Weekend Fail (kind-of)

I made the effort to ride from Bolam Pass on the Colorado Trail to Molas but ran into lots and lots of snow. I was at nearly 12k when I hit the first huge snow field and pushed on to find more later. I ran into a hike as well who suggested to me that it was impassable clear through to Molas. I was certainly the first bike tracks on this segment of the CT and a few hiking foot prints was all I saw except for the elk tracks.

Celebration Lake at Bolam Pass.

 

 

It might have been an omen as my legs were not that sparky with the previous weekends efforts. I turned around and headed down the road toward Purgatory stopping to decide what to do next. I though about dropping to HWY 550 and humping over Coalbank Pass and Molas but I had just ridden that section of highway on my Death Loop ride the weekend before. No thank you.  I had planned a night or two out planning to ride up toward Stony Pass but going home sounded good. I took a right turn and rode the 5 miles up to the top of Scotch Creek and descended down to HWY 145 and back home. Probably a good call with the legs feeling heavy. It was still a good ride with over 7 hours moving time on the bike.

Near 12k elevation. Turn around time.

The Selma loaded down.

Sunday morning I was deciding what to ride and thinking to do a short ride depending on how the legs felt. Shawn Gregory sent me a message that he was going to ride Morrison to Gold Run back down Bear Creek. OK, I'm in. I never turn down a ride and this sounded fun. My Selma was torn down so I could drop the fork off at the bike shop Monday so I had to opt for my full rigid El Mariachi single speed with the 32x20 gearing on it. Shawn was going with his 32x19 set up. Ouch. Well, it was ouch alright.

It was a perfect San Juan kind-of day. Very warm. There were a dozen or so trees down on Morrison making the flow not so flowy.

We descended the rocky Gold Run which is churned up form horses and down to Bear Creek and the 6 miles out to the trailhead where we had started. Ride time was 4 hours and 10 minutes for 21 miles with over 3k of climbing.

Another great route in my area. I really do live in a great place.

Morrison Trail.

The flowers were out in full force on Bear Creek.