The untold, fascinating backstory of Four Wheeler’s February 1962 cover photo taken on Black Bear Road
The summer day was cool and overcast when Aileen Maxwell climbed out of the late-’50s Jeep Station Wagon on Black Bear Road in Colorado. She pointed her Zeiss Ikon medium-format camera at the line of 4x4s slowly descending toward Telluride, framed the image in her camera’s viewfinder, and then released the camera’s shutter. The timeless, awe-inspiring image Aileen captured would soon become legendary in the 4WD world because it would be selected as the cover photo of the inaugural February 1962 issue of Four Wheeler. Over 60 years have passed since Aileen snapped that timeless image and it has spawned emails from Four Wheeler readers, staff discussions, and re-creations of that image. But who is Aileen Maxwell? How did the photo get submitted to Four Wheeler, when Four Wheeler didn’t exist?…