GC2ZX3W RM ORS #17-02: How's Your Aspen
Type: Traditional | Size: Regular | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: Team Red Rubicon @ | Hide Date: 07/08/2011 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N38° 41.762 W106° 20.791 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0

---

Rocky Mountain (RM) Off Road Series (ORS) #17: Iron Chest
A series by: Team Red Rubicon.

This cache is the second of six caches in the #17 series of Rocky Mountain off-road caches located along the difficult Iron Chest Trail. The Iron Chest Trail starts out about 20 miles south-west of Buena Vista near the cool little ghost town of St. Elmo. This trail is a challenge even for most modified vehicles with a short section of large loose rocks right at the beginning of the trail and a long section of shelf road on the way to the Iron Chest Mine (a full trail description is included below).

Cache Information
This cache is located along a section of the trail that passes through a grove of Aspens before you break out of the trees.

RM Off Road Series #17 Compete Cache Listing

1. TRR Rocks It
2. How's Your Aspen
3. View Time
4. Hangin On the Shelf
5. Alpine Moss
6. Iron Chest Mine

Trail Information

Rating/Description
Iron Chest is one of several trails that originates from the Hancock Pass trail. The trailhead is close to the start of the Hancock Pass Trail near the cool little ghost town of St. Elmo on the east side of Tincup pass. The trail starts out with a bang with a difficult rock garden right at the beginning. The rock garden is about a quarter mile long and is covered with large loose rocks. Since the rocks are loose, this part of the trail is constantly changing. After the rock garden is an easier section through the trees and then a long section of narrow shelf road before the Iron Chest Mine. You will reach the 12,000 foot Iron Chest Mine at N38 40.332 W106 20.996.

This trail is rated difficult and will require a modified, highly capable 4WD vehicle with good ground clearance. It is also a good idea to have skid plates because of all of the rocks at the beginning. The trail is rated a 6 (easiest routes) to 8 (most difficult routes) out of 10 on the traildamage website. Disclaimer: You need to decide for yourself if it is safe to make the trip in your vehicle and if you have any doubts, don't do it.

To get to the trailhead, head south on US 285 from Buena Vista. Turn right on CR-162 at N38 44.396 W106 05.044 and travel approximately 16 miles to the trailhead for the Hancock Pass trail at N38 42.349 W106 20.411. Head up the Hancock Pass Trail to the trailhead for Iron Chest at N38 42.141 W106 20.787. The return route for the Iron Chest trail is back down the mountain the way you came up.

Note: All coordinates in the above description are included on the waypoint list on the first cache page.

Winter Months
Because this trail is at a relatively high elevation, it is not accessible in the winter months. Iron Chest is generally accessible to off road vehicles from early to mid July though mid October although conditions can vary greatly from year to year.

Time/Distance
The trail is 3 miles from the start at the trailhead to Iron Chest Mine. The trail can be run in 3-4 hours if you don't make many stops, but make sure you leave a bunch of extra time to have lunch on the trail, find the caches and to do some exploring. To reach the trailhead from the Denver area takes about 2.5 to 3 hours so leave the house early.

Trail Waypoints
See waypoint list on the first cache page.

08/31/2018 By Denali41
For many years I actively worked at reaching the summits of the highest 100 peaks in Colorado (the “Centennials”). Then some issues slowed me down and eventually forced me to stop this quest. But last October I got to the top of one of them, and I recently decided to give it a “go” and try for a few this summer. Mt. Ouray has been unfinished business for me, so yesterday icezebra11 and I drove over from Wellington/Loveland to hike up the mountain. We camped above Marshall Pass and made the nice hike to the top; I hid a cache there. Watch for its publication. Mt. Ouray, with an elevation of 13,971 feet, is the highest of the Centennials I had not yet climbed. I now have eight remaining Centennials, and expect to get to the summits of a couple of these later this summer.

Of course finding some geocaches was the other primary objective of the trip–especially, making the hike to reach sapphyre. And there were a bunch of other caches of interest in the area, including this one. We enjoyed decent weather except for very light snow that briefly hit us the morning of our sapphyre climb. And indeed, we found some nice caches! Icezebra11's log gives more particulars about our finding this cache that I won’t repeat here. I've found RM ORS caches along several 4 wheel drive roads here and there in Colorado and have always enjoyed them. Thanks for placing and maintaining this fine mountain cache, Team Red Rubicon!

08/31/2018 By icezebra11
Denali41 and I left our homes in northern CO yesterday for a fun-filled climbing and caching road trip to the Sawatch range. Our first goal was to climb Mt Ouray so we drove to Marshall Pass and then headed up the 4x4 trail to camp at the end of the road. We had a successful summit of Mt Ouray today and after returning to our vehicle and packing up, we headed for St Elmo to try some ORS caches.

We arrived at St Elmo about 3:30 pm and because our objective for tomorrow required driving to the Cottonwood Lake area tonight, we knew we'd be limited on the amount of time we had available to cache here. We decided to do some of the 17 series of caches. We hiked the trail because the rock garden was too much for the vehicle we had.

After finding 17-01, we continued up the trail and arrived at GZ for this cache. We made a quick find of it and signed the log. Then we set off for #3. Thanks TRR!!!

06/11/2017 By Mr, Peabody
Out working on the BVGT around St Elmo and had to check out the route up to the old Mary Murphy mine. Interesting spot as this was clearly also a mine of at least three levels. TFTC

09/17/2016 By WoodFamilyDTSAZE
Nice little scramble for it. TFTC

05/30/2016 By MountainBear
Found with Java Chip. TFTC!

10/18/2013 By LiefDawg
I had to dig through the snow to pull out the container. Thanks for another great spot.

06/28/2013 By ibgpin
Out with a group doing Iron Chest. We had to stop here for a vehicle problem so I took to opportunity to do a little caching. Redcx found it after a short search. TFTC