Calvary 4-Wheelers

Not to be outdone by Steve, Peter, Matt and Grace, Calvary 4-Wheelers took our own trip down the icy and snow-covered Switzerland Trail on Saturday, December 22, 2007. We rendezvoused at McDonalds in Boulder. Steve and Matt joined myself, James, Daniel, Jon, Travis, Eric and Nikki for breakfast but informed us they wouldn’t be able to make the trip.

This trip was originally slated for Left Hand Canyon but, after hearing Steve and Matt’s stories of the previous week and looking at several inches of fresh snow on top of that, we decided the Switz would be a wiser choice. After all, we were just looking for a break from Christmas shopping not to break our vehicles in an all day and night winch fest.

When we got to the trail head it didn’t look that bad so we decided to try it chainless to start. I got less than 100 feet down the trail before discovering that was a mistake. The foot tracks I had seen were only as deep as the fresh 3-4 inches of snow but the trucks busted right through the crust into about a foot of old, hard stuff. Daniel pulled me back out to the parking area and we chained up.

Even chained up and lockers engaged driving sideways was almost as common as straight for me as I broke trail. James, at the tail, had the opposite problem. He felt like he was on the kiddie kars at Disneyland as the ruts held him in place. There were only a few places where the trail narrowed enough to make the sideways driving an issue. Then we came to a particularly tricky narrow spot.

As you came down an incline the trail bent slightly left and then turned right. In the middle of the right turn the trail narrowed way down with a deep gully on the right hand side. Just to make it more interesting the snow was drifted in a way that pitched you toward the downhill side and made the vehicle want to slide into that gully. With some careful and gentle maneuvering I was able to work my way through it without too much of an issue. Nikki, driving her 4-Runner off-road for the first time, wasn’t comfortable driving the tricky spot so I took the wheel and got the 4-Runner through it for her. Eric, however, made it more interesting.

Every time Eric tried to make the corner his back end would slide over and head for the gully. After 3 attempts he ended up too close to the edge to back out for another try. Daniel fired up his winch and tried pulling him back but we couldn’t get him back into the middle of the trail. He just kept hugging the edge. Finally we used a snatch block to winch him forward. His back end slid off the trail a little but, being attached to the winch, he wasn’t going over.

After we got Eric through we did a little shovel work and everyone else got through without a problem. We took a lunch break in our trucks and headed on down the trail. We were working hard enough going downhill and had taken enough time to get Eric out of his jam that we decided to bail out at Sunset and not go up the other side. It got us off the trail a little early but there was plenty more shopping to do so we headed home.

Jon, however, had not had enough, so, as the Marcy clan headed out of Boulder on CO93, he hit a snow-blown stretch of road and spun his Cherokee around a few times. Fortunately he didn’t flip it over or hit any of the oncoming traffic and nothing was hurt but his pride. God was truly watching out for us.
[Trip Pics]

Click HERE to return to the 2007 Schedule Click HERE to return to the Calvary 4-Wheeler's page