Crested Butte and the 401 Trail

Whoa! What a view! This is the top of the 401 bike trail outside of Crested Butte, CO. The elevation here is at least 11,000 feet. Someone up there stole my lung. To get here you drive right through Crested Butte, past the ski area and out towards the Gothic biological research area. You'll see signs, eventually, for 401 trail parking. Then it's a 4.5 mile climb up the jeep road to Schofield Pass and another 1 mile climb through the deep dark forest on switchbacks to get to this view. Worth it? Probably. The ride down certainly is!


I have no idea what the grade of this slope is, but it was enough to have me gripping my brakes for a bit until it evened out a little! There was NO MORE pedaling after that viewpoint above.
Eventually, the flowers get so high there's no fear of falling, only of wondering where in the world the trail will go next! By the end, when you zip across the creek and hit the jeep road again, you're smiling and the long climb is forgotten! Next we hit the Snodgrass trail. Personally, I would have loved loved loved about 4 more miles of this trail. It climbs for a bit and then just takes off through an Aspen forest. The trail rolls and winds through there and some times the distance between trees is barely enough to get your bike through! It's super sweet.

All this biking makes you hungry though! There are some great little places downtown to eat, but we headed back to camp and downed a can of Pringles! Good times were had by all!

Wonderful Weminuche

Well you know, it's July and for John and me that means it's time to head to higher elevations--this year we hit 12,000 ft! We left Wednesday afternoon, July 1 and headed down towards Lake City, Colorado and the Rio Grande Reservoir. From there we forded the Rio Grande River and took off up the Ute Creek Trail into the Rio Grande National Forest and the Weminuche Wilderness.

We've been close to here before--last year we backpacked from the Pine River/Weminuche Creek trail which starts just before the reservoir. This year's trip was 6 or 7 more miles down the bumpy "improved" road.

Back to the river...you can see the walkway leading up to it--it was fine for the first 2/3 and a little iffy towards the end, but we just plowed through with our trekking poles and kept going!

A 40% chance of scattered thunderstorms had haunted us for the past week--the weather forecast seemed set in stone and seemed to follow the same pattern we'd seen all spring! We lucked out though! NO RAIN! One thunderstorm at about 11,000 feet the night of my birthday and other than that, skies like this:

This picture was taken high up on the Continental Divide Trail that we merged onto after the junction for Twin Lakes. Neither of us had ever hiked on the CDT and it was amazing! So well maintained!

Lots of people have asked what we ate...mostly dehydrated stuff for breakfast and dinner--Mountain House makes great granola with blueberries and good lasagna too! We plan to start making some stuff of our own though. Lunches, we've decided, should be almonds, dried fruit, and string cheese. Things like tortillas make us too tired. Clif bars, Honey Stinger bars and Paydays are fabulous snacks!

We also worked hard to get our backpacking weight down this year. When we left for our trip, with our packs containing EVERYTHING we'd need, including some water to start with, each of our packs weighed 31 lbs. That's our lowest weight ever. When we got home mine was 24 lbs and John was 26! Sweet. You can see here that my pack is WAY lower than the top of my head--we saw one poor guy whose pack went from his tailbone to about a foot above his head! Too much weight!

The Weminuche is remote, but beautiful. We've seen elk, deer, moose, and yes, a bear out there--they aren't used to people so they always run. This place is filled with rolling meadows and valleys, and beautiful mountains and creeks! We love it here--even when I get a little loopy and can't remember if I purified the water or not! (I did, we discovered the next morning when I found the empty tablet packets.)

One piece of advice: The Chicago Basin area is SUPER popular, so I say avoid it! Why go somewhere where you'll see 50 to 100 people a day? From Thursday at 3:00 p.m. when we got to our first camp site, to Monday at 10:00, about an hour from the trailhead, we saw SEVEN people. SEVEN. 4 of those were on Saturday in about a 2 hour span on the CDT, and the other three were within 3.5 miles of our car.

So all went well and we finally, finally had a perfect summer trip! Coming up: Crested Butte and Te-Ah!

Summer has come to the Valley!

Well Spring has come and, though the temps are holding steady in the 80s, Summer is almost here! We've been camping and hiking and biking and have spent as many possible minutes outside as we can manage.

First there was the not-so-spectacular Bullet Canyon trip which ended with us spending 2 nights in Durango--gotta love Durango...

Bullet Canyon is part of the Grand Gulch area. Most people start their treks here down Kane Gulch and because of that we decided to be rebels and go down Bullet Canyon. As you can see, there WAS water, but it was gross water. We took 10 liters and that got us through 1 night and back out! The area where this picture was taken was cool, but other than this there was a LOT of bushwacking and that got old really fast.
Still, the weather was pretty sweet and the sky stayed blue the whole time. You can't ask for much more than that!

Next was our camping trip to Mesa Verde National Park. Unfortunately the sky did NOT stay blue the whole time there! We enjoyed a weekend of ruins and hiking trails interspersed with rain, rain, and more rain. Fortunately for us, our Big Agnes Seedhouse 3 tent was amazing and did not let in a drop of water!

We made a loop of our drive and headed down over lizard head pass and Dolores and came back through, you guessed it, Durango. I'd live there if I could. This time of year heading over all the passes is fun because I can while away the hours looking for runoff waterfalls. The picture on the left shows the impending storm on Day 2 of our trip. Spruce Tree House is on the right. It's amazing what the Anasazi were able to do with mud and rocks. The fact that we get to visit these places and see them, preserved for hopefully many many more years, is pretty impressive.

FINALLY, there has of course been tons of mountain biking. Only 2 "minor" accidents--okay, I probably could have used a stitch or two one of those times, but still...nothing horrific or requiring LifeFlight! I've biked everywhere around here so far this season, except out in Palisade. The BF and I have conquered Tabaguache a few times, I've seen Joe's Ridge up close and personal out at 18 road, and have savored the drops and ledges of Horsethief Bench in Loma more than once. Robert S. and I even managed to enjoy parts of the Gunnison/Old Spanish Trail loop one extremely windy day this spring!

I think this picture pretty much says it all though. So far the season has been pretty freakin' fabulous.

Be Careful!

According to GJSentinel.com the Sheriff's Department had to "aid an injured mountain biker on Mary's Loop" on Tuesday. Most of Mary's is tame and a lot of fun, but there are some tricky spots where, if you're like me, one false move can leave you bloody or worse, seriously injured!

Be super careful around the first portage, with the "caution" sign. Even when walking your bike through there it's slippery and could lead to a nasty fall.

Of course, be careful on the 1/4 mile or so stretch of exposed trail leading west to Pizza Point!

Always always let someone know where you'll be and carry your cell phone. You can get reception almost anywhere out there and it could be the difference, literally, between life and death one day.

Have fun and stay safe and keep your fingers crossed for good riding weather soon!

Finally! Sun! And Blood.

Thanks to the guys at gjmountainbiking once again for their maps. The part in red shows the western side of Mary's Loop. The black part shows a great extension, known to some as just Steve's, to others as Steve's (to the cutoff) and Handcuffs (the extension of the extension).

My buddy Robbie and I headed out Sunday afternoon for a bike ride and, since we wanted a long ride, we opted to ride Mary's loop and then Steve's/Handcuffs. (the entire black section out past the cutoff and back around).

Round trip, including of course some stops for pictures and eating a bar of some sort, the ride is about 11 or 12 miles. We started from the main parking lot and headed south over the gravel hill and down to the Mary's Loop trail head. IF you ever just want to ride Steve's for a nice short ride, keep driving west down the frontage road for about another 2 miles until you cross the cattle guard. Right after that is a small parking area. Park here, ride up the hill and you'll be at the junction/trail head for Mary's, Steve's, Lion's, Mack Ridge, and Moore Fun. From here you can just drop down and out to Pizza Point (follow Mary's out to the river overlook and you'll be at the south entrance to steve's).

ANYWAY, Robbie and I headed up Mary's and even showed up a few people by passing them on the hill before they kicked our butts hopping up some ledges. We cruised down Mary's, past the Horsethief Bench cutoff, up puke hill and around to what I call "The Cliffy Death." It's an exposed portion of trail that is very narrow. Most people ride it with no problem. Not me. I ride portions, then I get off and walk because I don't want to fall down the hill and over the cliff to the river. I had gotten off to go down a rocky ledge and when I got back on for some reason I had no inertia! I couldn't move! So of course, I fell over. I don't have clip-in pedals, so my pedal scraped the hell out of my leg. I didn't realize it at the time, and by the time I got over to the lookout (Pizza Point) there was blood running all down my leg.

Of course, I had everything to repair a bike with, but nothing to repair a leg with. Hence, this genius homemade bandage of a piece of paper and some duct tape.

We dropped down onto Steve's and had a great ride all the way around, back up the ridge, and then back to the junction I mentioned earlier. From here we took the frontage road back to the main parking lot where we of course had a few beers before heading home.

This shot shows a portion of Steve's running around the edge of a canyon. After this it heads up a hill I've never seen anyone ride and cruises high on the ridge until dropping back down where it intersects with everything else.

ICK!

Rain and snow go away
Come again another day...
Or you know what, just stay gone awhile so I can go out and play!

Another Foot of Snow!

This was the webcam shot at Powderhorn ski resort this morning. It is an unparalled beautiful day up there! No fair that I am stuck at work! They've gotten 30 inches of snow this week according to the Powderhorn website. The BF is headed up there today to do some fabulous powder skiing--since I haven't quite mastered that yet I'm okay with just wishing I was there.

If you've never been up to Powderhorn let me just say it's a great little local ski resort! The instructors there are awesome and I can say that with certainty since I've taken classes there as have friends of mine and their children. There are 3 lifts--not including the very tame moving-sidewalk-like-lift called the "Magic Carpet." It's for beginners to practice and isn't even a lift at all...ANYWAY...the Take 4 is the main quad lift which leads you up to top of the mountain to blue and black runs. It has a midway stop as well. From the top of the quad you can head right to Equalizer (black) or Bill's or Maverick (blue). Bill's and Maverick are the main blue runs on this side of the mountain and they will lead you to others like Lower Equalizer, Dude, Whistle Pig, Looky-Looky and Lower Snowcloud. Taking Maverick over to Lower Snowcloud is the best way to get to the WEST END!

Going right off the quad lift takes you to other black runs like Yoo-Hoo, ShowDown, Wonderbump, Racer's Edge...

The West End has a 2 person lift and is home to a lot of black runs and a few steep blues. Tenderfoot is a blue run that will get you back over to the lodge and main lift, but it requires quite the cat walk to get to it! The other way to get back to the lodge from the west end is to go down Upper Snowcloud. It's a black run, but when it's groomed it's pretty sweet. I hate moguls myself so I stay away from it when it's NOT groomed...about 2/3 of the way down you'll be cruising and see up and to the right the sign for where you turned off to get to the west end in the first place. Head up that way and back down Lower Dude to the main lift area if you want. Otherwise, keep left and head back to the west end lift!

Red Eye is the other blue on the West End and it's pretty darn steep for a blue! Challenging, but fun if you can make it down without falling! There's a lot of tree skiing to be had over here plus some fun places to just play around and jump.

Powderhorn offers condos and such for overnight stays, a Sunday worship service at the top of the beginner/green run lift (easy rider) and great food at both the Wildwood Restaurant and the lodge bar/grill. It's a great little resort!