Happy Trails 4wd: The Calamity Mesa Loop

The Calamity Mesa Loop - 2017

by Jerry Smith

Calamity Mesa is in a remote part of western Colorado near the little town of Gateway. This one hitch post town has a small school, a volunteer fire station, and one convenience store that dominates town business unless you count the expensive Gateway Canyons Resort.

Calamity Mesa has a rich history. Most of the riches revolve around the uranium found deep in the ground, but other riches can be found on the surface.

From the mesa top, some of the views are like nowhere else. On a clear day to the south, the San Juan Mountains and Lone Cone Mountain stand covered with bright white snow. Shift your eyes to the west and the Sewemup Mesa Wilderness Study Area will dominate your view.

Lone Cone Mountain is about 50-miles south

With no mention of under what conditions, this warning is for the road to Calamity Mesa.

Sewemup (Sew-em-up) Mesa has a rich history of its own. Cattle rustlers once took their stolen herds into Sinbad Valley where they surgically removed the brands, sew-em-uped the wound, and later rebranded the animal.

Above Sewemup Mesa are the snowy tops of the La Sal Mountains. Just to the right of Sewemup, the Salt Creek canyon winds its way up into Sinbad Valley. Below your feet at the “lunch with a view”, the dark red Blue Creek Gorge dumps its stream into the larger Delores River.

The La Sal Mountains have an anomaly in the spring. A giant shark with his mouth open faces east.

To the north, there is Cone Mountain and the Sky Mesa Ranch. Then Flat Top Mesa and Tenderfoot Mesa melt into Maverick Mesa.

Saturday and Sunday, May 20&21, Calamity Mesa saw several of the Grand Mesa Jeep Club in trail maintenance mode. Saturday we ran the Calamity Airstrip trail and the last 2/3s of the big loop. Sunday, the entire Calamity Mesa Loop was run.

This is the confluence of Blue Creek and the Delores River

There are three major trails on Calamity Mesa. The Calamity Mesa Loop is about a 19-mile loop with 12-named obstacles. The Airstrip trail is on the mesa top where the views are incredible. The third loop is a shorter loop with a small mining camp still standing.

The Calamity Mesa Loop was closed by Mother Nature for a minimum of 25 years… long enough for a Pinyon Pine to grow to about 5” at the butt in the middle of the road with no room to go around.

The Airstrip trail received limited brush cutting but will require more in the future. Some of the oak brush that once covered the road has begun to regrow. The day was near perfect for sightseeing with all the rain and snow we’d had. The air was mostly clear and the San Juan Mountains and Lone Cone were looking cold in their white top hats. The same could be said of the La Sal Mountains.

The Airstrip trail is reverting to an oak brush forest.

Saturday was largely uneventful compared to the Sunday trip. Sunday began like any normal Jeep trip, but that didn’t last long.

Upon reaching the Gatekeeper obstacle, it was obvious that this winter had been very tough on the trail. Serious erosion and the havoc it causes was apparent right from the start. That is nothing new on Calamity Mesa.

Many question the sanity of entering the Gatekeeper Wash

But when the trip leader sets off to show the rest of the group the line going down the rocky wash only to become stuck on the two large rocks in the bottom of the wash, things deteriorate. When the rear axle rubbed on the rocks, rear axle traction became substantially reduced --- in two-wheel drive.

Jumping out to assess the problem, I noticed there were no scratch marks under the front tires like there should have been. Having been in 4-low, that meant the front wasn’t assisting the rear. A quick turn on the front hubs and we pulled right up on the road. Not much of a “stuck” compared with what was to come.

With the Gatekeeper behind us, the “Narrows” is the immediate next obstacle. The wash that makes up the Gatekeeper continues down along the right side of the trail in a deep ditch with very steep sides. This ditch cuts through a bentonite ridge and the trail has eroded away to barely the width of the average Jeep. Bentonite is slick when dry. When wet, forget it!!

The left side of the road is a steep bentonite hillside that one does not want to slip off onto and the narrow trail is crowned so much, a small-tired rig leaves an imprint where the differential drags. One error in driving, either way, WILL result in a rollover. We all made it safely across “The Narrows”.

Further down the trail, we came to “Gyration Wash”. Here again, serious erosion had changed the character of the obstacle. At the beginning of the obstacle, you cross a deep wash diagonally that will require some serious articulation. The water had cut a new, deep channel parallel to a fallen tree in the narrow wash bottom next to a steep off-camber stretch of trail. Going into that new channel would have been bad and the traction on the off-camber trail tended to slide you toward it.

Once past that part of the obstacle, large rocks greet you in the wash. In years past, that ended in a rocky waterfall with about a two-foot drop. Some of the rocks were now further down the trail leaving a new obstacle to learn. With a little spotting, everyone got through unscathed.

The next few miles have been relatively easy in the past. Today, there were some new rockfalls that eventually got one of our group in trouble. The first three vehicles were able to sneak around a large rock in the middle of the trail. Number four… not so much. The “sneak” required you to get dangerously close to the lower side of the trail.

Upon returning to the scene of the accident, it was clear that the people planning the extraction with a tow strap were about to make the situation worse, so we moved on to plan-B.

After pointing Happy Trails toward a tree up the uphill, we ran the winch line through a snatch block and back to the Jeep off the side of the road. With minimum trouble, we were back on the trail and headed for the “lunch-with-a-view”.

After the lunch, we made our way to some of the more difficult obstacles. Most went well, but then we got to “Hogback”. The entrance to Hogback has changed dramatically. The wash that cuts diagonally across the trail is much deeper and ugly looking. We all managed to get through the crossing and upon the rocky, narrow Hog’s back.

"Rocket Man" showing why the name

"Hogback" with some showing off

Some did it with a little show by lifting the right front tire. Then came “Rocket Man” in his white TJ. His right front got some significant air time.

Once upon the top, your line choosing is critical or you become “turtled” very easily. All the Jeeps managed to negotiate the tough obstacle just fine. The FJ Cruiser with its typical limited articulation slipped off of one of the rocks and went laterally to the driver’s side. So the second winch line came out to save the day.

Proper line choosing is critical on "Hogback"

In all fairness to the FJ, a Jeep had the same “calamity” on Saturday. A short winch pull later he was on his way. We hated to use the pristine wound virgin winch cable, but that's what a winch is for.

We broke in the winch and recovered the FJ

It’s been a long time since we needed to pull cable on the Calamity Mesa Loop. Maybe we have been doing it all wrong. Sometimes a little erosion can be a Jeepers friend.

Our next problem came at the “Overnight Wash” obstacle. In past years, this wash has been a major problem. Literal tons of rocks have been placed in the lower wash to keep the trail passable. Every couple of years, more rocks are needed as they get washed downstream. Some of those rocks have weighed hundreds of pounds and required a winch to move them.

The crew moved several new rocks from the upper wash into the lower wash to both slow the water and to beef up the lower bank of the road. The roadside was becoming unstable and dangerous. We like a difficult trail but draw the line at dangerous.

The next obstacle is “Tippy Rock”. It’s a fairly large rock in the middle of the trail. Over the years, people have stacked rocks to make it easier to crawl over. The first few years, you had to go up around the rock on the high-side requiring an extreme off-camber condition.

Some took the rock and others went around. Then came the FJ again. We thought it would crawl the rock with no trouble, but that was poor planning. But after a couple of false tries, the FJ showed we were right.

"Tippy Rock makes a suspension work hard

Getting on "Tippy Rock" is easy, getting off... not so much

The last of the named obstacles is “The Squeeze”. On the very side of the trail is an old Utah Juniper tree. In the middle of the road is a substantial rock/boulder. The distance between them just barely allows a JK width vehicle passage. (We do NOT allow full-size vehicles on this trail)

"The Squeeze" leaves little room for error

There are other obstacles and some narrow shelf road to negotiate along the trail. Some of the shelf road has caused some to get out and walk.

If a 19-mile loop road with some significant obstacles along the way sounds like your kind of trail, get signed up for the annual Grand Mesa Jeep Club’s “Rock Junction” event. We have this and a couple other trails that are right on your “wanted” list.

One last thing needs to be addressed. Yogi Berra said it first, but any GREAT Jeeper lives it; “When you come to a fork in the road… take it!” That is where adventure often awaits.