99Discovery
Adventurer
The Alpine Loop is one of the most famous off road trails in the Western United States, and for good reason. The loop circles some of the best mountain ranges in the Rockies, connecting the town of Lake City in the east to the Ghost Town of Animas Forks to the West. The northern leg of the route is Engineer Pass and the southern leg is Cinnamon Pass, reviewed here.
Our base camp was to the northwest, so we took a shortcut from Ouray to Animas Forks rather than the traditional (and better maintained) route from Silverton to Animas. This shortcut, known as Mineral Creek, is the most technical portion of the trail and a ton of fun. The majority of the vehicle footage is from that trail. It looks rather easy (we only rated it a 4 out of the western US 1-10 scale), but like most off-road videos it was harder than it looks due to the incline which never comes across well on camera.
Well, enough of me, I'll link the video review below and also a few photos.
Our base camp was to the northwest, so we took a shortcut from Ouray to Animas Forks rather than the traditional (and better maintained) route from Silverton to Animas. This shortcut, known as Mineral Creek, is the most technical portion of the trail and a ton of fun. The majority of the vehicle footage is from that trail. It looks rather easy (we only rated it a 4 out of the western US 1-10 scale), but like most off-road videos it was harder than it looks due to the incline which never comes across well on camera.
Well, enough of me, I'll link the video review below and also a few photos.