We set out on this nice February day
to attempt a little winter off roading in the
mountains. First we headed for the Pinewood Reservoir
area to check the nearby trails. This area is
relatively low elevation and we figured the snow might not be
a problem. As it turns out, we were able to make it
fairly far up Pole Hill Road into the National Forest at a
locked gate where the private property starts. There
were some great vistas near this turn around area, so we
placed this cache there.
To get to the cache site, take 18E past
Pinewood Reservoir and keep going up hill past Quillan Gulch Rd
after which you will enter the Roosevelt National Forest on
NF-122. Note: You will see various private road signs
on the way to the National Forest but you should have no problem
passing through these roads to access the National
Forest.
After exploring this area, we headed up to
Estes Park and entered Pole Hill Road from the top end. To
our surprise were able to do about 90% of the upper trail.
There were a few challenging spots, one where we couldn't make it
up a steep snow covered hill.