Monarch Crest

Chris and Heather were kind enough to invite us along on a Monarch Crest Trail ride this fall. Abbey and Cindy decided to sit this one out since they hadn't been doing enough riding this year, and the Monarch Crest Trail is a pretty long haul. We had ridden the Monarch Crest Trail last year on Labor Day Weekend. Here's a link to that, in case you'd like to review.

We met the CH&C and Bobby on Friday, 18 September near Monarch, CO, where they'd rented a cabin. It was nice. The cabin was compact but worked well. Quinn and I shared a Murphy bed, which was sort of interesting. Then we got up Saturday morning, had a big breakfast, and then set up our shuttle. We left C&Hs truck down in Poncha Springs where we'd end up when the ride was done, and then used our Armada to haul the four of us and our bikes up to Monarch pass. Here's a link to our route.

It was a great ride again, as expected. The weather was perfect -- just try to find a cloud in these pictures. The rainbow trail was tough, as expected, but on the gnarly rocky downhills Quinn and his Heckler just floated down. And I had to try to keep up. That night we had pizza in Salida and the relaxed in the hot tub at the cabin before bed. I'm already looking forward to next time.

Building Little Scraggy Trail in the Buffalo Creek Recreation Area

Quinn and I participated in a couple of trail building days with COMBA this year. We've been helping to build the Little Scraggy Trail, which will eventually form big loop out to the south from the Colorado Trail. The first leg was finished last year. We've been helping with the west side this year. I think it's supposed to all finished in 2016.

It's been fun. We meet the group around 8 or 9 a.m. Saturday morning. COMBA provides coffee and some snacks and goes through a brief safety training, mostly about safe usage of the tools. Then we break into groups and carry our tools up to the trail section we'll be working on. Both times, the areas we've worked were already marked, so our job was to clear the surface and make a trail. Sometimes there's some rock moving involved, which is pretty fun.

For the September 12th weekend, we camped Saturday night with COMBA and did some riding in the morning before we headed home. Here's the first piece of the Little Scraggy Trail.

These pictures are from the July trail day.

Quinn with a McLeod:

Three Rides in Three Days

This was just about the best three days a mountain biking dad could have asked for. This time we were off ot our favorite fast and easy Buffalo Creek Loop. Check it out here. And it was all four of us this time. Abbey hadn't been on the bike much this summer, so was struggling a bit more than usual. And I think Quinn was getting tired after three days of riding. But it was a blast.

Hall Ranch on the Heckler

I've probably written something like this before, but Hall Ranch has to be one of the nicest parks in the world. I'm not sure exactly what is about it; maybe it's the big sky views, open meadows, exposed rocks, and scrubby pines; maybe it's the fun flowing trails; it's probably both; but it's just great. That said we've had a couple of failed rides at Hall Ranch. Once we started up the Antelope trail with the full four of scaq, but Abbey was coming down with a cold, and it seemed that the exertion of the climb hit her like an asteroid. She was miserable, so we just stopped and went home. And last year Quinn took a hard fall coming down the smooth trails through the valley and seriously sprained his wrist. Here's a link to that story.

My favorite way to ride Hall Ranch is to start in the city of Lyons, CO, and ride up the road to enter the park on the Antelope Trail, then ride out and around the Nelson Loop at the north end of the park, come down the rocky Bitterbrush Trail, and roll back into Lyons from the south. Click here for the map.

This time it was just Quinn and me. We did several rides with just the two of us this year since Abbey has been busy being a drum major in the Cherry Creek High School Marching Band. It was a great ride; the Heckler seems to be working out really well for Quinn, and this trail was just the sort of thing it's made for. Here are some pics from the ride: