Looks like there's a 4WD route ... up Silver Canyon Road, with 6,000 ft gain over 11 miles, reaching a max elevation of 10,400. Appears snow free at this time.
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That's a route Bob mentioned.
Where does the Silver Canyon Road "appear snow free"? The trails.com site lists it for April to November. In October this year, when I spent the night at the top of the road to take pictures at sunrise, the road was easily passed by high ground clearance 2-wd vehicles (jeeps and pickups). Since then there have been storms with snowline down to 6500'. The road is in a 2000' deep canyon protected from sun in winter. So the snow may last.
The first review on the trails.com site refers to a "descent" route. At one time the upper part of the road was one way downhill. There are a lot of old papers showing that route and people who remember the old papers (and one way downhill). USGS topos since the late 80s seem to be current (Laws and Blanco Mountain quads), but my National Geographic Topo software labels the old route as Silver Canyon Road. Google earth shows that the currently maintained road is wider than the old route in the upper sections where the old road still exists. A section of the old route in the bottom of a north-south section of Silver Canyon has disappeared. Apparently that was expected to repeat if the road stayed where it was.
If you go, let us know what you find.
By the way, 4-wd is more needed when going downhill to provide a compound low gear to let compression braking protect your brakes. That's something that AWD may not provide.
Dale B. Dalrymple
