More Colorado

A brief synopsis of the past few days... (pictures posted 9/5/08)

Before leaving New Castle, we mountain biked with Taz (who oddly enough has never mountain biked in Colorado) on the Red Mountain trails in Carbondale. Bob rode a demo bike from Taz's shop. The trail pretty much goes uphill immediately, and Anna had a bit of trouble with it (really it was leg issues that came on pretty much out of nowhere). She made it all the way to the top and took a nap there while Bob & Taz did some more riding. Bob loved the demo bike, and now realizes that his current mountain bike needs an upgrade.

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The next day we took off toward Crested Butte, and found a campsite at the Paonia Resevoir which had the most voracious mosquitos we've seen yet this summer. It was a total day off, reading and napping. Anna's leg felt much better.

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The next day, Tuesday, we made it to Crested Butte (Lost Lake, off Kebler Pass Road) and did a nice, if somewhat mellow, hike to Beckwith Pass. The national forest must lease the land here for grazing, because there are cows and their poo piles all over. That was a little gross but we got over it because of the scenery.

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When in Crested Butte, you have to mountain bike. The trails there are classic... we did one called Strand Hill, which was really a small mountain. We missed a turn somewhere along the way and ended up having to ford a thigh deep stream twice. It was adventurous, and we ended up back at the van in the end!

Here's Anna about to start some plush singletrack through the aspens.

A lovely view of the Brush Creek Valley in Crested Butte.

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And today we drove to Gunnison and mountain biked some more at a wonderful place called Hartman Rocks. This is high desert, with crazy rock formations and cacti. We went here last year so we had an idea of where to go -- the trails are everywhere, criss-crossing each other. It can get confusing, but it's almost impossible to get lost. Fun day.

Here are some typical views in Hartman Rocks.

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It's Labor Day weekend, so campsites are getting hard to find. Tomorrow we are up early to ride our road bikes up Cottonwood Pass, outside Buena Vista. We'll drive to Colorado Springs and spend the weekend with friends. This will be our launching off point for the 3 day drive home next week...

Colorado, part 4

We are back at our friend's house in New Castle, CO. We left our road bikes here while we did our 2200 mile loop to Lake Tahoe, so we were psyched to do a kick-butt road bike ride today. We went up the Glenwood Canyon bike path with Taz and 2 of her friends, then the 3 of us continued on the road to the outskirts of Gypsum. We could see the Eagle/Vail airport from our turn-around spot which was cool. Here we are, sporting Ajax Bike Shop jerseys.

We have about one more week in Colorado before we head back toward home. More text and pictures will be coming, I'm sure!

California

We made it to the west coast...

Of Lake Tahoe! We mountain biked to this very scenic overlook of the lake. We were there for 3 days and did 2 bike rides and one hike. Here's Anna negotiating a trail.

We hiked to the top of Rubicon Peak, which is in the Desolation Wilderness. It's 2 miles straight up a mountain (no switchbacks), with a 2100' vertical gain. The hike down made Anna's quads more sore than they've been in months, which was interesting! Here we are at the top, with the Desolation Wilderness spread out behind us.

Here's the view of the lake from the top. Those white dots are boats are their moorings.

From Tahoe, we took 2 days to drive back to Colorado. We camped on the way at Great Basin National Park, which is on the Nevada/Utah border. We took Route 50 back (instead of I-80) and even if it is the loneliest road in America, it was prettier (but just as freaky).

This is a view of Wheeler Peak from our campsite. There is a glacier up there that you can hike to, but we wanted to get back on the road. Great Basin is in such an isolated place, there is no admission fee!

We left Aug. 3rd and drove a 2200+ mile loop from Rifle, CO to Utah, Nevada and California and back to Rifle. We were feeling like we made a big mistake about half way across Nevada on the way out, but we are so glad we decided to stick with the plan. So many interesting sites & people, world-class hiking and biking, and the chance to catch up with our old friends in Reno.

Nevada

Wow! The drive to Nevada was a mind-blower. We drove west out of Salt Lake City and into the desert and it goes on & on & on. And to complete the experience, we drove past the Bonneville Salt Flats and had to stop to check it out...


It was hot as the dickens on top of everything else to complete the psycho-surreal-landscape.



Our destination was the Ruby Mountains. The drive was sooooo worth it! It is a stunning place, heralded as the Yosemite of Nevada. It is a glacially carved valley with very impressive mountains, but on a much smaller scale. The hiking is geat, with short steep trails and lots to look at.

This is end of Thomas Canyon, where the wilderness boundary is. We bushwhacked up to the left in the picture and found some hidden flowers. There are three waterfalls up there, but not visible in the picture.

This is the view looking down Lamoille Canyon. That squiggle is the road. We are approaching Liberty Pass on a 2 night/3 day backpack trip.

On our 2nd day in, we bushwhacked up to one of the ridges, and got this view of Nevada. We think we could into Utah, over 100 miles. Freaky.

A typical view of the Ruby mountains.

The meadow shrubs are beginning to turn, just a touch of autumn in the air.

Liberty Lake, perhaps the most pristine, deep blue alpine lake we've seen.

We are now in Reno, staying with our good friends from Virginia, Suzanne & Jay. They've been great hosts, even letting us take over their bedroom! We've had a relaxing stay here, and are ready for more hiking and biking. Next stop: Lake Tahoe, CA. If we're feeling really crazy, we'll drive to San Francisco to say we've drove coast-to-coast (but don't count on it).

After CA, we'll b-line back to Colorado for more road biking and more visiting friends. Stay tuned...

Utah

We drove to Utah via a new route: Rifle, CO then north to Meeker and then west to Rangley, CO. It becomes more dry and desolate the further west you go. Rangely is full of oil drills and if you believe the sign, it's a great place to live (but we don't think so!). From there, we drove to Vernal, Utah then north to Flaming Gorge - a huge dammed-up reservoir full of power boats. We found a pretty nice campsite, but the drinking water was orange. Needless to say, we didn't drink it!

Next day we headed toward the northeast corner of the Uintas, making a detour along this scenic byway:


It was very interesting, with lots of cool rocks to look at. We also saw some mountain goats; they have scary eyes!

After camping one night at a very dusty and tilty campground at Spirit Lake, and doing a fantastic 7 mile hike to some lakes, we drove to Park City and to our favorite campground in Utah, Jordanelle reservoir. They have awesome hot showers and we could plug in the van to recharge the batteries. Plus the skies there are always changing...

When we were here 2 years ago, we started a mountain bike ride called the "Mid-Mountain Trail". It's the classic Park City MTB ride. We never did finish it because thunderstorms turned us around. We did the whole 23 miles this time, and it was great, challenging, and mostly very nice single track. We took the lift up this year...

After cushy camping at Jordanelle, we drove back into the Uintas (the west side this time) to do our Utah backpacking trip. Our objective was Amethyst Lake. We had packed the day before, so we could hit the trail upon arriving. It's about 5-1/2 miles and 2000 vertical feet one way. The trail goes from meadow, to hillside with about a zillion springs to cross, to raging stream with waterfalls to subalpine crags. We found a pretty nice campsite where the mosquitos weren't too bad. Anna just about froze to death that night... we figure the temp got to around 37 degrees (we were at 10,000 feet). My 35 degree sleeping bag just wasn't enough.

On Saturday, we hiked up to the lake, then bushwhacked around some cool slabs and found lots of springs. Then the storms hit, it rained like mad, the wind kicked up and it got cold. We took a nap, made an early dinner then packed up and bailed out. We started hiking out at 5:15 pm and made it to the car in 3 hours. It rained on us, then got sunny and sparkly. We slept in the van at the trailhead, and were warm & dry.

Anna takes a contemplative break on the hike up. Notice the cool pack cover that Bob sewed (it had been sprinkling).

Here's the lake. It was spectacular up there...

We're off to Nevada tomorrow - we'll try to keep in touch!

Colorado, part 3

After we left our friends house New Castle, we headed back up to the Aspen area. It's so spectacular there, we couldn't rush off. We camped one night in a campground along the Maroon Bells road and did an incredible hike the next day toward Buckskin Pass. We made it up to about one mile short of the pass, and turned around because our feet were hurting and the weather was looking iffy. We heard later that day that it snowed in the pass!


Here's Bob taking a break on the way to the pass...



The yellow flower is a rare glacier lily. It only grows at the edges of receding snow fields This is the only one we've ever seen. The white ones are globeflowers.




View from the trail

Anna on the trail.

Next, we headed for a campground called "Difficult" just outside Aspen heading toward Independence Pass. We snagged what we think is the best site there... we had total privacy and an awesome view. It was so private were able to take the best Sunshowers every evening... never been so clean camping!

We rode our bikes into Aspen one day and slummed with the rich folks... walked around and watched the how the other half lives (it's very entertaining actually) and had lunch.

Anything goes in Aspen!

Bob, doing what Aspenites do...

The next day we did one of our favorite Colorado hikes, called "Lost Man". It is just below Independence Pass, so you're starting out in the subalpine and the hike goes to alpine in no time. The wildflowers blew our minds! We did this hike last year, and the flowers this year were outrageous. We checked off several new species in our wildflower book, which always fun.

Lost Man Pass - that lake is a mile or two below.

The following day we drove down Castle Creek road, which we've never been to. This road sort of parallels the Maroon Bells road, but it is completely different. It's just as beautiful, of course. It ends where the access to Pearl Pass is (Crested Butte is on the other side). This road is notoriously rough & steep, so we opted to ride our mountian bikes up Cooper Creek road. The beginning was steep and loose, but thankfully the grade became easier as we ascended. The scenery was big and impressive. We turned back when weather threatened.