Colorado Cruiser: October 2016

I was sound asleep near midnight when the wind whipped around so much that the big tarp over our tent sounded like a freight train. It was almost impossible to sleep plus the rain kept whipping up under the tarp and dripping down on Blake, so he was cold and miserable. I stayed warm and dry and if it weren't for the massive noise, I'd have slept great.

But I felt guilty knowing that Blake was getting dripped on. Finally I decided to go find a spare tarp to cover Blake so he wouldn't get any colder. I threw on my pants, shoes, and coat, then headed out. There was a break in the storm so I decided to take my chance with the leaning tower of latrine.

Dave W had covered his Can Am with a nice tarp, so I pulled it off. Back in the tent I took my towel and dried the tarp as good as I could, then pulled it over Blake. I also pulled the tarp back into position and tightened some ropes. I crawled back into my bag and after covering my ears pretty, I quickly fell back asleep.

At 4:00 I guess the rest of the camp woke up when a huge gust of wind tore the canopies loose. Ryan yelled for help. Dave B, Rob, and Troy got up to help, but the rest of us didn't. In Blake and my defense, it would have taken screaming inside our tent to break through the sound of our tarp.

The sun came up at 6:30 and I heard Blake get up. I knew that Blake and Steve were cooking breakfast so I planned on sleeping until breakfast was ready. But after a few minutes, Blake stuck his head in and said they couldn't get my griddle to light. So I threw on clothes and headed out to help. The gas tank was on but no propane was coming it. I think the regulator was frozen up so I thumped it a few times with my leatherman and it lit right up.

It was still raining this morning so went back to the tent and prepped all of my stuff in case the tent leaked again. I pulled all of Blake's and my gear off the floor and set it on the cots, then covered the whole thing with Blake's tarp.

While I was picking everything up, I picked up my helmet and found it was soaking wet. Some rain had dripped on the tarp, then pooled right where my helmet was sitting. It even wicked it's way up the sides so the whole lining was soaked. I started the day with a sopping wet head.

We ate breakfast burritos then readied the vehicles for our day of meandering. We left a little late because of all the rain, but eventually we got out of camp. Dave B said that we'd taken so long yesterday that he wanted no stops until we were on the Alpine loop, about 15 miles from camp.

We hadn't gone more than 2 miles when Roy stopped. He said he was getting a headache and was very worried about altitude sickness. He's from Vancouver which sits at sea level. He's been in Colorado for several days, but we are up at 11,000 feet and going well over 13,000 at times. So he opted to go down to Silverton and look around, then he'd meet us back at camp this evening.

Rob (having broken his Razr yesterday) was now riding with Ryan. Ryan, Troy, and now Thad made up the high speed group and they took off very fast over Hurricane and California passes. The rest of us were going a little faster today so we soon caught up with the speedy guys in Animas Forks. We discussed the next passes and headed out again.

As we began to climb up toward Cinnamon pass it was still lightly sprinkling. But the higher we climbed the harder it rained until we crossed the pass then suddenly the rain cleared up. As we descended from the pass the rain dried up and within minutes, the sun came out. And with the sun came some of the best views we saw the whole trip.

We caught up with everyone at the bottom of the pass, then took a short detour out to a scenic bowl. After a quick few pictures, the fast group headed off toward Lake City. The rest of us hung out waiting for the sun to fill the bowl and get better pictures. All of us slow guys posed for pictures, then started back to the main loop.

On our way into the bowl we'd crossed a stream, so we had to cross it again on the way out. When we crossed the water I mentioned to Dave that we should have videoed him zooming through the water in slow motion and making a huge splash. We continued on for a minute, then I said "Turn around, lets do it".

I hopped out on the near side of the stream while Dave drove over to the other side. I picked the best spot I thought would show a good splash, fiddled with my new phone's slow motion, then waved Dave to come over.

The splash and the video came out great.

This extra time spent taking videos and pictures became our norm. We stopped every 5 minutes or so to take pictures. We stopped so many times that eventually one of the speedy bunch came back looking for us. We assured them we were fine and continued our meandering ways. It seemed like every bend in the road revealed whole new vistas of bright yellow and orange aspen groves, or more waterfalls, or stark mountain tops.

As we came around one corner, there were what we thought were mountain goats up on the hill side next to us. There must have been a salt accumulation, or "salt lick" cut open when the road was built, because the goats kept licking the exposed rocks. Every so often one would kick at the hillside to reveal new rock and dirt, then continue licking.

They didn't seem in the least bit afraid of us and kept at it while we sat there with engines idling and chatting among ourselves.

When we got back to camp, Ryan corrected us on our assumptions. "Those were mountain sheep!!" he said very passionately. "The horns were curved this way and they should have been that way, and the maniscus of there ventral sparthan was no where near wide enough......" or at least that's what I heard. I mostly just got that they were mountain sheep rather than mountain goats. Ryan's knowledge and passion about mountain sheep became a bit of a running gag for the rest of the trip.

After we got bored of the sheep, we kept on riding and stopping for pictures. From the top of Cinnamon Pass at 10:30am, it took over 3 hours to go 18 miles to Lake City at 1:00pm. We did allot of stopping and picture taking, including 30 minutes when we got cell service so everyone could stare blankly at our phone's and facebook pages.

When we got to Lake City, we met up at the gas station to top off tanks, then headed to the south end of town to buy lunch at the Lake City Bakery.

Leaving the gas station, the leader was driving on the right shoulder of the road and going pretty slow. Sort of typical offroad style when going through a heavily trafficked area. When we got to the bakery, the local sheriff pulled up behind us and said "You and your friends need to drive ON the road, and drive the speed limit. Don't drive down the side". We all chuckled nervously, then headed into the bakery to buy lunch.

Everyone got a calzone of some type or another. Then a group got on their quads and headed to the local park to eat. There was a bit of confusion because some of us were still in the bakery or not ready to go and didn't know where the park was. We wound up driving around town a couple of times looking for the park and finally found it and the other bunch sitting at a picnic table.

After lunch it was nearly 2:00 and time to head back for camp. Dave W and I had dinner duties and didn't want to be cooking in the dark, so we took off as quick as we could. There were just as many beautiful views up this canyon on our way to Engineer pass as there were this morning coming down Cinnamon Pass. But this time Dave W and I were in a bit more of a hurry and stopped less often.

We stopped at a beautiful series of waterfalls just as we began the climb up to engineer pass. It was a horrible time of day to take pictures because the sun was setting behind the waterfall, so the sky was blown out and the hill had odd shadows, but it was still very striking.

We raced up Engineer pass right behind Troy, then stopped at the top to let everyone else catch up for a photo.

Over lunch, we had checked the weather report and it said that we would get another hour of rain this afternoon, and it caught us just as we left Engineer pass. The clouds closed in, the wind began to blow, and the rain pelted us. It was already cold because we'd climbed so high, but it got very cold as the rain began to fall.

We had to climb higher up the mountain as we left the pass. The rain really began to come down hard about 4 miles off the pass and Dave put the pedal to the metal to get us down off the mountain to Animas Forks and once we were down we just barreled right on toward California Pass.

The rain began to clear as we crossed California pass so Dave slowed down a bit.

Half way between California pass and Hurricane pass is a small lake. I later learned that it was Lake Como which is the headwaters of the Uncompahgre River. As we pulled up to the turnoff to the lake, Dave stopped and told me he was going to go look for a cool hill climb that he'd gone up on his last trip to this area. We waited for Troy to catch up to us and convinced him to follow us down past the river.

We waited a bit longer but no one else came along, so we headed down.

Dave said it was a pretty scary hill climb but I thought the route down was scary enough. We were dropping eight hundred feet very quickly down rain slicked and muddy roads. But Dave assured me the climb at the bottom was much worse.

Dave doesn't have the best memory, so he kept turning up little side roads hoping it was his magical hill climb, but it never was.

Finally we reached the end of the road. That's where the hill climbed turned out to be. It wasn't a long climb, but it was very technical and steep. We all got out to look over the trail and figure out the best way to make the climb. Troy was in a rental Razr. He decided that he really didn't want to buy a broken Razr so he opted not to make the climb. I opted to film the climb rather than ride.

Dave got in and backed up for a direct approach to the hill. He revved it and took off. He bounded up the first 2 rough bits but on the third he bottomed out which stole all his momentum and stalled him on the hill. He had to roll back down.

He decided to try to approach from the side, then turn right up the final hill, so he lined it up and took off. He zoomed up the first section which was much longer and shallower than his first attempt, then turned a hard right up the last big climb. He hit the same big bump as the first time, but he was at a better angle and had more speed so he was able to make it up, but it bounced the Can Am so hard that he lost most of the gear in the back.

I climbed up the hill to get a better view as he tried to come back down. He turned around and gingerly approached that steep drop off. Just as he started to drop down off, his slider bottomed out on a big rock which stopped him dead. He gunned the gas to climb the back wheel up onto the rock, but at the exact same time, his front wheel dropped off the big drop. The combination of front wheel dropping and rear wheel climbing pitched the Can Am violently forward and left. I was positive he was going to roll over and started to lower the camera and run forward.

But Dave was in control and gave it even more gas to get the front ahead of the rear and recover the balance. But for a good 10 feet, his right rear wheel was 5 foot off the ground. It was quite the video.

Once he was down we gathered all the lost stuff and loaded up, then began the climb back up to the main road. The trail wasn't a tricky or complex, but some sections were much steeper and I got some great video showing just how powerful that Can Am is. The real problem with video is that it doesn't convey just how steep a road is unless you have a really wide shot to include trees or other vertical markers.

From the main road we headed up and over Hurricane pass, then down to camp. It didn't seem to take very long to drive that last bit of trail.

Dave and I had dinner, so we put our gear away and began cooking. Roy was at camp. He'd spent part of the morning in Silverton, then had come back to camp for a nap. He came over to ask about the day's trip and to help cook.

Troy got out his rifle and binoculars. He sat under the awning and started plinking rocks and looking for varmints to scare.

Dave cooked tri-tip bbq and a pasta salad. I had the veggies so I made 2 dishes, zuccini with bacon, and cowboy potatoes.

The rest of the group got back about an hour after us. They had taken a few more scenic turns and as usual, stopped for allot more pictures and views.

The rain had slowed enough that we were able to pull chairs around the fire and eat in relative comfort. Everyone seemed to enjoy the dinner. In fact I hear someone say they'd had seconds on the zuccini, and they didn't like zuccini. Just goes to show that if you add bacon, men will eat anything.

I sat up much later than the previous 2 nights because it felt so good, but eventually the day caught up with me and I went to sleep. The wind was picking up again as I fell asleep, but by now I was used to the sound so I dropped off despite the freight train running just 4 feet over my head.

At 2:30 the wind went nuts. It blew so hard that a couple of pegs pulled out on our tent and let the tarp go slack. I jumped out of bed to find everyone in the camp up and scrambling with their own emergencies.

I think Thad had already pounded our pegs back in, but the tarp was still loose and flapping wildly. We spent 20 minutes trying to re-capture it and tie it back down. We actually managed to tie it well enough that it was much quieter than before, but given everything, I'd rather have stayed warm and had 20 minutes more sleep.

We checked around the camp and didn't see any more emergencies, other than the ones that had already been taken care of, and went back to sleep.

The next more was very cold, probably in the low 30s. Dave had breakfast duty but everyone decided to wait a while to let it warm up, so he poked his head in and told us not to get up yet. I tried to stay asleep but by 7:30 I was starting to get a headache from laying down to long. I got up but the camp was empty. Several vehicles were running with people sitting in them getting warm, and I found Dave down the hill in his truck, so I joined him there. We sat talking, resting, and warming up for an hour, then headed back uphill to cook breakfast.

About half way through breakfast the rain turned into snow and the temperature took yet another nose dive. But at least the wind died down. The first guys to go into the kitchen canopy to get food just stayed there because it was trapping heat. The rest of us had to pick out food from around the edges of the canopy, then go back to the cold canopies to eat.

Within a few minutes there were ice cycles hanging off the canopies and snow collecting on the vehicles. Any thought of going on a ride this morning were gone and all anyone wanted to do was get warm and dry out.

After breakfast, a bunch of guys headed down to Silverton for some made up reason that allowed them to walk into warm stores and restaurants. After cleaning up breakfast I went back down to Dave's truck for a bit. Dave came down a few minutes later and said that Steve and Blake were going to pack up and head home.

By now it was just Blake and I in the big tent, so that would leave me alone in the big tent, and I'd have to take it down by myself, then figure out some way to get it home. Either that, or I could go home with them now. I was willing to stick it out for another night, but I really didn't want the lone responsibility for that huge tent.

It took us about 2 hours to pack up all my gear and spread it between Dave's truck and Steves SUV, then to dismantle the tent, pack the poles, and roll it all up. We were on the road by noon.

The road from camp led down some steep hills that were not only muddy from the last 3 days of rain, but were now also covered in snow. Steve drove about 5 miles an hour for much of the trail until we read the relatively flat and wide main road.

When we reached Silverton and the main highway we had to decide how to get home. Steve really didn't want to go back up over the passes to Ouray with that narrow winding road and no guard rails, plus we'd have to go over Monarch pass. In the end, Steve opted to go South to Durango, then turn east through Pagosa, Wolf Creek, Alamosa, and Walsenburg to I-25. It adds 2 hours, but it's a much flatter road and the state road webside reported all the roads dry and clear.

The road to Durango was very slushy. It crosses 2 low passes and there was so much traffic that no one could pass us. We were in a big SUV, loaded with gear, and pulling a heavy trailer with 2 ATVs on it. We weren't moving very fast and a small group of vehicles built up behind us, but it never got very big and Steve tried to let them pass whenever he could.

When we reached Durango we stopped at a BBQ place that I know. It was great to get some warm food in our stomachs. Maybe too good as it made us all a bit sleepy.

The road all the way through Alamosa was very good but it began to snow as we started to climb Lavita pass. It was dark and the snow was pretty thick, but it wasn't sticking yet. So we just went slow and made it over the pass without much trouble.

The rest of the way to Colorado Springs was uneventful. We arrived about 9:00. Nan met us at Steve's house to get me and my gear. I said my goodbyes and thank yous, then head home to my nice warm bed.

Stark beauty from the top of California Pass