Toby and I packed up the Pont-X to head north up 550 into the San Juans.
We decided we would head out in a heavy downpour late at night, camp out at the base of Mount Sneffels and then climb in the morning. Turns out the Pont-X doesn’t love driving up and down mountain passes at 11,000 feet of altitude. We were speeding along about about 25 mph up and down the steep grades. We made it up to Ouray and then started our way up a steep dirt road. Hard to see the shear cliff you could drop off with no guardrails when it’s pitch black out. The road turned into a 4×4 road, and against Toby’s encouragement, I insisted that we would park and sleep at a pull off and hike up the rest of the road in the morning.
Day 1: We woke up climbed Mount Sneffels!
Had an interesting ride on the way down. Daylight revealed that the road we had accended was sketchy and steep. I learned my lesson about engine braking, and what happens when you don’t do it.
We made it all the way down the road, only 1/4 a mile away from Ouray, and I lost resistance in my braking. Then we started to smell something. I pulled over to the side of the road and as soon as I tried to put on the brakes again there was nothing. I had to pull the E-brake to stop us from meeting our doom. The passenger side front wheel was smoking and the brake fluid was boiling over. We tried several times in the next 20 mins and no brakes. Called AAA and an hour and a half later when they finally came, voila!, they magically worked again. Gonna get those guys checked out.
Day 2: Went to Telluride. Camped out at a trailhead, made cheddar bratwurst burritos, and met up with some friends to do the Via Feratta.
The Via Feratta is a sweet traverse that goes across a cliff band above the town of Telluride. It’s pretty cool in that all you need is a harness, helmet, two slings and two carabiners and you can clip into the cable as you walk along. It some places where there is no cliff there are metal rungs in the rock that you traverse across. takes about 2 hours to get from one side to the other. Fun times!
Pont-X Adventures 
Hi Gang, Joaquin checking in. I am a new owner of a Pont-X2. I have started a thread about her over on expedition Portal. http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/128776-My-Next-Build.
Joaquin, how is your build going? I’d love to see updates!
Hey Read Beard,
If you need advice on mods to your camper, let me know. I’ve been building adventure rigs for close to 40 years.
2 items: First, a commenter at Joaquin’s ExpeditionPortal thread thought his build was looking like a modern Chevy Blazer Chalet, which caught my attention because I’m the guy who currently manages the blazerchalet.com web site while attempting to track down every last one still in existence – which sometimes necessitates searching for ’em using the Chinook label. With all the various Toyota / Datsun / Ford Courier Chinooks I’ve found, along with other lesser known versions, I’d never seen or heard of a Pont-X before. Among your searches for more Pont-Xs, please do let me know if you run across any Chalets or GMC Jimmy Casa Grandes.
Second, I’m a Ouray addict. The road you went up to Yankee Boy Basin is one I’ve been on more than a dozen times, but via one of those jeep tour truck rides I hire each year out of Ouray. I’d intended to have my former #1747 Chalet as a more comfortable replacement for my long-term tent camping, but alas, the economy favors the latter after all, and I needed the money more than I needed my Chalet.
Hi AZ Chalet Owner! Yep, that road was pretty stupid to take my Pont-X on… But makes for a good story I suppose. I actually have seen one of those Chalets for sale. I pass by it near Dolores CO when I head to Utah for work. I can try to get you more information (location, phone number, price) when I’m back out there (I’m on the East Coast for the holidays). It’s pretty cool looking, though it seems to be suffering from quite a bit of rust.
Ya should have seen the Yankee Boy road before they reopened the large mine below the Camp Bird area. Much narrower and rougher. In my yearly summer beeline from Phoenix to Ouray, I go through Cortex straight on to Durango, haven’t been through Delores in years. Many (in advance) thanks if you can snag pics of the Chalet near Dolores. What I use for tracking purposes is the camper serial # and build date, seen in this photo link of my former Chalet: http://coloradok5.com/photos/data/2/Chalet_serial_number_plate.jpg