Day 37 – Telluride to Dolores

So, technically we’re in the San Juan mountains, not the Rockies. That’s a technicality lost on a yankee. Regardless of what range we’re in, the climbs are much longer, and so are the descents. Wow.

After the shenanigans yesterday on our climb and the fact we spent last night at 9.5k’, we decided to get a ride to the top of Lizard Head Pass.

10k’ is pretty high up… at least for us. We saw a number of cyclists coming over the peak, and I was seriously jealous of their ability to breathe… and stay conscious.

What you don’t see in the above photo is the other signs nearby pointing to the peaks on both sides of the pass… one at 11k’ and the other at 13k’. I had no appreciation of how high the mountains here are. It’s really unbelievable.

At the top of this mountain pass is a lake. Trout Lake, to be exact… apparently named for the aquatic life forms that inhabit it.

… or that once inhabited it. The lake was closed, presumably because its so low. It’s impressive how many lakes we’ve passed by on this trip that are WAY low due to the drought here in the west. I hope the rain shows up soon before some of these bodies of water actually disappear.

Heidi has been on a quest to photograph wildlife on this trip. Unfortunately we haven’t seen much in the way of wildlife. Up until this point, she’s claimed that all the chipmunks we’ve seen don’t rate a photo. Today, after once again getting skunked on finding big game, she caved in. Here’s a chipmunk.

And a prairie dog. Not “big game” but bigger than a chipmunk.

The ride today was 50 miles. Almost every inch of it was downhill. Coming off the top of the pass was steep… Like, I don’t think I actually turned a pedal for the first 10 miles. After 15 miles I checked my bike computer and it said I had climbed _2_ feet. 2. I’ve never in my life had a ride that long that had single digit vertical feet. Even leaving my neighborhood on my normal training rides is like 23′.

Towards the bottom things flattened out a bit. About 10 miles out I stopped to use the facilities in the MCC while JP pushed on toward Dolores. Normally I catch him after a few miles when I stop like that. Today, JP (as he put it) went in to beast mode. I could tell, as I finally caught a glimpse of him in the distance about 1 mile out from the hotel.. and I was flying. It was a very fast day, especially when you throw in the fact JP and I were basically sprinting for the last 10 miles. I averaged well over 18mph, and that was with some heavy braking on sections of freshly tarred/chipped downhills.

Lest you think I’m slacking completely on this trip, here’s an action shot of me taking a work phone call. Pay no attention to the rushing river in the background or the beautiful sunlight… this was work, dammit.

I took the boys fishing in river next to our motel/cabin this evening. Once again, Heidi had an opportunity for a wildlife shot.

We’re pretty sick of eating in restaurants. So tonight we changed things up a bit and had ourselves a little outdoor BBQ. We picked up corn on the cob, dogs, and some steaks and grilled it all up. It was yummy, tho we didn’t have steak knives so we may have burned more calories than we ate just sawing through meat.

Art and JP are in the motel here in Dolores… we’re in a cabin at the same facility. The moose cabin no less.

People in this part of Colorado don’t seem to believe in air conditioning, so we’ve got the windows wide open hoping to cool the place off. Hopefully we can get some sleep. Wish us luck.

Day 36 – Montrose to Mountain Village/Telluride

Well, the climb today was definitely difficult. We started out shortly after 7, heading south on US 550. Between a relatively stiff headwind and a continuous 1% grade, it was slow going. Big differences in effort made very little difference in our speed. Not fun.

We made our turn towards Telluride in Ridgeway CO. Ridgeway has about 20 roads, of which 2 seem to be paved. The rest are gravel. That said, they’ve got some really cool parks and a great bike trail.

We kicked down on to the trail instead of riding 550 through that stretch because there was no shoulder on 550 in to Ridgeway. Down on the trail there was this awesome statue of an Eagle… Part of it’s awesomeness is that it’s not near a damn thing.

I should point out we saw several hundred FJ Cruisers heading north on 550 today. Apparently there was an event south of us today and everyone was heading home. Even tho I’m a Jeep guy, there was some pretty impressive rigs.

The first big climb of the day started on the way out of Ridgeway. I’ll spare you the details, but JP and I both threw in the towel partway up (within a mile of each other, actually). I was feeling pretty good on the climb, and then things went badly super quick. Ugh. Climbing at elevation seems to really be tough for me. I’m definitely not happy about that.

We SAG’d up to the hotel… and holy cow. What a hotel. Out in this part of the country our stops for the night are largely governed by where we can find lodging. Today, the only place that made sense was Telluride. As it turns out, it’s a ski town… and a really nice one at that.

Even though it’s a ski town, there’s lots to do in the summer. The square near the hotel had a cool bungie jumping/trampoline thing. Bobby was clearly interested in it, and eventually gave it a shot.

His mohawk is super photogenic.

The hotel also has an arcade… and unlike most arcades, you just pay a flat fee for the day and the whole family can play for 24 hours. One of the cabinets had 60 different old school arcade games. Terran was hooked. He’s definitely my kid.

Later in the afternoon we decided to go down to town of Telluride. From the hotel, the best way to get to town in a 15 minute ride on a free gondola. They boys had never been on a gondola, let alone one that goes _down_ 2k’ in to a valley. The views were amazing, but it took Bobby a while to appreciate them.

Daxton even took a few minutes to stop and smell the flowers. As you can see, he REALLY gets in to smelling the flowers.

The hotel staff informed us that these mountains are the mountains that appear on the Coors Light can. I’m not sure if that’s a line they tell the gullible tourists, but I’ll buy it. mmmm…. beer.

And we were treated to a fantastic sunset. All in all, the afternoon helped smooth the feathers of the ride this morning.

Tomorrow we’re downhill to Dolores. Nothing like a 50 mile descent to get the ego back in shape. I expect tomorrow will be a better riding day.

Terran Speaks

(A word from Bruce and Heidi’s oldest son Terran, age 15)

This trip has been no less than a strange adventure. In some cases it’s a pattern; get up early, pack up, eat breakfast at the hotel, leave. At other times it’s definitely unique; biking with my father, going to bluegrass concerts, and watching out for unchained dogs. The changes in the countryside are huge, from mountains to nothing but grass (no offense Kansas), and the people we meet are super friendly, and always curious about our van.

Of course there are always downsides, but my only one really is the lack of cell service and Wi-Fi (my addiction for ya). Ignoring that fact, our RV is full of everything we could need for a trip, including movies, I-whatevers, laptops, and books. The only problem is remembering to look up and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

We’ve made many stops during the trip, including countless dollar generals, bookstores, and bike shops, but also neat towns – including the homes of Superman and Popeye, and towns with a population of only 200. Each town had some awesome eats and a look all its own, with attractions from the Sante Fe trail to the history of Oil Drilling.

I never knew how different the country really is. We might all be Americans but we could just as well live on opposite sides of the world. We’ve tried to integrate along the way – we bought cowboy hats, a banjo, and fly fishing rods….and my mom attempts an accent no matter where we go.

This trip has been no less then amazing. Each part of the country is beautiful in its own way. It is an experience you cannot describe, only do. It would definitely be something I would hope to do again in the future.

Day 35 – Gunnison to Montrose

So I’m sure not every day in the Rockies will be like today, but I can sure hope they are. Beautiful weather, more downhill than up, and relatively short. Seriously, it was a lot of fun…. Tho JP wasn’t feeling well, so hopefully that doesn’t happen again 🙂

Today was supposed to be a social ride… We had 2 local riders who were going to join JP and I for the trek in to Montrose. Unfortunately they ended up not being make to make it. Then, this morning, JP got up not feeling well. So instead of a pack ride with 4 of us, I went out solo shortly after 7a.

It was actually cold this morning… 48 when I rolled out of bed. I left the hotel with arm warmers, a vest, and knee warmers on. Even with all that, I was definitely cold for the first 10 miles.

Heidi was on her way in the MCC shortly after I left. Somehow I missed the hot air balloons taking off, but she saw them on the way out of town.

The ride today took us past the Blue Mesa Reservoir, a 15 mile long reservoir on the Gunnison. Very scenic and I’m sure filled with amazingly good fishing tho there was no time for that.

Along that section, I got passed by the SAG vehicle for the 4K for Cancer ride. Yesterday in Gunnison we saw some of the riders from this ride walking around town. Heidi got to visit with some of them for a bit and found out many of them are from the Baltimore area. They are riding the “Heartbeat of America” route that goes up and down the country like an EKG. Super impressed with their ride and we wish them a lot of luck. We had hoped to run into them again along the route, but it looks like we’ll be missing each other by a few days.

After the reservoir, there was some climbing. The climbs in the Rockies generally aren’t very steep (8% max) but they’re definitely long. I got 2.8k’ of climbing in today, but that came over probably 15 miles of road on those climbs. Lots of long, slow gear turning. On the flip side the downhills tend to be fun without turning in to white knuckle events.

JP started feeling better after some rest and SAG’d up to the second major climb of the day. He got on the saddle, powered up the hill, and came cruising in to Montrose. Nice to see him on the road even if he wasn’t feeling 100%.

The ride in to Montrose from the top of the last climb was basically 15 miles of downhill. It was fast and tons of fun. At some point I was on a flat stretch and thought “boy am I going slow”… I looked down and I was cruising along at 19mph. After the previous 5 miles at 25mph+, 19 felt slow. Cool.

After the ride, we went looking for a place to fish. The folks in Gunnison told us about the Black Canyon and all the awesome fishing there.

When we got to the ranger station to pay our admission fee we were instructed that the maximum length for vehicles going down to the river is 22’… and the MCC clocks in at  24.5′ long. Lame. Strangely the ranger at the booth said “well, you could try it and see if you get in trouble for it.” Uh, no. I’d prefer the MCC not get stuck somewhere on a 1,500′ descent down a canyon wall.

With no trip down to river for fishing, we went for the visitor center on the canyon rim. As it turns out, the Black Canyon is a pretty damn big canyon. I had no idea.

Even the boys thought the canyon was cool.

The visitor center had an observation deck where you could walk out right to the edge of the canyon wall to get a good view of how crazy deep and narrow this canyon really is. Heidi’s not a fan of heights so I thought this was as close to the deck as she’d get:

Nope, she went right down with the boys and snapped some shots.

After the canyon trip, Dax was wiped out. I’m sure he was comfy, but honestly this looks painful.

After Black Canyon, we were still looking to do some fishing. A bit of research later we found a pond just south of town that was well stocked and perfect for the boys to continue to work on their fly casting skills.

They weren’t kidding about “well stocked.” Bobby caught 4 fish in about 15 minutes.

I caught one while I was screwing around with a rod. Terran… well, he got some good practice in. He’ll have to get his first fish further downstream.

For all the downhill we had today, we’ll pay the price tomorrow. We finish the day in Telluride at nearly 9k’ after 2 relatively long, sustained climbs. What goes around, comes around I guess. Till tomorrow…