Colorado Cruiser: September 2008

After yesterday's fantastic ride, both John and I were a bit quiet as we packed up to head home. I was downright depressed and sad to have to split up and head our separate ways home. We loaded up the bikes, said our goodbye's and headed out. The first 30 minutes was very melancholy and quiet, then I began again to notice the foliage and the clear blue sky.

I decided to skip breakfast because I wasn't really hungry. Instead, I grabbed a banana nut muffin at my first gas stop and kept going.

After I passed Pagosa Springs and started climbing towards Wolf Creek pass I stopped for a few more pictures. Crossing Wolf Creek was just as pretty as coming down was, but you notice different things. The thing I really noticed was how cold it was. It was pretty early in the morning this time, where it had been late in the day on the way down. I stopped a couple of times in the sun to warm up a bit. It really wasn't that cold, but I was enjoying the day, and any excuse to prolong the trip, I took.

I decided to try a different route home, so when I got to South Fork, I turned North up Colorado 149. It was quite a bit longer return, but again, I was grabbing at anything to extend the trip.

Highway 149 is not heavily traveled and I saw few cars the whole way. In fact I stopped once to take pictures and for over 15 minutes I didn't see anyone pass. Much of the road is flat and boring riding through fields and dry gulches. But it does climb very high in the middle. Probably the highest point of any of my 3 day ride. It starts by crossing Spring Creek Pass at 10,898 feet, then a few miles later up to Slumgullion Summit at 11,530 feet. I loved the name Slumgullion summit.

After the summit I descended the road down into Lake City where I stopped for lunch. I pulled up to the Tic Toc diner. It was mostly full, but I got a small table and ordered a burger. Within 15 minutes the place was packed with about 20 people standing outside waiting for room. I noticed a group of 3 and one of them on crutches and offered to share my table with them. They were from Cortez and doing their own annual fall colors tour. They told me of a bunch of great roads which I wish I could remember.

I rode on North from Lake City to where it joined highway 50 East toward Gunnison. Once I was in Gunnison, I decided to extend my ride even farther and turned North toward a town called Crested Butte. I've never been there before, but someone told me that one of the largest aspen forests in the world was on the slopes of the mountains near Crested Butte.

As I got near Crested Butte there was allot of road construction. I waited through 2 sections of 1 lane road which took 15 minutes each, and when I got to the 3rd, my patience ran out, so I found an old barn by the road and pulled off to take some pictures. The mountain was very colorful and there were some huge clouds moving rapidly casting equally fast moving shadows on the mountain. The effect was spectacular and I wish I could have done it justice, but the pictures weren't bad in the end.

Once I started back South from Crested Butte I found myself in "get home" mode again. I took a few photos while riding but I made no more stops.

This was a very very very good trip.

Nearing the climb up to Wolf Creek pass

A valley just before the climb up Wolf Creek

Entering the San Juan National Forest

A waterfall near Wolf Creek, but I forget the name

More forests and color on Wolf Creek

The town of South Fork where I turned North on 149. Look at that blue sky

Stopped for 15 minutes to take pictures and never saw another car

A view of a lake near Spring Creek pass

Open winding road

Spring creek pass

Thick aspen forest

Slumgullion Summit

Descending towards Lake City

More forests above Lake City

More aspens

Tic Toc diner in Lake City

Aspen forests on the hills around Crested Butte

More hills around Crested Butte

An old barn just off the road

More shadows, mountains, aspens, and color

One last Crested Butte picture. I just wish there weren't power lines everywhere

Descending from Monarch Pass on the way home

Another from Monarch pass

The morning of our big ride had a cold bite in the air. As we left Durango heading North, we were parallel to the Durango Silverton train tracks, and after a few minutes, we saw the train ahead of us. I snapped a couple of shots as we passed, then we sped up a bit to get ahead of it and take some more photos. None of mine turned out, but it was cool to stand right by the tracks and feel the rumble as the train roared past.

The road started climbing and soon we could see the aspen forests. I've known that aspens are all connected through the root system, but a guy we met told me that because they are all connected, they all change colors at the same time. The guy also said that aspens just turn yellow. They don't turn red, so any deep orange or red you see is some other sort of tree like an oak. I'm not sure it's all true, but it was cool to see the patterns of yellow all through the evergreens.

We stopped many times to take pictures of mountains covered with fall colors, or dramatic shadows from clouds. I took allot of pictures. I only uploaded about half, and I'm only showing you 1 out of every 5 here. It's hard picking just the best of the best to show because so many show different things that it's hard to only pick a few.

Eventually we rode into Silverton. I've only ever been to Silverton in the middle of winter when 90% of the town is shut down and boarded up. This was the very end of the season. Most shops had sale signs in the windows, and one guy we talked to said he would have everything sold by 5pm and be on his way back to Phoenix by the end of the day. We went to a leather shop and John bought a great jacket for pretty cheap.

From Silverton the road climbs way up into the mountains over the Million Dollar Highway. The scenery gets even more dramatic, and because it was later in the day, the clouds were gathering casting shadows and making dramatic contrasts in addition to all the colors.

Eventually we got enough riding in between all the stops and ogling to make it to Ouray. Ouray is probably my favorite little town of all time. It feels like I'd imagine a town in the swiss alps would feel, all nestled in the midst of these huge peaks. One year my son Kyle and I took a road trip and came into Ouray right as the sun was going down. The red glow of the sunset was bouncing off of the rock cliff faces and cast the whole town in a beautiful pink color.

There was no pink today, but the town was full of motorcycles. In fact, we've seen hundreds of motorcycles since leaving Durango. The San Juan Skyway is one of the top motorcycle rides in most lists. It sure makes my top 10 list.

We stopped at a place called Maggie's kitchen for burgers. Neither of us felt like spending $30 for a meal, but that's what most of the other restaurants charge there. Hey, I said it was a beautiful town, not that it was cheap.

By the time we finished lunch, the clouds were really gathering over the mountains. We rode North to Ridgway up a fairly flat road, then turned West.

This is near John's favorite place in the world. 2 years ago he got a flat tire which took 5 hours to repair, then last year he blew the battery charger on his bike which caused several hours of delay and a friend had to ride 100 miles to get him a new one. I think John held his breath all the way from Ridgway to Telluride.

As we got near the junction to turn South, the rain finally started coming down. BIG HUGE DROPS started pelting us and within seconds it was a whole sheet of water. But it only lasted about 2 minutes, then reduced to a trickle, and finally stopped just as we rode into the outskirts of Telluride. We stopped to take a few pictures, especially of the old general store.

We rode into the town and decided to take a break from riding. There is a free gondola ride that takes you up over the ski slopes and down to another part of Telluride. It was nice to get out of the sprinkles, but we didn't have to clear views that we'd hoped to get. On the far side was allot of shopping, but since we didn't have wives with us, we decided to forgo the shops and just rode the gondola back.

Once we left Telluride we were in "get home" mode. We stopped much less often and rode just a tiny bit faster. We still saw some beautiful foliage and a big lake. We stopped for a photo at Lizard Head Pass, then we really got serious about getting back to the hotel.

It's hard to describe how great the whole ride was, and how beautiful it all was. It's just something you have to do for yourself sometime.

If I can possibly help it, I'm going to do this ride again next year.

Riding North out of Durango