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The first Phillips 66 gas station in Texas. McLean, TX.
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Salida, CO, geared up, headed for Rainbow, July 5, yours truly far right.
L to R, Pat C., Greg L. Thom W., Frank A., Sam S.
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Down Rainbow Trail past Hamilton Creek, then down the mtn. to a lower trail to Kerr Gulch Rd, then down that to Hwy 50, then south to Cotopaxi for lunch at the deli/general store. Then back north to Coaldale, then back up the mtn. on Hayden Creek Rd. to the trail. Then north on the trail near Stout Creek. By then Thom and I were pooped. We went back down the mtn. on Kerr Gulch Rd. to Hwy 50 and cruised back to Salida. Frank and Greg rode the Rainbow Trail all the way back to Salida.
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July 6, packed up and drove over Cottonwood Pass to Taylor Park
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Our cabin.
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Tuesday, July 7
Rode some Colorado Trail, tried to ride to Star Trail to American Flag Mtn.
Star Trail was blocked by snow. Bummer, had to turn back.
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Colorado Trail
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Star Trail, turned back soon after this shot, trail blocked with too much snow.
Greg had been having persistant overheating problems on his 525. '07 model recently purchased used, hadn't even ridden it before hauling it to Colorado. Has a Clarke oversized tank very close to the back of the radiator. Checked radiators, water pump, thermostat, all OK. It must be a leaking head gasket. Called dealer in Gunnison on Monday (30 miles away), ordered parts, pulled head on Tuesday. Put in head gasket, piston wouldn't go to TDC to set cam chain. Pulled head off and found gasket was the wrong size and piston was hitting it. Dealer ordered right part #, parts shipper sent wrong part #. Called dealer and ordered another gasket for delivery Wed. Back to Gunnison on Wed. for another head gasket. Swapped tanks with Frank's stock 525. Still ran hot but was not boiling over every 10 minutes as before.
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Tuesday July 8
Pat and I took a morning ride to get some high pass views.
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Mirror Lake, on the way to Tincup Pass
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On the way up to Tincup Pass. Can you find Pat on his bike?
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Yours truly with one foot in the Atlantic and one foot in the Pacific.
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About 100 yds. south of the pass, we were stopped by the snow. This jeep road goes to Hancock.
We backtracked down from Tincup Pass, then up Co Rd 765 to Cumberland Pass. 765 is spectacular and fun, but don't get crazy. It's a long way down off the edge of the road.
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The GPS suggested a route down on a trail instead of back down the road, so we went that way. I'm glad we did it.
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When we got here, at a 360 degree view, it stopped us in our tracks. We just sat here for a few minutes silently. The photo doesn't do it justice, because you can see only a small portion of the view. It was a spiritual experience for me.
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Tuesday afternoon we rode the Italian Creek Trail trying to get to American Flag Mountain. Trail was blocked by snow. Bummer. Went down and rode along Texas Creek. This was fairly flat, two track that was run at a spirited pace. Then we crossed Texas Creek and rode some of the Timberline Trail.
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The creek was running too deep to cross in the water, so we crossed on the bridge.
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Frank studying the map during a break on the Timberline. Frank didn't need a break, but Thom and I did. Understand that there are no pictures of the gnarliest stuff because you just can't stop there to pull out a camera.
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Here is the profile for Tuesday.
Wednesday July 9 dawned with our valley socked in with a steady rain. It looked like we would be bench racing all day. If you don't like the weather in Colorado, just wait two hours. About 9:30 the rain stopped and the weather got better by the minute until the sky was compeletly clear. I have no pictures of Wednesday because I left the memory chip stuck in the computer at the cabin. :roll:
The 81 miles and 8.5 hours of riding today really kicked my behind. We spent about 1.5 hours roaming around up near Texas Creek looking for a trail up the mountain to the Timberline Trail. It was on the map, but we never found it. It turned out later to be a hiking only trail.
Then we rode the Gold Creek Trail. This was the some of the toughest riding all week for me. I think I would not have made it without the Rekluse clutch. After that, we went to Pitkin for gas and snacks and a little rest. We had planned to ride up to Cumberland Pass for some big views. While at the gas station, we met a fellow who had a house in Pitkin, and apparently rode around there a lot. He was alone and offered to guide us on some trails new to us.
He took us up to Napoleon Pass. One switchback nearly ended the ride for three of us (including me) on the ride as it caused us to tip over and crash on a very narrow and precarious ledge.
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Thursday July 10
Frank, Greg and Thom were heading out to ride a large portion of the Timberline Trail. The word was that there were some sections of it that were tougher than what we rode on Wednesday. I was tired and sore like I just rode two enduros on Wednesday, and I just wasn't up to it. Pat and I decided on a sightseeing and exploring day.
In the morning we decided to go ride some of the Colorado Trail again. Some of it was tough, just like all the others, but a lot of it was just fun and beautiful.
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For after lunch,we laid out this route to go see two features called the Palisades and Alpine tunnel.
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We were looking for an "easy" day because we got worn out on Wednesday. One thing that looked interesting was two routes along either side of a creek on way to and from the Alpine Tunnel. We decided to follow the narrow and dashed line on the south side of the creek going up, and to follow the wide line on the way back down.
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We entered the forest service road just on the north side of the creek. We rode the nice forest service road (dirt, not gravel) past a lot of campers in RVs. We came to the end of the road at Middle Quartz Creek. A sign said "Impassable to Vehicles Beyond This Point". We thought that this is exactly what we are looking for, and we were still right on the trail marked on the GPS. There we crossed to the south side of the creek. It was a pretty nice ATV trail for about a mile. Then we came to a wet spot where the quads had wallowed out the trail to where it was nearly impassable. I took us about 30 minutes of falling and pushing to get through this 100 yard section.
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After we got through that, the map indicated that the trail continued on the north side of the creek. However, it ended up that the creek eventually WAS the trail.
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It took us about 40 minutes to cover about 1.6 miles of this stuff. So much for an easy sightseeing day.
We finally got up to the road which was once a railroad bed.
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Going up and down the mountain over Cumberland Pass was some fun, kind of how I would imagine a run up Pike's Peak would be. It was too far along into a good week to do anything stupid, but I did have a little fun "dirt tracking".
It had been a great week. Early Friday morning we headed home. The thermometer in the truck showed this.
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We saw this and some more like it near Cottonwood Pass.
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A few hours later we passed through Pueblo, CO and the thermometer showed this.
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We were back in the real world.
If you ever get a chance to go, take it. This trip took a lot of planning, 11 days away from home, and about $900.
