Break in Vacation posts for, well... Vacation

This intermediate post interrupts the regularly scheduled vacation post for several reasons. One, we were on vacation in Crested Butte and secondly we picked up the puppy on the way home. I just didn't have enough time to post about vacation while on vacation and there was lots of fun and of course, the puppy is big news.

First Crested Butte, as always the place was terrific. We had a good time hanging out with some of the family. Tammi and I got to ride Trail 401 (pictured here), the most celebrated mountain bike trail in Colorado. There might be better trails, but not many - this is the creme da la creme; simply as good as it gets. We did 29 miles door to door and we were trashed. We haven't gotten out as much as we would like.

Crested Butte is a great town and we did a lot of hanging out. There was a mountain bike fest and all the craziness surrounding such an event. A big black bear walked by the deck one morning - the kids loved that. I think Traci and Owen really liked the trip down too. An accident closed the highway forcing a detour on their return home so they see Cottonwood Pass, Schofield Pass, Paradise Pass, Hoosier Pass, and Loveland Pass - it was an all day detour!


I also got in a fair amount of climbing with Owen, my brother-in-law; who I met Tammi through. We used to climb together a lot, so it was great to be roped up with him again. I hope we can do it some more. We ended up climbing the Bastille in El Dorado Canyon yesterday - felt like old times. It is a old school 5.7 put up by Layton Kor in the 70's. The Bastille is shown at the right and is just what you might expect - a large prow, and here's a picture of the crack. The first three pitches are a real joy. It is the most famous of the climbs in El Dorado.

Anyway, we had a great time with Owen and Traci and kids. I'll post about the puppy in a separate post.

Buffalo Creek - Again

Well, this is our favorite place to ride. We got some on Saturday, but it was a low energy day - a terrible ride for me. We got in 20, but I just wasn't up to it much. I thought I would post this picture of Tammi raging a bit. There are jumps everywhere - this is a small one and simply sweet, sweet singletrack.

Buffalo Creek

Tammi and I managed to get up to Buffalo Creek again this week end. The weather was perfect for the most part. It blew up a bit of a storm during the last three miles, but no big deal. There was some snow left from last week's storm, but only about a dozen or so patches. With it, a little mud - but that only adds to the fun. We got in 18 miles of good, hard single track in good time - a good early season ride. The trail had a few blow-downs, but not like last week.

Otherwise, it was a typical week end - mow the lawn, clean the garage and all of the other stuff that gets in the way.

Yea!

This weekend Tammi and I got out to our favorite mountain biking area - Buffalo Creek. It was sweeeet to be out.

It's been a long winter. We usually start up Buck Gulch, which has a 1000 foot climb out of Pine Creek Ranch. Wow, definitely a long winter - I've got some work to do. All-in-all it wasn't horrible, but I definitely have some serious work-outs to put in.

There was only a little snow left above 7500 feet, but I think it was just about the first week-end the trails were rideable. But, the mountains got hammered yesterday, so I expect this weekend is out. The trails in Buffalo Creek are some of the best, and perhaps, arguably the best in Colorado and thus, just about anywhere. (There are some better sections - trail 465 in Crested Butte, Frutia, the Flume in Winter Park, but not whole areas) And, what makes them so good is just how rideable they are. Well, it's a mess up there now, at least Buck Gulch and Strawberry Gulch. There are hundreds of trees down and the usually wide open trails are now clogged with downed trees. In some of the burned areas the winter blow-downs are simply a spring occurrence, but good, healthy Ponderosa blowing down is something entirely different. I suppose the winds must have been once in a century winds because many older Ponderosa Pines were down - some of them more than 200 years-old. I'm sure it will get cleared quickly, and I wish I could help, but the shear number of down trees will take quite a mechanized effort.

One of the unique things about Buffalo Creek is the burns. The first burn, the Buffalo Creek fire was in 1996, the second; the High Meadows Fire was in 2000. The Hayman Fire, the big kahuna, didn't make it over Green Mountain, but is very close (the Hayman Fire is the largest fire in Colorado's history burning 138,000 acres and 600 buildings. It rained down ash at our house almost 50 miles away and I remember, the day was almost black as night in downtown Denver - the entire city was shrouded in a dense, black, choking smoke). These are all big burns. Most of the time, an area is avoided after a burn, but the Forest Service has created this special mountain biking area using the burns and I really enjoy ridding through them. The flowers are terrific and the wide-open space unparalleled. The tracks are smooth and fast.

I don't know how many miles of single track there are, but it's easy to do a forty-mile ride and never go down the same trail. I suppose there are about sixty to seventy-miles of excellent trails - there simply isn't any junk. Most of the climbs are between 800 and 1000 feet and a good rides will get you four good climbs. The down hills are pure joy. The important part to remember is that these trails were designed for mountain bikes so there are no blind curves, unrideable sections, or bad rutting.

Anyway, this is our big work-out room and we love it - it's good to be back in the saddle.