The thing about cars named after places is that usually, someone will eventually want to drive them to their namesake. Okay, so it’s unlikely we’ll see a Chevrolet Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo, but someone’s definitely driven an Alfa Romeo Stelvio up the Stelvio Pass, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s taken a Chrysler Sebring for a flyer around the famous Floridian racing circuit. But what if you want to take a Kia Telluride to Telluride?
Well, I wouldn’t recommend going via Black Bear Pass. This craggy trail starts at the summit of Red Mountain Pass, ends down in Telluride, and used to be marked with the following sign.
TELLURIDE ➞
CITY OF GOLD 12 MILES – 2 HOURS
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO DRIVE THIS ROAD – BUT IT HELPS
JEEPS ONLY
As you can imagine, it’s not the sort of environment best suited to a three-row crossover utility vehicle, but that didn’t stop one driver from messing around and finding out the hard way. According to the San Miguel County Sheriff, “A South Carolina man drove his Kia Telluride up the one way road on Black Bear Rd, despite being advised not to do so by people in the area.” Care to guess what happened next?
Yep, I’d call that properly stuck. Whether the Telluride slid off the trail or the driver took the wrong line, this crossover seems to be beached. We’re talking enough rocks under the car to lift a tire, not to mention the precarious position this vehicle’s been put in. It’s also worth mentioning that this appears to have happened on one of the easier parts of the trail. Things get far more difficult than this, and the Telluride’s modest eight inches of ground clearance, long 114.2-inch wheelbase, open differentials, highway tires, and low-hanging chin spoiler all conspire to make it a machine more fit for the school run than running trails.
Even a base Jeep Wrangler 4 Door has 9.7 inches of ground clearance and a crawl ratio for multiplying torque at the wheels, and while its wheelbase is longer than that of the Telluride, it does sport significantly better approach and departure angles. (Even the most capable Telluride has an approach angle of only 18 degrees, and a departure angle of just 23.2; a base Wrangler 4-door has over a 41 degree approach angle and 36 degree departure angle).
While a lapse in judgement seems to have occurred, the driver appears to have been lucky. That’s quite a drop-off to the left, so getting hung up on rocks is probably a best-case scenario. Unfortunately, the Telluride is now in need of a tow, and the sheriff says “it is unknown at this point when this can happen.” Given that just going around the Telluride might not be the safest option, the famed road is now closed, meaning that a Telluride is now blocking a road to Telluride.
When the entrance to a road recommends short-wheelbase four-wheel-drive vehicles only, it might be a good idea to take it seriously. If you want to drive a Telluride to Telluride, don’t be this driver, just take highway 145. It’s way easier that way.
Top graphic image: San Miguel County Sheriff
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Wow, it looks like it could roll down that mountain at any moment due to gravity…despite it being hung up on rocks
Call to insurance:
“I TELL U what, my RIDE got stuck goin to Telluride”
Insurance: “Ya big dummy!”
We call them mall-crawlers for a reason.
You take a Toyota Tacoma to Tacoma. You can even buy one there.
Resident of the mountains of Colorado here. This sort of thing is CONSTANT. Not just on trails either. The road I live on is a famously good drive, and a few years back some jagoff from Georgia blasted through in his WRX, only to crash in the middle of the neighborhood… at 2am… during peak fire season… then he burst into flames… and his buddies just left him there while we (the people living here) got to pump fire extinguishers and buckets of water into the idiot’s stupid car while we waited for the (volunteer) fire department to show up, hoping beyond hope that we didn’t all lose everything we owned. You can still see the burn scar after 7 years.
Similar, more recent situation: motorcyclist offed himself in a neighbor’s yard less than a week ago. Same deal (though I don’t know where he was from), but daylight hours. Had to call out a hazmat unit to clean him up, because we all have surface water wells.
Don’t street race. Ever. That doesn’t just mean head to head, just driving fast up the mountain roads is dumb. Also, don’t be a stupid tourist
I did Black Bear pass in 1997 with my 89 4Raunner with a group led by the legendary Larry Heck of Pass Patrol. It gave me several butt pucker moments.
The switchbacks were scary with a manual tranny when you are inches away from the cliff’s edge.
Found the guy who really should take the puddle jumper from Montrose to Telluride.
I’m a Telluride and that’s OK
I love to slip and slide all day!
“I thought you were so butch!”
They need to transfer from a recommendation to a regulation. However, all due respect to our David Tracy most of what Jeep is making nowadays is just as likely to end up in the same situation. I would bet you check Telluride cell phone he was filming this and that’s why he went off what looks to be someone’s gravel driveway. My Vehicross could put this bitch to bed over any modern Jeep
Up-vote for the Vehicross club! I took mine out to the area just this summer, but didn’t take Black Bear. It was a good trip, but the VX was definitely a rough ride on the trails.
Pretty sure Afghan taxi drivers could handle that road in RWD Volgas.
Rumour has it the last thing the driver heard was “meep meep”
He forgot his Acme rescue balloon.
He bought one on Temu.
No, that was a DHFLOVESIOUDYUHJOY balloon.
Looking at it again, I wonder if the driver was attempting to back down when the rear left wheel started to go off the edge? Flat-land instinct countersteer the front which then put the front left wheel off. I can imagine the words spoken as it went from bad to worse.
Google Maps now shows the road as “Closed (Jan-Dec)” already vs the ~October-May(ish?) before.
> Telluride is now blocking a road to Telluride
Technically, a Telluride shortened the trip to Telluride by a fair amount.
He fixes the cable?
Don’t be fatuous.
Also – You forgot a spoiler alert for anyone that hasn’t seen Logjammin’
If you’re going to commit an act of misjudgment, make it spectacular.
Internet famous in a way that doesn’t involve bodily harm!
I vacation on the 4×4 section of NC Outer Banks, where there are no roads and you drive along the beach to get to your beach house. It takes a proper 4×4 – no AWD. One time I came across a minivan about a mile past the paved road, hopelessly stuck in the sand, and just wondered… How did they make it THAT far?
So I gotta hand it to the Kia driver. It took real determination to get stuck that far up. He’d better stay with the car or somebody with a Jeep will come along and just shove it off the side of the trail.
You mean to tell me I won’t be able to take my Corolla onto Corolla Beach NC?
Last time I was at driving on the beach at OBX someone got their Honda Pilot stuck. They couldn’t get out on the exit ramp try after try, and wouldn’t take our advice to air down, so his transmission overheated and he had to get towed out by a pickup.
When I was young and dumb, I almost rolled my car on a beach, by trying to do a handbrake turn. I would have deserved the ridicule for that.
“Unfortunately, the Telluride is now in need of a tow, and the sheriff says “it is unknown at this point when this can happen.”
Maybe just push it over the edge and let gravity take it’s course…
That would be best for all involved. The driver is already going to have to pay the rental company for a new car, and the rental company will probably scrap it anyway.
Thank you! I was looking for this. I bet the rock under the wheel was no bigger than a grapefruit.
I’m tired of so many things being ruined by selfish fucks and effectively closed forever. That pickup on the tracks in TN comes to mind so that’s something I can take off the bucket list. Hopefully the same doesn’t befall Black Bear although I recognize I’m probably not going to tackle it.
That said, Hyundai/Kia’s AWD system can punch above its weight when clearance, tires and a driver mod is accounted for.
Other photos of this incident show scribbles in the dust on the hatch window that look like a concha pastry hovering above the features of a face squinting in laughter, looking down on writing that begins “ Yo Dawg…”