Black Bear Pass

Much to my surprise and delight, I awoke this morning to clear skies and no rain in sight. This was all our small group of jeepers needed to take off for the mountains. If there is one trail in the area whose fearsome reputation scares away a lot of off-road enthusiasts, it is Black Bear. Death, dismemberment, worse than listening to Nancy Pelosi are just some of the words used to describe it...

Click on photos to enlarge

Fortunately, in my opinion, it is not nearly as bad as it is made out to be. Any relatively experienced driver, who does not have a paralyzing fear of heights, can make it as long as they take it slow and easy. There are a couple of switchbacks that will get your attention as you pay a severe penalty for making a mistake...

If you do make the ride, you are rewarded with awesome scenery...

Oh, and there are some mountains and other stuff...

My dash cam recorded the entire ride but it was over 2 hours long so I edited it to show what I believe is the more interesting section between "the steps" and the big waterfalls near the end. Run time is ~33 minutes...

If you have the bandwidth, I recommend watching it at 1080p resolution

Click here to listen to C.W. McCall's Black Bear Road.