July 4th Weekend Blues Ride

[bikerfish1100]

Friday, July 1- Hot Tuna is playing a free show in Steamboat Springs, about 150 miles away. Set up for some camping overnite, and this is gonna be good!!
So, Friday's journey to Steamboat began with a run up Stove Prairie, connecting with CO 14, Poudre Canyon. The river is running fast and fat!

Temps in the 80's, the run up the canyon is nearly perfect, save for the RV sized rolling roadblocks to contend with. Finally make it to Dumont Lake Campground at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass. Pretty location. Reserved a site; $9 resv fee, $12/night camping. looking north

looking south (ish)

yeah, those piles of white stuff are snow. Dumont Lake is about 9,500 ft. and this is the first open weekend of the season for them.
always a reassuring sight as you set up camp-

camp is all set up, its time to head downhill for some music!
roll into town, stop to gas up, and get directions to the Howelson Center. This looks like a bike friendly place.

Get directions from a local, and make teh short ride to the "venue"

[bikerfish1100]

Opening band for Hot Tuna was the local bluegrass band Miss the Boat. Not really much of a b/g fan, but these guys were pretty decent. Certainly worth the price of admission.

Some quick stagework, and Hot Tuna is on stage around 7:30 or so. Stays light quite a bit longer on the western face of the Front Range than it does on the eastern face.

This Tuna casserole consists of Jorma and Jack

along with a drummer and a very skilled mandolin player. he often took the lead parts, with Jorma filling in on rhythm guitar.
Yeah, Jack looks a bit bored, but man, can he thump down some serious bass lines!

Band played into the early evening hours, finished up around 9:15 or so.
Set consisted of some of their old stuff (Hesitation Blues, Trimmed & Burning, I See The Light, Bowlegged Women/Knockkneed Man, etc.), along with some new things off their first studio album in over 20 years.

[bikerfish1100]

Post concert, headed up to camp. Brrr- thermo on the bike says its 41 degs at the top. Thankfully, it only dropped 2 more overnite. not much in the way of starts at bedtime, but when i take that evening walk to the trees around 1:30 am... OMG!! Milky Way, stars galore, and thankfully, not a bear in sight.
next morning, pack up camp, and head into town for b'fast and coffee. Stop back into that Conoco with the Rusty Enfield out front (could not ascertain make of other bikes) and get the recommendations. Johnny B. Good's it is!

Before i walk thru the door, this rolls by.
Saw a few more of them, but they were all a bunch higher up.
sorry, no food pics this time. Skillet fried pierogies with onions and green pepps, eggs over easy, coffee. A tad pricey at $11, but this is a resort town. Got some unexpected history lessons about the town and county tho, as a patron at the "bar" was talking to another local about such things, loudly enough that eavesdropping was not only unnecessary, but totally unavoidable. Turns out the guy drove the shuttle bus between the airport and SS, and prided himself on his knowledge of local lore.
As i left Johnny's, a guy on a mntn bike asked where i was going. Once informed, he gave me an alternate route, that got me off the main road (US 40, straight & flat as it heads west out of town) and onto some curvy hilly delightful lttle side road called 20 Mile Park. Schweeet!







these are not the best features of the riding- but stopping for that would have interrupted the rhythms. oh well.

[Justin]

Nice, 20 mile is cool road  

[bikerfish1100]

Stay on 20 Mile until you get to the Coal Mine at the intersection of 27, and bang a south towards the bustling metropolis of Oak Creek. That section of 27 was a total hoot (it had come to me as "highly recommended" by several foks- they were right!)

There is a mini-Museum, dedicated to the mining operations that were the obvious lifeblood of the area "back in the day".
Some of the tools of the trade:

Once leaving OC, it was a relatively sedate run down 131, past the Flatops to the west , and the errant rock outcropping known as "The Finger".

I initially considered returning east via Gore Pass (always a delightful road), but then realized that State Bridge was not too far south, I did have time to kill if desired, and I had yet to take a run over Trough Rd (State Bridge to Kremmling, mostly hard pack dirt). so, south to SB!

[bikerfish1100]

Ran 131 to State Bridge, then on to the dirty stuff! the Colorado River, like every other mountain river I have seen recently, is running fat, fast and full.
looking upstream..

and in the other direction..

now, we come upon a bit of an oddity. This is Gore Canyon, below the Trough Road.


Mr. Gore, a Sottish gentleman explorer, was disliked by numerous folks for the thousands of elk, buffalo, deer and bear that his party wantonly slaughtered in the 1860's during a 2 year expedition. Regardless, the canyon, which he never saw, bears his name. he might have gone over Gore Pass, but that is about 20 miles to the north.
Tehre is a short segment of paved roadway neaer whre i took those shots, and a pull-off iwth historical & geological info. Worth reading. Once leaving Trough Rd, you intersect onto US40 just outside of Kremmling. From there, it is on to Grand Lake and RMNP.

[bikerfish1100]

US 34 up to Grand Lake, the largest natural lake in Colorado. But first, swing past Lake Granby.
then, just a bit farther east, is Grand Lake

The pine beetle kill in this area is extensive. In 5 to 10 years, these forests will be mostly bare. Eventually, with the lodgepole pines mostly (entirely?) decimated, they should see a resurgence of aspen growth. The Colorado River, which takes water from the lake, was originally named The Grand River.
On up into RMNP!
how do you know you are in the Park, on a hot Sunday in early July? Because traffic is at a dead stop, families oohing and aaahing over this, an amazingly large herd of female elk.
(sorry, but the pic really captured more of the immobile vehicles than it did of the reason for the stoppage)
Males seem to hang out together, until the fall rut begins, when their chummy ways go bye-bye, to be replaced by loud, and often deadly, combat. However, now all is calm, and more elk are seen grazing up high (this is quite a bit above the 2 mile elevation mark) as the temps down low continue to climb.
I did a bit of well executed legal passing around these metal boulders, and was on my way back home. All in all, a great time was had by all (me).

[Eric308]

Great report and pics. That is my kind of a great weekend.