Once you enter the forest at the base of the mountains (the Sangre de Cristos), the road begins to climb fairly rapidly, and becomes very rocky. It's a rough road, and a high clearance 4WD is necessary. That said, it is not particularly difficult, and any stock high clearance 4WD should be able to navigate the road without problems.
Most of the traffic on the road - what there was of traffic; it was not at all heavily traveled - was smaller ATV's. We saw a couple of pickups, a half dozen Wranglers, and one of newer small Cherokees. There are camping spots along the road.
We lunched on a rock overlook above Horseshoe Lake, watching a couple of fly fisherpersons working the water below us.
We encountered no snow. Some travelers have reported snow as late as July/August, but not this year.
There were lots of wildflowers still in bloom, too.
