Memorial Weekend - Saturday 26th May 2007

We headed over to Crested Butte for the Memorial Day long weekend. I can see this becoming an annual trip for us since it is just so nice over there early in the season. Most of the "popular" trails are not open yet and the summer heat and crowds have not arrived. This makes for beautiful and solitary riding without bugs.

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.

May 19th - Young Gulch, Poudre Canyon

We headed up to Young Gulch in Poudre Canyon for a quick ride before having to go to a BBQ for work Saturday night.


It was perfect Spring riding conditions, the creek was running with plenty of water at every crossing and the grass was lush and green.


The temperatures were excellent and the water was not cold, which was really fortunate since you got you feet soaked at nearly every crossing.


The first couple of miles of Young Gulch has a lot of rocky sections that last time we rode were mostly hike-a-bike - but that was around 18 months ago and that amount of time riding certainly makes a difference.


Both Amber and I rode the ride much better than last time and were able to ride most of the technical sections and had a blast doing so!


Amber has started to get into the swing of rocky, technical descents over the winter and as she has settled into the new bike.


This is a steep jumbled decent that feels like a portage on the way out, but is fun to ride on the way back - as long as you commit to doing the moves and keep a good speed pace going as there are to many tire traps that will stop you dead if you are moving to slowly.


Keep the momentum and it is a nice technical decent.


that can only bring a smile to your face.




Water crossings on the way back keep you cool.


As you struggle through the technical stuff.

May 12th, 2007 - Kenosha Pass

I went for a ride Friday afternoon at Ceran St Vrain and it was in great shape. Given that it is at 8000' we were very encouraged and decided it was time to get a taste of some high country riding.

We headed up to Kenosha Pass, but unfortunately things looked pretty ominous as we got closer as the the north hill slopes still were showing snow amongst the trees. But once we got to the parking lot we decided to head out and check things out.


Things at lower altitudes are looking decidedly spring - like with the aspens showing leaves and the grass a very lush green - however up here winter is still holding it's grip on things. The aspens are still bare and the ground is still brown.


The further we went into the forest the more snow patches were an issue. You could ride many of them but also had to walk many.


It was fun being back in the trees after spending most of the fall and all of the winter riding in the desert. You forget the effect of altitude until you get back there and start riding again. Spring always beats me up until I get my mountain lungs going again.


More snow patches and we were constantly on the brink of turning around and calling it a day.


Even though it was pretty fun trying to ride the icy snow crossings.


We got very optimistic once we hit the first ridge summit and had fun enjoying the flowy singletrack.


But we got turned around by some really deep snow that had no end in sight and we turned around and headed home.

It was fun being in the mountains again and it won't be long before we can head over to Crested Butte again. That is always a prospect of both joy and suffering. I always love getting back to Crested Butte after the winter, but it always seems like I didn't ride enough over the winter once I start doing those long climbs up around 12,000'. Oh well a few more weeks and the pain will start.

Amber has decided to take a trip to Mt Hood in july so our suffering in the mountains is sure to be painful for the next 4-6 weeks - heh.

May 5th, 2007 - Top of the World

A cold, wet front was coming through colorado for the weekend so we decided to escape from Boulder and head over to Moab. The weather prediction was cool and scatter showers which is perfect Moab riding weather! The drive over started off looking really ominous with some nasty driving on the way up to einshower tunnel and it looked like we might have bad driving all the way to Grand Junction. Luckily as soon as we were through the tunnel conditions improved dramatically and we had good driving until we got to Grand Junction where it was raining torrentially!

It always seems to be much wetter for Fruita than for Moab because once we got to moab it was overcast but stars were showing through in many places it looked to be an excellent weekend.

Unfortunately, we woke up to overcast conditions and it had rained on and off most of the night. We were thinking to do either Flat Pass or maybe to shuttle Porcupine and headed to Moab to get breakfast and decide what to ride. Moab itself was getting rained on and it was obvious that the closer you went to the la sal mountains the worse things got.

So we decided to head away from the wet stuff and drove over the Top of the World which is out past the fisher towers and castleton valley.


Things looked fairly promising as we set out. There were some ominous clouds around but we seemed to have found a pocket of fairly good conditions.


Top of the world is a 4 mile climb to a Rim with amazing views. The climbing gets pretty technical at times, but as long as you sit and just grind your way up it is not that bad and is a good workout. Just keep telling yourself on the way up that everything you ride up you get to bomb down on the way back!


Although those clouds are getting darker out there.


Some fun technical riding on the way up - as long as you have been protecting your leg power. It is a constant steep grind up the hill with the occasionally technical sections that drain and attempt to destroy you!


The closer we got to the top the more the conditions worsened. We finally decided to turn around once it really started sleeting and snowing heavily. The ground was getting really wet and seemed like it would be pretty sketchy to come down to fast so we decided to bail and head back down in the hope of getting a decent descent.


It actually ended up being really fun flying downhill with it being wet and sketchy. It was the mud and not the rock that ended up being the most sketchy as it was slick as oil once it got wet.


But it was fun and fast. Amber was started to really feel the cold on the way down with her gloves being soaked and her fingers getting really cold. It meant that she could only ride the brakes in bursts - which probably made the riding even more interesting!


It was still pretty wet by the time we got to the bottom.


and coming back to moab the weather had really settled in around the area and the normally spectacular views in castleton valley were very obscured.

April 28th, 2007 - Porcupine Rim

No photos, but I went to Moab solo this weekend because Amber had a work thing she had to attend on Saturday.

Being solo, it seemed a perfect time to pay for a shuttle and do Porcupine Rim. I opted to catch the shuttle up to the top of the Kokepelli Trail so I got another 4 miles above the normal porcupine downhill. You are dropped where the Kokepelli trail joins the La Sals road and you ride it down to the LPS (lower porcupine singletrack).

The kokepelli section is fun and fast double track with not a lot of technical stuff, but just rough and rocky bombing enjoyment. Once you join LPS the riding gets a lot more technical with some steep drops and quite a bit of tight manouvering. There is one very steep, technical slot that deposits you with a tight turn to avoid a tree - I walked that bit!

LPS drops you out at the top of the normal entry to Porcupine so you miss all the hard climbing, you still have a bit climbing along the ridge, but it is not physical and a nice change before you turn downhill for the 11 mile run back to the River road.

I think even if I was't solo the chances of getting photos would be remote given how fun a descent it is. I was not riding super great at the start of the ride, but by the end has started to feel much better on my bike!

Porcupine from the very top is a must do ride, just walk the sketch technical descents as you need to and blast the rest at as a high a speed as you can for a great ride!

April 7th, 2007 - Gold Bar

Another random weekend in Moab, the season for moab is looking like it is going to be over soon, things are getting warm in the desert.

We went over again this weekend and met david, a friend of mine from work. David had never ridden moab before so it seemed only fair that we take him on one of our favorite rides - Gold Bar Rim singletrack.


David tasting some of the joys of Moab singletrack. I cleaned this section on the way up but managed a quite spectacular endo on the way back down and actually broken his helmet. Luckily I had been looking getting a new helmet recently anyway but couldn't justify it while my current helmet still worked perfectly. Now that it is broken I got to buy a Giro Animas Helmet.


Another blue sky day in the desert.


David cruising.


And climbing some technical sections happily.


Amber trying the last steeps up near the rim.

Desert views.