Day 34 – Rest Day in Gunnison

So… Yeah. Colorado is awesome. I swear, since we crossed the border we’ve had the most amazing vistas, food, conversations and experiences. Jeez.

Today was a rest day, which is our day to stock up, clean up, and go do some exploring. We bought a couple of fly rods yesterday and went through all the effort to get fishing licenses, so we figured we should probably go fishing today. 😉 I was really excited to take the boys fishing, but I’m not 100% sure they were. I got them up late (7:15) and after some breakfast we went out in search of fish.

The folks at the Gunnison Fly Shop had some suggestions for places to fish, including going up the Taylor River. We didn’t know anything about the rivers in the area, so we took their word for it. I did some research last night on public places to fish along the Taylor but I had no idea what to expect.

A little Colorado geography lesson… the Gunnison is a fairly major river the runs west through southern Colorado. It’s formed just north of the town Gunnison at the confluence of the East and Taylor Rivers. Apparently the fishing at the confluence is really good, so that’s where we were shooting for.

We got to the head of the Gunnison and started up the Taylor. Unfortunately the road was closed due to construction, so we had to turn around (always fun in the MCC) and went up the East River instead. About 4 miles up river we found public fishing just outside a state hatchery. Curiously, the river near the hatchery isn’t stocked (go figure). Also, as Bobby and I explored we found out that what the area lacked in fish it made up for in mosquitoes. We decided to push on.

A little farther up the road we found the detour to get back over to the Taylor. We took the detour… which very quickly turned in to a dirt road going up and over a mountain pass. A dirt road with a shocking amount of traffic. There was clearly something up the Taylor.

After clearing the pass, we were back on the paved road up that went up the Taylor through a large national forest. After looking at a map, we figured out there was a reservoir at the top of the road that fed the Taylor. Not knowing where to fish or really what else to do, we decided to hit the reservoir to check things out.

14 miles later, we crested the hill and found it. A 230+ acre reservoir fed by snow melt that was built in 1934 at an elevation of 9,400′. It was a pretty amazing sight.

There’s a small park up there with a number of people camping, a fair number of RV’s running around, and very little else. It’s incredibly isolated and amazingly beautiful. Considering we just went out wandering, it was an amazing find.

All that said, the reservoir didn’t look very good for shore fly fishing, so we went back down river a bit to find a place to fish. I haven’t fly fished in probably 20 years, and the boys never have. Most of what I know about fly fishing I learned last night watching Orvis videos. Safe to say, fishing was definitely an experience. For the most part the boys did very well. We had a few issues managing all the line that you have to deal with…

And we bought two rods yesterday so two of us at a time could fish. We really didn’t plan on Dax being one of the folks fishing. He probably spent 2 hours just waving the rod around and splashing it in to the water.

We didn’t catch any fish, but I did have one really solid bite that I couldn’t set the hook on. Also, I caught a few trees including this one. Looks to be about a 40-footer. I’m getting it stuffed and will have it on display at home this fall.

Also, while I don’t “Facebook” I hear there are a number of people on there who like my hat. For those of you who like it, here’s an action shot with the hat.

The whole Taylor River valley is pretty amazing. Impressive cliffs, wildlife, the river…. Oh and the dirt road mountain pass had some pretty amazing views too.

There’s still snow in the peaks. Awesome.

JP and Art spent the day in Crested Butte. No pictures from that excursion, but they had a great time. They went to the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and apparently JP wore his cowboy hat so he would not look like a tourist.  😉

We both had dinner at the Twisted Fork in Gunnison. Heidi, the boys, and I ate there last night and loved it so much we went back. Tonight we ordered “every appetizer except the garden salad”… we basically used their appetizer menu as a tapas menu. It tasted great and we went home stuffed.

A big thanks to the crew at the Gunnison River Fly Shop. Seriously, we walked in total noobs and they took care of us. I feel like we got amazing service, good prices, and some great conversation. They even gave us advice on where to fish tomorrow afternoon in Montrose. W00t.

Tomorrow is a 66 mile ride to Montrose. We lose 2k’ of elevation, but there’s some climbing in the middle. Sleepy time.

Day 33 – Salida to Gunnison

Well, we made it out of Salida, but I have a feeling we’ll be back. 😉

After my issues during the ride yesterday I decided to pass on climbing up Monarch Pass.. 5k’ of climbing didn’t sound like my cup of tea. JP, however, was on the road early and took a shot at the mountain. He made it up about half way which is pretty damn awesome… I think that’s his longest straight climb ever, and a hell of an effort to finish above 9k’. He SAG’d up to the top of the pass, which, coincidentally, is on the Continental Divide.

JP cruised down the backside of the pass on his bike and continued on until mile 44. A fantastic ride given how much effort it took in the first few hours to work up the Pass.

Meanwhile, Heidi, the kids, and I were enjoying breakfast in Salida. We finished up and started to head out of town. On a lark, I took a turn in to a neighborhood to check out what neighborhoods in this area actually looked like. After driving around for a few minutes, we hit the road again… but rather than going over the pass, we went back to Salida… and walked in to a ReMax office. No, we didn’t buy a home, but we spent a fair bit of time talking to the agent about the area, schools, weather, etc. Safe to say we’ll be heading back to Salida in the future to keep scoping things out.

We drove up the pass and stopped at the Divide as well. There were some amazing views from up there, but it’s really hard to capture how impressive it is with a camera. Here’s an attempt.

The mountains on the backside of the pass are quite different than the east side. More rolling, more green. But still very mountainous (yes, we can start the East Coast vs West Coast mountain argument now).

We stopped at the bottom of the pass in Sargents. After some thought, I decided to jump on my bike and ride in to Gunnison to see how I felt. I’m glad I did because it was a totally different experience than the day before. I seem to have shaken off whatever I had going on and pedaled in the last 32 miles in to town. Now, granted, I lost 750′ in elevation over that stretch so it wasn’t exactly a difficult road. I did, however, have a headwind so it wasn’t crazy easy 😉

Gunnison is a nice town. A lot of bikes, but not as many as Salida. It has more of a “western” feel to it; the big rodeo just finished up last week apparently. Also, there are a LOT of RV’s here. I mean, the streets are lined with them.

We had a great dinner at an asian fusion type place here in town. So far the food in Colorado has been the best we’ve had the entire trip. Plus they had Alaskan Amber on tap at the place we ate at, so Heidi was in heaven.

Tomorrow is our rest day. “when in Rome, do as…” so tomorrow we’re going out fly fishing on the Gunnison River. We picked up a couple of fly rods from a local outfitter. We also picked up fishing licenses for Heidi and I… which was harder than you’d think because apparently there was a power failure at the company in Tennesse that handles the licensing for the state of Colorado. … yeah, the woman at the Department of Wildlife was a little miffed about that. But we’re good to go and know where we’re going to fish tomorrow. I’ve done a little fly fishing, Heidi has fly fished once, and the boys never have. This should be interesting.

Until tomorrow.

Day 32 – Canon City to Salida. We heart Salida.

Well today was a roller coaster for many definitions of the word. Ultimately it was a good day but it took a while to get sorted out.

JP and I rolled out around 7am to head up over the pass next to the Royal Gorge and on to Salida. I had arm warmers on and JP had… well, jersey and shorts. I swear he never gets cold. We had an easy warm up through town then started cruising up the hill outside of town.

I’ve got to admit, so far the climbs in the Rockies are MUCH more polite than what we saw in the East or in the Ozarks. Long slow climbs and descents that only rarely require brakes. Pretty cool. JP and I made it about 2/3rds of the way up the climb and pulled over to chat, switch bottles, etc. I got going a few minutes before him… shortly after I got a text that said he broke a spoke. Apparently when he clipped out his heel came around and busted the nipple off. His wheel was way out of true, so even tying up the spoke wasn’t going to work.

Art came and picked him up and JP went back down the hill with his busted wheel to Canon City. I pushed on up and over and on my way to Salida.

On her way out of town Heidi took a detour to check out what she could see of the Royal Gorge Bridge and the fire damage in the area. While she couldn’t get up to the bridge due to the road closure, she did get to see how serious the fire was.

A lot of landscape was burned during the fire. I can’t imagine what it did to the park.  We do know most of the structures were destroyed.  The bison herd however was ok and safely moved to a nearby ranch.

Action Shot! Application of sunscreen! (actually, it was a reshoot because Heidi missed the first one. Note it’s not actually hitting my face)

There were some really nice rest stops along the Arkansas River. Heidi stopped with the boys and played in the water for a bit while I rode on.

 

For the vast majority of the ride today, we didn’t have cell service. First, what’s really interesting about that is JP was supposed to have a 9am call. While that call turned in to a series of emails, he never would have been able to send those emails if he hadn’t broke the spoke. We didn’t have cell service from about mile 10 to mile 50. JP would have been totally out of luck.

Also, when we don’t have cell service, it changes the way SAG is run. Rather than run ahead of us and hang out, the SAG vehicles will hang behind us for a set period of time, then come up and see how things are going. So today while Heidi was in the river with the boys, I was riding ahead. That’s when my fun started. I was taking it easy, enjoying the scenery… but around mile 23 I started to feel pretty off. I got lightheaded and started really struggling with the sun. I’ve had that happen before when I ride and usually it’s because I’ve had too much coffee or something similar. I figured I’d just keep taking it easy and it would fade.

From there, things sorta went downhill. I lost track of time and eventually looked down at my bike computer.. it felt like I had been riding for an hour since I last checked, but it had only been like 10 minutes. Further, I realized I was starting to get tunnel vision and was _really_ lightheaded. If my drinking in college taught me anything its that when you’ve got tunnel vision, it’s time to stop. So I did. Luckily Heidi and the boys were only a few minutes behind me and they were up to me shortly after I got off my bike. My riding day was done… which I’m really pretty upset about. It’s an amazing section of road, and it certainly wasn’t challenging. I assume it’s the elevation (this all hit around 6.5k’) so I’m hopeful with a few more days up here I’ll be fine.

And “yes” I was plenty hydrated, “yes” I had plenty of sleep, “yes” I’ve been eating well. *shrug*

Meanwhile, JP did his emails, got his wheel fixed, and SAG’d back up to where he broke down. He finished his climb, shot down the back side of the hill and pushed on. He pushed on for 36 miles and decided to stop for lunch and head in to Salida. He still had a productive day even with all the excitement.

Shortly after Heidi, the kids,and I  got to Salida, all hell broke loose at work. I’ll spare you the details, but I had a very busy day on the phone and email. At some point I was even planning how to get to Denver and get back to the office by tomorrow morning (it could be done, but it wasn’t cheap). Luckily, I was able to work with folks back at the office and get things resolved… but it was touch and go for a bit.

Lost in all this excitement is the fact that we’re in Salida. And to be frank, and with no disrespect to our friends in Maryland…

We would move here in a heartbeat. This place is VERY us. Even Bobby, after playing in a local park, got in to the MCC and asked “can we move here?”  Both the older boys said they’d be more than happy to scrap the rest of the trip and work logistics for a move from Maryland to here.

This town is amazing. Bikes everywhere (seriously, the probably out number the people), amazing food, great beer, lots of music. There’s tons to do outdoors including Jeeping, fishing, skiing (when the weather is different) hanging out in the river, and generally bumming around outside. As the waitress at dinner pointed out “this is the first place I’ve lived where not only is the place cool, but the people are cool too”.

So yeah. I _think_ we’ll leave town tomorrow and head to the next stop. But if you don’t hear from us, check out our new blog, “The Potters Move to Colorado.”

J “my calves are too big for cowboy boots” P, Bobby, and I all had our hats on tonight. I even had a local assume I was from Texas. I guess that’s a win.

Day 31 – Pueblo to Canon City

Everything I learned about cycling at high elevation I learned from the Internet… Which is to say I have no first hand experience and anecdotal stories ranging from “I was fine after a day” to “OMG I’VE BEEN HERE 2 WEEKS AND I CAN STILL BARELY BREATHE”. Fun. Anyhoo, we started our slow push in to the rockies today. Figuring discretion is the better part of valor I mapped us an easy 37 miles in to Canon City.

Wow did the landscape change today. Even leaving Pueblo today was different than arriving in town yesterday. The weather was great and we had much better visibility today. We rolled out at 8am, and could finally see the start of the mountains in front of us.

About 17 miles in to the ride, I found a route that didn’t involve Rt 50 for a while. Now, when I say I “found a route” I mean I saw there was a road on Google. Turns out, the first bit of it was… well not paved.

However JP was game so we did a little gravel grinding for 2-ish miles. The next few miles were “paved” to some degree but left something to be desired. However, the scenery was amazing. Rt 50 may be efficient, but it’s not necessarily scenic. The second half of the ride today was the most visually impressive ride we’ve had in weeks.

We finally got back on a real paved road and cruised in to Canon City. Small rollers and curves… again, something we haven’t seen in a while. It’s nice to be back in to doing some serious biking.

Once we got in to Canon City, we had a nice lunch and bought cowboy hats… Well, Bobby and I did. We walked in to a Western store, said we were yankees, knew nothing about cowboy hats, and wanted to buy two. The woman at the store was fantastic and we ended up with 2 really great hats… and much better educated about cowboy hats.

Then the whole crew went on the Royal Gorge train ride, a 24 mile train ride in to the Royal Gorge Canyon. We got tickets for the “Vista Dome” which is a train car with a curved glass roof. Made for great views (unsurprisingly).

Here’s Bobby with his new hat enjoying the view from the Vista Dome.

The poster in the bathroom said this section of rail had the most arresting view of any North American railway. I don’t normally trust the posters in the mens room, however this one seems to have nailed it.

We saw the Royal Gorge Bridge, the highest suspension bridge in the world at over 1k’ over the canyon floor. There used to be a park on the other side of the bridge, but unfortunately a serious fire destroyed the vast majority of it. They’re in the process of rebuilding and hope to have at least the bridge open later this summer.

This is a seriously big canyon.

And here’s the bridge from the other direction.

All in all, a very good day. Tomorrow promises to be a bit more serious from a riding perspective. We’re heading to Salida at 7k’ above sea level. There’s a relatively major climb heading out of Canon City, and then a slow climb all the way to Salida over the 60 mile duration of the ride. We’ll see how we feel by the end of that section. Thursday is our last riding day before the rest day, and it’s our first real mountain. We’ll head up and over Monarch Ridge at 11k’. I expect excitement.