A few years ago I was on a trailride in Colorado and our group was attempting to ascend a private shelf trail to a privately-owned mine when a small rockslide hit the lead vehicle.

Those of you who have wheeled high-altitude shelf trails know that this is far too close for a tire to be near the edge.  You also know that in the mountains any rockslide is a bad rockslide.  This is where our trail leaders Unimog ended up after being hit from the side by a flow of rocks.  Way too close to a big fall.

We spent the next few hours moving rocks from the extremely narrow trail.  About the time we'd get the trail clear so we could start moving the dozen or so Jeeps in our group forward a new rockslide would unhinge and come down the mountain.  This trail had switchbacks so tight that we had to drive to a switchback and then back up the entire next section of trail to the next switchback.  There was no way to make a turn to drive forward up the mountain.  Every move had to be well planned and spotted.  It was a blast.

We finally got the 'Mog back onto the narrow trail and then each Jeep strapped the Jeep behind it through the loose area.  It was deemed too risky to travel back down the mountain so we got special permission to return to Telluride via a privately-owned, little-used road in Bridal Veil Basin, which took us through utterly incredible scenery and a long-abandoned mining area that was as it was left years ago.  That's another story for another time.