

Your telling me! I always find the history of these places fascinating, I love looking at the historical images and description of what life was like back in the day! I'm part of the Colorado historical Facebook group or something like that where they post old images of miners, towns, roads and explorers driving their very simple and very much basic 4x4 vehicles and I wonder how most of them made it to their destination! For one the ride must of been incredibly uncomfortable and unforgiving with lack of real tires, suspension, no ground clearance, lack of heating / ac, gas stations available, AAA, etc lol. Then you think about the lack of horsepower / performance at altitude and what not and how did they make it up some of these inclines etc; what a crazy time to be alive. I wish I could go back in time and experience it first hand, at least for time anyway 😅 Yeah don't know though you make good points, no phones or GPS, I'd be so lost on these trails, I'm sure road maintenance, safety and signage was probably pretty awful compared to current standards. Thanks for watching and commenting, appreciate it!!

Haha I'm just reading what the sign said and the various guides / Wikipedia. Definitely easy haha, but I do know that the average person not from the mountains or a city slicker may be in over there heads, so giving them a warning of sorts can only help. Of course I'd encourage anyway to get out and have fun, but I'd just hope they do it safe and know what they are getting into, I've seen a number of videos and posts of people taking this road or roads like it, because of Google maps mistakes and getting stuck or scared or popping a tire etc, which isn't good for them or those who want to enjoy this road. I do understand where you are coming from though and technically most roads are doable by almost any vehicle it's just recommendation and in the case your referring too that's more of a youtube thing, using key words like 4x4 help people who want to see stuff like this discover the video.

Thank you so much, we filmed those videos last August (towards the end of the month) and yeah it was beautiful out there! Glad you enjoyed it and really appreciate the support, hoping to continue to put out more exciting videos! ✌️

Yeah it was amazing, really cool shelf road and yeah the views were something else for sure. Thx!

Thanks for watching and commenting!! Glad you had the chance to get out to the San Juan's, we actually were out there in August last year as well, maybe we crossed paths haha. It seemed like a fantastic time to be out there it was beautiful.

Thanks, yeah really happy with how the drone footage came out! Think it really captured the beauty of the trail well

@@departureoutdoors absolutely. 💯

Hey, thanks for commenting! So in my opinion one of the best ways to discover trails, see what you can expect pn the trail, get an idea if they are open and how challenging they may be is to use "Trails Offroad". It's an excellent app that I feel is definitely worth the yearly subscription of about $25 a year if you care about offline map functionality (recommended as when going on these trails cell service can be very spoty in places). Typically what we do is use Google maps to get us to the local towns or areas close to the trails and then use Trails Offroad to navigate to the trails and once at the trails I like to use the "follow me" functionality on the app which shows you as a dot and updates constantly as you drive showing you progress through the trails and what way point you are at to give you an idea of how far you have left but also it gives you info on each way point you are coming up on and what to expect. Another great feature is a lot of the time on these trails it will highlight detours you can take to avoid challenging obstacles if you desire to but also it tells you what obstacles are mandatory. If you have anymore questions let me know. I may make a short video on how we do all this / use the app since that seems to be a common question! You will love it love it out there, it really is incredibly beautiful, both this trail, but really the entire San Juan mountain region. ✌️

@departureoutdoors I am messing with the 7 day free trial right now for Trails off Road(I dnt have anywhere to go right now though lol), but I wanted to see how it works... it looks to me it connects to GAIA GPS. Am I wrong? Dnt you have to pay for a yearly script for that as well?

Hey, haha no worries. So there is a Gaia option, that's not what I typically use although maybe that could be useful. Gaia has its own membership that is separate yes, but not needed for trails offroad. If for example you select a trail and scroll down and click the blue "navigation options" button you will see options to navigate to the trail and also start follow mode. I'll usually start with navigate to the trail which will open up your Google maps and navigate you to the trail. Once at the trail I open up the app again / tab back to it and then I'll select the "follow me" option as this will show you in regards to the trail and you can use it to navigate yourself along the trails and get helpful info as to what way point you are currently at or heading to, etc. If you aren't at the trail though and you Click follow me it will only really just show you your current position so that may not come across well until you actually get closer to a trail. Also be sure to download the offline maps for the state you are in or plan on going to so that all this works without the need for signal. Also probably worth downloading Google map offline maps for the general area, but more to cover the normal street roads in the surrounding area in case you lose signal in the mountains.

@departureoutdoors Awesome! Thanks for all the info... I will continue to play with it... I did download all 4 states we are planning on going to... now, do the offline downloads only show when you are offline and close to the trail you need? I tried clicking on one of the states, and I can not get anything to come up. I was just curious to see what they downloaded, LOL...

No worries happy to help! So all that does is download the trail information and the routes for all those trails including pictures guides etc. However ypu can really click on a state like that, you either have to search for the trail by name that you are interested in or look for trails in the surrounding area via the map. If you select the map tab you can move it around to different states, it usually focuses on where you are currently located but feel free to navigate the map and clip on various trails. Different colors indicate different difficulty, green being easy, yellow medium and red are generally difficult ir at least have something along the path that's a challenge but you can already up on and even see pictures of each trail to better upstanding what to expect. If you don't do the download offline maps for a state then in that state if you lose signal ypu won't be able to search for trails by name, have the map populated with any trails or information and thus you won't be able to really use the app in that situation.