4-wheeling in the "good old days" (Denver, Sterling: luxury, high school)

[jazzlover]

Not too long ago, I had lunch with a long-time buddy of mine whose young adult preppy-type niece and her husband were gushing about their recent 4-wheeling trip in their yuppie-4WD SUV. They asked "Uncle" and me how it was when we were started 4-wheeling as kids back in the '60's. It brought back some great memories. One of my first rides on some honest-to-God 4-wheeling was in one of these--a 1946 Dodge 1-Ton Power Wagon--only not pretty like this photo.



The thing rode terribly, and would top out at a heart-pounding 40 mph on the highway--at that speed, conversation had to be made at "full-yell" to be heard. But, the thing was unstoppable in the back country. I remember the driver (a family friend) calmly mowing down a couple of 4" diameter-trunk aspen trees as we made our way up a narrow road. (Now, this undoubtedly will raise the ire of some environmentalists, but if you drove one of these things with manual "Armstrong" steering, you would understand why an occasional aspen would seem expendable.)

Camping gear was Army surplus pup tents, mess kits, and sleeping bags. Coffee was brewed in an iron pot over a wood campfire and drunk with clenched teeth to filter out any errant grounds. Adults usually added some whiskey for sweetener--Sweet n' Low wasn't around yet.

Another favorite 4WD was often the 1940's vintage Willys Jeep, similar to this one:



Like the Power Wagon, they were good for about 40 mph on the highway, but would go just about anywhere in the backcountry. They did have their bad habits like the carburetor running out of fuel on very steep uphill climbs. When this happened, the common trick was to turn the Jeep around and back uphill, so that gravity would feed gasoline to the carburetor from the fuel tank (which was under the seat, and usually leaking a little bit).

The fancier city folks might have new Broncos, Scouts, etc. that were becoming the rage, but rural Coloradans used old stalwarts like these Jeeps and Power Wagons well into the "modern" 4-wheeling era. A few of the old Jeeps are still running around rural Colorado today--earning their keep.

Back then, Jeep trails really were nothing more than trails, and were sparsely used. On many trails where today there can be the equivalent of a traffic jam on weekends, one could 4-wheel back in those days and seldom see anyone. One had to be careful about getting stuck on some roads--during the week, it might be a day or two before anyone would come along. Of course, there was no GPS, the Forest Service maps were black and white--often horribly out-of-date, and there was often no signage. One had to be pretty good at common-sense "dead-reckoning" navigation and there will still a fair amount of time spent being "misplaced." ("We ain't lost--we just don't know exactly where we are.") Girlfriends, wives, and kids were recruited to help navigate, open and close gates ("Always leave a gate like you found the g****m thing," the ranchers would say.), set up camp, gather firewood, wash dishes (those old porcelain-covered iron dishes), clean fish, and other assorted tasks. Men drove the Jeep, changed flat tires, got stuck, cussed a lot, and fished. The latter was usually critical because fish were usually counted upon as part of the camp diet--no fish, no dinner entrée. Firearms were usually carried on every trip--a rabbit, sage grouse, or even a poached deer could substitute for fish when necessary.

Most of the folks you met in the backcountry--if you saw anybody--were other locals from the region. You could tell what county they were from by the license plate letters. Meeting another vehicle on the trail usually meant stopping for at least a 10 minute conversation--and possible exchange of certain "supplies"--fish, beer, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, etc.--as needed.

Getting stuck was an expected event. When this happened, shovels, tow chains, sheepherder's jacks, and--if one was lucky enough--the winch ("winch", not "wench"--the wench would usually be deploying lunch while "the men," which usually included any male or tomboy over about 8, were figuring out how to get the vehicle unstuck) would be broken out. If another vehicle happened along--this usually developed into an ad hoc community social event--with much exchange of tools, opinions, strategy, sweat, all blanketed with a fine haze of spirited yelling, cussing, and breaking/fixing of various mechanical parts. Once the vehicle(s) was unstuck, the participants of this event would quench their thirst with a beer (or two, or more) and rehash the whole process among themselves. On a bad road, this might happen several times in a day.

A Forest Service outhouse was a rare "luxury." Most of the time, they smelled so bad that folks just hiked out into the woods or found a bush. Etiquette often developed that one side of the road would be designated the "men's side" and the other the "ladies' side." Which side was which was usually determined by the number of convenient bushes available for the ladies. A roll of toilet paper and an entrenching shovel was always bouncing around in the back of a Jeep. "Skunk cabbage" (actually False Hellebore is the proper name)

Southwest Colorado Wildflowers, Veratrum tenuipetalum

could also be used for "toilet paper," but it didn't work very well, and the ants had to be shook out of it before use.

Despite such casualness about hygiene, most streams were safe to drink out of--the water was often cleaner and better than the city water in many a rural Colorado town (you haven't lived until you turn on the water tap in your kitchen and have a tadpole plop into the sink!). Bathing in a creek was considered acceptable, as there generally was no one downstream for at least a couple of miles most of the time.

There were ghost towns everywhere, and many of the old buildings were still full of tools and supplies left there when they were abandoned anywhere from 30-60 years before.

Anyway, my friend's niece and her husband got to hear how it was not that many years ago. Too bad it all changed.

[Ticky909]

nice post. I wish i could of been around then, now you have to tail ford explorers bellowing steam and smoke out from under the hood as you make your way up trails.

[COflower]

YouTube - Off-Road Climb up Pikes Peak with Chevrolet truck in 1957

This cracks me up..I do love a Chevy though.

[Pilot1]

Great post jazzlover!!! I offroad with a Jeep Wrangler TJ in Colorado. Still many fine trails and places to get lost and get away from everyone. Love the ghost towns in the mountains. Colorado is one of the best states for off roading.

[Shuffler]

Originally Posted by COflower

YouTube - Off-Road Climb up Pikes Peak with Chevrolet truck in 1957

This cracks me up..I do love a Chevy though.

Those were the days...before my time, but very cool. No way could most modern production SUVs manage what those 2 Chevys did...

What ever happened to the spartan/utilitarian nature of 4x4s? Our old K5 Blazers had vinyl seats and rubber floor covering. Get it dirty? Just hose it out and wipe it down. No a/c, noisy interior, but that was all part of the fun.

I remember gas was around $.70/gal in high school in the late 80s...what was it back in the 50s....$.30-.40/gallon or less? Those really WERE the days...

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by Shuffler

Those were the days...before my time, but very cool. No way could most modern production SUVs manage what those 2 Chevys did...

What ever happened to the spartan/utilitarian nature of 4x4s? Our old K5 Blazers had vinyl seats and rubber floor covering. Get it dirty? Just hose it out and wipe it down. No a/c, noisy interior, but that was all part of the fun.

I remember gas was around $.70/gal in high school in the late 80s...what was it back in the 50s....$.30-.40/gallon or less? Those really WERE the days...

There was a "gas war" in Denver in the early 1970's (ironically, just a couple of years before the oil embargo in 1973) when gas could be bought at a full-service station for 19.9 cents/gallon. Most of the time when I was growing up in the '60's, gas was around 28 to 35 cents a gallon. Of course, the minimum wage was about a buck-and-a-quarter an hour then, too.

The times were nostalgic, but dealing with carburetors, ignition points, balky chokes, etc. was not. In most ways, today's vehicles are a "fer piece" better than what we drove back in those days. The one exception is most 4WD's. Today's 4WD's are made mostly to look pretty and "act" like they might actually have some utility in the backcountry. Most, though, lack adequate ground clearance, gearing, and mechanical stamina to use on really rough backcountry roads. But, then, most "Main Street" yuppie 4-wheelers wouldn't know how to drive one in that environment, anyway. I personally still have to use a vehicle for getting over some really rough 4WD roads on occasion, as part of my work (as well as some far too infrequent 4-wheeling trips), and I keep an old used "gut-buster" 4WD around for that purpose. I have never been one to take a 4WD out somewhere "just to see where it would go." It's just a tool to use for a specific purpose--sort of like a carpenter's hammer. I don't go around and pound on stuff with a hammer just for the hell of it, and I don't use a 4WD that way, either.

[sterlinggirl]

The first time I saw a $40,000 Range Rover, I just shook my head and wondered what the point was. You can't go 4-wheeling or you might scratch it.

Jazz is right about the old 4WDs being good. I remember tooling around in an old Scout (the small one) that topped out at less than 50mph. It wasn't fancy and the manual wipers didn't do much to help you see out the window, but it would drive through anything.

[MountainPharmD]

Originally Posted by COflower

YouTube - Off-Road Climb up Pikes Peak with Chevrolet truck in 1957

This cracks me up..I do love a Chevy though.

That was an impressive video. Can you imagine if someone tried that today?

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by MountainPharmD

That was an impressive video. Can you imagine if someone tried that today?

"Timber bashing" like that has been illegal in most places in the National Forests (and BLM land) for about 25-30 years now--as well it should be. Tracks made by vehicles, especially on virgin tundra, can take decades to heal. Today, too, there are just too many people out there who would drive irresponsibly without the regulations. (Yes, I am a firm supporter of the TreadLightly program Tread Lightly - Home .)

As far as the toughness of the 4WD's in that era--yes, they were that tough. And just about as tough on the driver. Manual steering--if you hit a good-sized rock with a front wheel, the steering wheel could spin around and break your thumb. Manual drum brakes--if they got wet, you would have stand on the brake pedal with all of your weight just to get the brakes to work a little. The ride--you saw how those guys got hammered around in the video--it was brutal. Many of the trucks had inline six-cylinder engines--great off-road, but gutless on the highway. Drivetrains would howl incessantly at any speed. The trucks had to be greased constantly--the one-ton Dodge Power Wagons had something like 30+ grease fittings.

I can not count the untold hours I spent bouncing around in 4WD's under conditions pretty similar to that shown in the video--probably why my back ain't in the greatest shape now. The first 4WD I drove was pretty similar to the one in the video (except it was a Ford, like this shown below), and it was every bit as tough (and tough on the driver) as what was shown in the video. I thought that I was a pretty tough 4-wheeler in those days--until I went out with some prospectors out of Silverton on some trails to some old mines around there (before someone asks, all of the trails I was on during that trip are now closed to vehicles). I would've have gotten out of the truck and walked on a couple of those trails, but if you had opened the door, you wouldn't have had anything under your foot for a couple hundred feet. The old miner driving the truck didn't bat an eye--just ground on up the trail with a Camel in one hand and cup of coffee in the other. Just another day for them.



Funny that Sterlinggirl would mention Scouts. I had one of those--horrible body, but tough as nails on the trail. Sure liked its fuel, though.

[COflower]

Funny that.