Swansea-Cerro Gordo Road

We took the southern route up to Cerro Gordo Mine. Long uphill climb, road was easy but grade went from 4000 to 8000+. Stop at ghost town mine and check in, they are very welcoming. Decided to try the road to the salt tram at the top ridge. Three phases of the route: shelf, canyon, ridge. Once you start the shelf, there is NO turning back, you have to complete as there are no turn arounds and no where to let oncoming vehicles pass. Make sure you can back up if you have to, road is all shelf rock and sharp. Drop off to the left and mountain to the right. Made it past shelf to amazing views and plateau. Then hit canyon, long steep drop in, rutted and large rocks, high clearance 4x4 a must, 4Lo mostly, rear locker helped a lot. Ran out of time to make ridge, took an hour to make half the canyon portion. My Silverado ZR2 did well, had to pick good lines over bolders. Buddy had older Tundra 4x, struggled on rock ledges in canyon. Will try to make summit ridge next time and start early.

This is just for the portion from Keeler to Cerro Gordo, the road is in good condition and dry. The snow from a couple weeks back is nowhere to be seen.

Wind blown snow covering road on sidehill section near the summit.

If you start from the Northern entrance you’ll only make it about 14 miles before hitting a foot of snow with about 6 inches of ice under that, ended up turning back as we kept sliding passenger side into the trees towards cliff side.