Many of the more popular trails in Colorado are maintained by off road clubs. Pearl Pass in my example is maintained by a 4wd group out of Gunnison. Pearl is just barely wide enough for my K5 (or other fullsize), but I did get some pinstriping and my GoPro mounted to my driver's side mirror post got brushed by branches at the edge of the trail a number of times.
I agree that skill and equipment makes the biggest difference in how a truck handles the trail. My K5 is moderately equipped with 5.3 LS swap, 3/4 ton axles with 4.10's a Tru-trac up front. I've got a winch and fresh 35" Goodyear Duratracs. On Pearl I don't think I spun the engine over 1800 rpm on the entire climb up. I know I didn't spin a wheel at all. In one of the photos I posted, you can see the rest of the group I was with though. 3 Jeeps, of 3 different generations (YJ, TJ, JK) with different levels of equipment and skill. The Yellow TJ is a regular buddy (John) I wheel with and his ride is set, front and rear arb's, 33's, D44 out back and chromo shafts in the D35 up front. He's pretty skilled as a driver (he grew up around Leadville so it's kinda in his blood). The red YJ is the brother to the TJ, but hasn't been as active wheeling and wanted to start getting into it with his Jeep (he's owned it since high school in the 90's). The YJ is very basic, 4banger 5-speed with a 2.5 Black Diamond lift front and rear. It has fresh tread prior to our trip, but no lockers. The driver has done some wheeling but just little bits here and there when hunting so he understands the concept, but nothing quite like this. The JK is my Nephew. It's his first ride he bought on his own and he'd been interested in off roading since I had taken him out in mine as a kid. It's your typical JK Rubicon so it's got the lockers and low range, but stock height and tire size. He had Zero experience off road. Meaning, very capable rig out of the box but the driver was up for training.
Now before anybody freaks out over me taking a 20-something kid out on a difficult trail, keep this in mind the whole point of this trip was to teach. Both my nephew and the brother. Pearl was the last trail of a 3 day ride where we covered Tincup Pass on the first day and Reno Creek/Italian Divide the second day. The difficulty started out easy on Tincup (a stock half ton can do it no lift). Reno was little tougher and really prepped us for Pearl. John and I kept the noobs bewteen us and we had CB's in each ride. I spotted each through the tough spots and coached the noobs how to "see" the line and follow it.
In all, nobody required winching on the rough stuff. Even the YJ without lockers. The YJ had light weight on it's side and with the fresh rubber and a good line the driver was able to navigate the terrain well. The kid and the Rubi did excellent by using the equipment his ride had to his advantage. I sware I could put Granny in a Rubicon and they could wheel it. Point being you can't teach newcomers to the hobby without doing it. Showing them how to do it responsibly is so much better than telling them to go out and have fun where they might not know any better to go down a closed trail or off trail all together. Trail manners were discussed like who's got the right of way on a steep narrow trail (amazing how many I encounter that don't know or don't care and they usually got out of state plates).
Colorado does have many clubs that do maintain trails for the very reasons others have noted, overgrowth happens. The other problem we have is erosion. Our passes get a lot of snow and the snow has to melt. The runoff can cause the trail to wash out and rocks/bolders can fall into the trail's path. If not maintained, others that didn't know any better would drive around the new problem rather trying to get it off the trail. The local clubs tend to know the trails well and know when something is not right. They will install items that close off un-authorized off shoots of the main trail and add logs where the trail crosses a peat bog (pretty normal in the rockies) so you can stay out of the delicate Peat bog and not tear it up.
It comes down to teaching the newcomers how to do it the right way. Knowing your rides limitations and knowing it's ok to quit instead of tearing up the rig or the trail. That may be stopping and turning around or taking the cable. On this trip we set a strict rule if you have to hammer it or tear it up we would stop and require the strap or cable. We never had to do that on this trip.
One thing I think is getting lost in the discussion is we all have the same goal here. Nobody wants the trails closed. Those that are on this forum are genuinely responsible off-road and are not the problem. The problem people aren't on this forum or any others. It's not like you are required to get training to drive off road like you had to in order to get your driver's license. Anybody can go buy a Jeep, ZR2 Colorado, Raptor, Tacoma, Ram or other rig and hit the trails. They don't have to know what they are doing. They don't go buy maps or books to understand where the legal trails are. That type of person is a hard target to intercept and change. I think any of us have encountered people on the trails that just walked up and bought a rig or paid to have built that have no clue what they are doing. We try to point out what they are doing wrong in as nice a way as possible and some listen and others get pissed off.
Dealers, truck or SXS don't seem to instill any idea to potenial off roaders how to do it right. I work at a dealer and I can tell you it don't happen. No one in our sales dept goes off road. Outside of me and a couple of my techs and service advisor, nobody understands it. Some dealers do. As much as I bag on Jeep guys, the dealers seem to at least try. One I know of in Colorado Springs hosts day trips different times of the year to take customer's out on group runs. Only issue I saw when I encountered this group was the size. They had at least 25-30 Jeeps on one trail. That is a huge number in one spot as they overwhelmed the trail we were on.
