5:45pm – this is the earliest we have stopped all summer. We had just waited out a thunderstorm near treeline and threatening skies had pushed us through the last miles of Poison Ridge. We had escaped into the lower trees. A glance ahead on the GPS revealed we were set to climb right back to 11,500′.
Neither of us wanted to risk it. We’d seen some glimpses of the radar while waiting out the first storm under the tarp. Lots of moisture, statewide.
So we camped early. I think we both needed a few minutes to be ‘ok’ with stopping so early. Relaxing around the fire and watching it lightly drizzle made it easy to ‘deal.’
I think this might be our lowest mileage day yet. All entirely on the CDT, and all pretty dang burly. Only the first couple miles of Poison Ridge were well constructed and ‘easy’ to ride. The rest was a challenge.
It all started with Parkview Mountain. A mere 3000′ push to the summit. It’s the highest point around, by far, and well worth the effort. But there isn’t much you can ride. We snuck in little pieces of pedaling here or there, but otherwise it was a nice hike.
At the summit a danky and bug filled old lookout and a very curious mountain goat waited. It was neat to watch him pop his head over from the top to check us out. He was OK with sharing the summit, keeping a short distance from us and snacking on anything that looked green.
The brits and uncle Gary joined us at the summit. They camped lower and were gaining on us near the top. We headed down first, to the tune of no trail and mostly tundra. We walked at first, then threw our weight back and slowly bounced down the mountain.
It is so cool that this trail is open to bikes, though few would ever want to ride it.
A couples miles of trail-less riding along the divide led us to a descent of sorts. There was a light hint of a trail — just enough to ride. In the trees it got good, very good. But in the meadows — barely a trail. Even the descent was hard work and we were feeling it.
Water was running thing as we went to ‘contour’ around Haystack Mountain. The bountiful water sources of central/southern Colorado have run out. We have to be more careful now. Eventually we did find a creek on the side of Haystack, but we were both nearly dry by the time we got there.
Haystack’s trail was tough work. On paper it looks nice — trending downhill. But the trail throws all sorts of steep gut punches at you, and is narrow/primitive.
At Troublesome Pass (aptly named) we sat and ate lunch. What a relief.
Trail conditinons improved as we actually rode extended sections of climbing. Eszter was pulling off some nice steepies, just like yesterday.
We reached another pass that informed us some volunteers built the trail in 1990. They did an excellent job. Whoever was in charge decided to break rank and file from standard CDT procedure — the trail didn’t feel the need to tag each and every high point along the divide. Brilliant climbing — we can see why some small number of people have actually ridden it.
About the time the trail transitioned to fall line and minor summit tagging, we started noticing the clouds building in the valley. It wasn’t long before we heard thunder. Under Sheep Mountain we hunkered down in some trees, well off the divide but still pretty high. When it rained we ducked under the tarp. My phone worked, so we watched the radar, ate snacks and waited for it to pass.
The following miles were tenuous at best. Steep climbing, hike-a-biking and some fun descending. It was really hard to tell what the weather was doing, but we didn’t want to get caught up high.
We sighed in relief as we hit the downhill, which was very well done and super fun to ride. A super campsite presented itself, which we both skipped and brushed off. Then I looked at the maps/GPS, and we changed our tune pretty quick.
The only downside of stopping early is that we have limited calories. It’ll be light making it into Steamboat tomorrow, but we have some roads, so in theory it should go much, much faster than today!
Overall, a hard but very rewarding day on the CDT. The mountains of Colorado aren’t done dishing out the challenge, or the beauty. More please!
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