Saturday we decided to do an out and back up to the Deadmans switchbacks. This is a part of the very popular Reno-Bear Creek-Flag Creek-Deadmans trail that still remains my personal favorite trail at Crested Butte.
Before the full trail is clear you can still ride in from the Taylor river side and out and back past the Rosebud trail and into the Deadmans portion of the trail. It gives you a nice climb and an amazingly fun descent.
You start out a rocky double track, but it only goes for about 1/2 a mile before turning onto the singletrack.
Early in the season the water on the trails add to the enjoyment with the work of the beavers adding some additional obstacles on the edges of the ponds.
Even this early in the season the single track is dry and fun to ride on.
With scenic things both close..
and far..
The entire trail was in excellent and dry conditions with just the occasional muddy spots in drainage crossings.
It was kinda strange heading up a trail as popular as this with no other bike tracks ahead. In fact the only other person we met all day was a local on a dirt bike clearing dead fall. It was nice to chat to him as we caught our breath again.
One of the best reasons to always ride with a camera is so that you have a good excuse to stop and take a photo (and recover your lungs somewhat).
It always amazes me how much work the Beavers seem to have to do to keep their area in order. If only I was as energetic when it came to my apartment.
We had hoped to be able to turn onto the trail that would take us across to Rosebud trail, but it was obivious that the snow was still much to deep to bother. Last year we came up the Rosebud trail and came across from the other side to Deadmans - but we had to carry our bikes through snow often up to our thighs so this year we played it safe and came up deadmans to check things first.
Amber recovering at the top of the climb to Deadmans. We also saw the handywork of the fellow we chatted to earlier down on the trail, he had cleared this fallen tree from the trail.
As you can see, the Deadmans switchbacks are not ready yet and still probably have another few weeks before they will be.
One of the benefits of a long climb up is a long downhill back to the start.
All sorts of nice single track along the hillside is the fruits of our labor.
There are a couple of sketchy sidehill moves to make it interesting.
But mostly it is just non-stop flowing downhill.
That just encourages you to keep moving and pedalling.
Which makes it really hard to stop and bust out the camera.
Did I mention how good the trail conditions were?
Water crossings down near the end of the trail keep you cool, even though the temperatures were prime riding conditions.
A fun little technical section over the work of a busy beaver.
And just one or two more water sections to clean things up.
Before ending the ride back at our vehicle.
There are all sorts of other riding options from where we started. Many of the trails up in this part of Crested Butte can be ridden for miles out and then back. The loop options need the snow in the dark timber to have melted away, but at this time of the year you have the trails to yourself and have no mosquitos or biting flies to annoy you.
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