Too much riding

I think Eszter nailed it when she said, “Durango has too much riding and not enough riders.” It was at the end of one trail or another, one raw and a little difficult to follow.

Not that it’s possible for there to be too much riding, anywhere, especially for people who like to wave fingers at maps.

One line on the map has intrigued us ever since we arrived in Durango. We’d heard multiple stories of people unable to follow the Little Elk trail. One Strava ride was named “Lost, oh so lost.” That rider was lucky in that they turned around and retraced trail back to the top. Our friends Cat and Tim weren’t quite as lucky — resorting to fighting through the forest for several hours before re-emerging on actual trail.

I figured with a GPS line of the route, we could crack it. So we met up with Cat (who was up for another try!) and we pedaled up the Dutch Creek trail, then off into the unknown.

“OK, here’s where it gets interesting.” In the meadow we found flowers, a skull, and very little in the way of a trail. Time to start following game trails *near* the GPS line. I knew we needed to get down to the cabin below, where trail would resume. But was there any semblance of a trail to take us there?

Not that we could find. After talking to a few locals it seems there’s some funny politics going on, as best as we can tell. Someone flagged a wrong route (that doesn’t go to this sign), someone later removed those flags. Maybe something about the trail being too easy to shuttle. I surmise that hunters like to keep the middle piece nebulous to keep people off it when they hunt in the area (there are hunting camps on both sides). But I don’t really know. It’s kind of funny that in a place with so many trails and so many beautiful areas, there can still be contention.

Whatever the case, both sides of the “Little Elk Triangle” are easy to follow and beautiful pieces of trail. The bottom half, especially, was a great reward for a little TopoFusion sleuth work — GPS keeping us in the right drainage and getting us to the cabin. Little Elk cracked!

Back to a line on the map that has become classic to us. Engineer Mountain! Max came to town a little early, so we took him for a small taste of what was to come on the Colorado Trail.

I was pretty insistent (for me) that we ride up there, and that we make it out to the flower power meadow.

Wonder why! (See also Eszter’s excellent Rules of D-Town). I’ll never tire of shooting or posting photos from up there… let alone being up there. Max hit Eszter up for all sorts of CTR advice, and seemed the most pleased whenever I took a photo of him in front of her. Oh Max!

Max’s pre-race adventures were only just beginning, and could be told as a most entertaining short story. I would try, but it’s his story, not mine. They say half the battle is getting to the start line. I think it was more than half for Max, which made us all the more excited when his race went beautifully. He just had to get out there first!

There was the small detail of riding back up the highway to fetch the car after we dropped down Engineer Mountain. Seems like both Eszter and I are good at coming up with really good reasons ™ to extend rides… perhaps beyond the limits of reason.

There was nothing unreasonable about combining “intervals” (emphasis on quotes) with one of the more shuttleable and “gnar gnar” descents in all of Durango. I’m pretty sure we’re the first to ever think of combining a workout with the Halflin trail. More common is to combine a pickup truck and the Halflin Trail.

It was new to us, and neither of our knees like downhill hiking. What could go wrong?

Nothing did on the way up (other than Eszter missing the turn off pavement in front of me, which we hadn’t studied closely — whoops). We just pedaled hard and soon found ourselves in a fire-recovering ridgetop – the Missionary Ridge Trail.

Here we go! Good thing I brought my big bike (great for intervals!).

It was steep. Steep enough I was starting to wonder the merits of the trail.

Then it mellowed out, and descended to a deep and red canyon, reminiscent of the riding we had done outside Ouray.

Chunk and exposure, huge views. This trail had it all. Wait, this is training, it’s not supposed to be fun!

Training for life. I’ll take as much training and as much life as I can get.

We pedaled back to find a house about to swell with friends and about to explode in CTR chaos. Let the frenzy begin!