4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book!, July 4, 2006
This review is from: The Colorado Pass Book: A Guide to Colorado's Backroad Mountain Passes (Paperback)
I've been buying editions of this wonderful book as they come
out--if you fly into Colorado and rent a 4WD from Hertz, Avis,
or whatever, and want adventure--this is a great guide. The
book describes 60-odd Colorado passes "suitable" for driving.
This does not include any of the regular paved road passes,
many of which are fun, but very few of which are hair-raising.
The roads range from well-drained gravel to boulder-strewn
ruts, and the book carefully delineates exactly what kind of
vehicle is required and what conditions to expect. There are
plenty of photographs, but no topo maps (which I would strongly
recommend for some of the passes).
My interest started when I read Marshall Sprague's Great Gates,
about the Rocky Mountain Passes, and saw the description of
Tomichi Pass as "the worst shelf trail in the Rockies for man,
beast, or mountain goat". Many years later, after I had bought
The Colorado Pass Book I drove over this route--which isn't too
bad if you don't mind a very steep, off-camber narrow shelf
barely wider than my car, with a 300' sheer drop down to my right
and a sheer cliff up on the driver's side--if I had wanted to
leave my car I would have had to go out through the tailgate!
And there are even worse places, such as Black Bear/Ingram Pass
("extreme caution needed" says the Pass Book) where if you think
you know what the word "switchbacks" means, you're mistaken!
There are plenty of gentler passes described--so there are
passes suitable for almost anyone. There's a lot of great
history here--such as the rickety old wooden trestles on the
Rollins Pass road--and you come to appreciate what people did
to get to the mining areas in the late 1800's. You need to know
what you're doing here--some of the passes are over 13,000 feet
above sea level, and sometimes there are what are called "jeep
traps" where you cannot go forward or back up safely. There are
other Colorado 4WD books that cover non-pass roads as well as
passes, but this book has always been my favorite.
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