Hey @
Snowsled I went up to the San Juans last year and got hooked. We did Imogene, Ophir & Cinnamon passes on our way to Denver to see the kids. Cinnamon & Ophir were pretty easy, Imogene was a little more challenging due to the tight spots and the decent off the top, but not that bad.
As a person familiar with the passes up there, Which ones would you say are NOT a good idea in a Raptor? Really not interested in rock crawling. Its a fair trip from Phoenix and with my wife's limited time off, I want to make em count.
Pretty amazing country and awesome that we can drive right up the roads to these amazing places.
The lower parts of Engineer pass from Hwy 550 are similar to the tougher spots on Imogene. You need to do Corkscrew, Hurricane and California, all similar in difficulty to Cinnamon or Ophir. Black Bear is more like Imogene in difficulty right until you drop down into Telluride. The road is one way downhill, the switchbacks are very tight and the drops VERY steep. I do not normally go down because number one, I do not care to go through Telluride, local thing and two, it is just unnecessarily dangerous IMO. Poughkipsee gulch now has a bypass around the serious rock crawling but it still very rocky on the lower section like Imogene or Engineer.
So, Easy roads are California, Corkscrew, Cinnamon, Ophir, Hurricane, Stony
Rougher but do-able for sure, pretty much the rest of them, Engineer, Poughkipsee (which does offer nice rock crawling), Black Bear.
July is about as early as I recommend coming. It normally takes that long to get the roads all open. 4th of July is insane here, book now. The season is about done. There are now places I wouldn't run without chains, just the very tops but... We have about a ten day warm spell going and indian summer could last but it could go to full on winter at any time now.