For 60 teams, there was Cactus and Calamity. From that there came twelve. And for the Dirty Dozen who crawled their way from the carnage of the two qualifying courses, there was Die Trying. Twelve teams took a stab at the final day's snow-capped course to endure the Crawl Off, but by the time the ice had melted, it was driver Steve Rumore and spotter Drew Barber who rousted-up the effort to commandeer their coil-sprung Sniper to earn the weekend's top honors with a total of 458 points for the weekend, 28 more than the next-best competitor.

The Cactus

The Cactus Course had moments of agony embedded into its trail of fears. The first obstacle quickly had spotters looking like Barney Rubble's best friend, stacking rocks high enough to clear an eight-foot, under-cut ledge. Although the looks of the ledge were rather evil upon first glance, most who made the attempt, tackled it with relative ease. Dan Johnson's Unimog made short work of the obstacle.

Using the beefy, 41-inch Michelins and the beast's stout disposition to his advantage. But it was quite a different story for a few of those with a shallow approach angle in their deck. From there on out, the course was relatively tame as far as extreme rock crawling is concerned, that is, until the last two obstacles on the third stage.

The canyon walls squeezed into another narrow ledge. The obstacle gave a good workout to all but a few rocker panels. Even with a spotter who was the best of boulder stackers, the rig, its paint and its dignity were at the mercy of the driver's finesse.

On the Cactus Course, Rumore's Sniper crawled like a Cadilac on cruise control, clinching five more points than the next best entry. The course

The Calamity

Portions of the Calamity course sent more than one rig belly up with its off-camber wall climbs, mashing metal and crushing egos. John Currie had his TJ sliding around the walls like a ballerena. His Atlas transfer case was the key. By disengaging the rear axle on an up-hill hair-pin turn, Currie was able to roost the front tires, creating a no-traction situation while his spotter effortlessly nudged the Jeep in the desired direction. Others made less-desired use of safety equipment, their roll bars.

Die Trying

Sunday's Crawl Off on Die Trying was wet from the thin layer of snowfall it received the night before. No technique deemed more useful than that of the high-horsepower throttle stomp. This is where Rumore displayed his prowess. His Sniper would fire-up the RPMs until the tires smoked and finally caught enough traction to launch his rig well over the pending obstacle. This on occasion caught the cold, weary and often drunk spectator by suprise. When Rumore's rig caught traction, dogs and their owners leaped for their lives. Joel Randall cracked open his oil filter on when he landed on rock in Stage 4. After cleaning up the mess and pouring more oil into the pan, Randall fired up his rig and went on to clinch second overall for the weekend.

• Check out the photo gallery - over 150 photos from the Montrose event. here.
• Interested in purchasing photos to mount as a trophy piece for your garage wall? How about a few 11x14's to tell your sponsor "thanks." Clinch the hot deal with that prospective sponsor with some high-quality color photography? Contact Fidel for more information.

The Numbers