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:

Alderfer Three Sisters on the Heckler

We were anxious for the chance to get Quinn out on the trail on the Heckler. We decided to go to the trail we've probably ridden more than any other; our favorite loop at Alderfer Three Sisters Park near Evergreen, CO. I thought the heavier bike and larger wheels might slow him down going up hill, but if anything he seemed faster. I'm sure it's largely mental, anyway.

 
This is tricky switchback. It feels scary as you come into it because it appears, from the bike seat, that the trail drops of steeply beyond the rocks on the outside of the turn. From this camera angle it doesn't look so bad. Not a fatal fall, anyway. Most cyclists we see walk this corner, but not Quinn, our switchback master.

Here's the trick to making the tight turn. Rather than stay in the center of trail on the approach, you swing your front tire out and up onto the adjacent rock face so you can cut the corner tight, but keep a smooth arc. The pictures probably show it best:

Quinn's Heckler

This is another retro-blog, written on Thanksgiving Day 2015...

Quinn is now riding a new Santa Cruz Heckler. When we first came to Colorado in 2012, Quinn had just outgrown his Scott Scale, with 20-inch wheels, so we up-sized him to a Santa Cruz Juliana, which I picked up used in Moab. The Julian was about the smallest 26-inch wheel, dual squish bike week could find, with a about a 13-inch frame. It's been a great bike for him. It was a little big at first, but he's grown at least a foot taller since then. So the new Heckler is 17-inch frame with 27.5-inch wheels.

Mountain bikes are rather expensive these days, even the cheap ones, so we were hoping to find a last-year's-model-closeout sort of deal this fall. I also wanted to buy it from a local shop rather than buying it online, so we spent some time looking locally, but most of what we were finding was still too pricey or not quite the right bike. Or both. So when this one showed up on Colorado Cyclist, with only one medium size left, we grabbed it. We didn't tell Quinn it was coming, so it was a pretty nice surprise for him. Lucky little shit.

Collegiate Peaks Backpack

I'm writing this on Thanksgiving Day 2015. We've had just about the busiest summer and fall ever, so as a consequence this blog has been neglected. But this is not just a blog, it's the history of scaq, and I'm not planning to let it die. Not yet. I'm going to post some of the best of the summer and fall of 2015 now.

We don't do a lot of backpacking, but we've been trying to get in one short trip each summer so we don't forget how it works. This year we spent a few days in the Collegiate Peaks. We left home early the morning of the 30 July, and drove to the North Cottonwood Trailhead, which was straight west of Buena Vista, CO. The road to the trailhead was rough and steep, and our little Kia Soul, stuffed with a few days worth of backpacking gear, had a little trouble getting up the loose, steep scree that composed the road. But we made it, only once having to back up and try again.

We'd packed for three days, but only had a general plan was of following the Kroenke Lake Trail west into the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness and camping somewhere nice. I hoped to camp near the Continental Divide where we could spend a couple of days exploring above timberline, hiking up to a couple of areas passes. If you're looking at a map, the trail we were on is in the valley just north of Mount Yale.

We'd gotten a new pack, and Quinn decided it was his. It was probably just a little too big for him at that time, but he's since grown a couple of inches. Next summer, if we do this again, it will be Abbey's turn for a new pack. Hers is a little too small.

Below is a picture of Kroenke Lake. There were some good camping spots around the lake, but the mosquitoes were thick, and the other campers weren't thin.

We could see on the map that there was a bench of sorts a few hundred feet above Kroenke Lake, and thought there might be some camping opportunities up there. It was a steep climb up to the bench, and although we'd only walked about 4 miles, we were getting tired. We found a couple of nice camping spots on the bench, and set up camp. That night there was thunderstorms in the distance in the valley below us. We sat on our bench and watched distant lightning, hoping it wouldn't come our way.

The next morning we set out to climb up to the Continental Divide. We had to cross a few snow fields to get there, and the wind was really strong when we reached the top. We'd planned to follow the trail along the divide to the next pass, but even though it was only 11 a.m., there were some dangerous looking cloud popping up, and we didn't want to add our names to this year's list of lightning victims, so we turned back. There was never any lightning, but we spent much of the rest of the day waiting out rain showers in our camp. We got out once to climb the boulder field behind our camp, but ended up getting sent back down by rain and snow. I was concerned about broken legs as we scrambled over slippery, wet Kia-sized boulders.

On the morning of the third day we had a nice breakfast in our rocky kitchen on the bench before packing up and heading back to the trailhead.

It was a pretty good trip, but might have been a little more interesting if we'd planned another day or two with a little more traveling and a little less time spent above 12,000 feet waiting out the rain.

Leadville

Abbey and some friends spent a few days camping south of Leadville this weekend. It took some convincing for us to let her do it, but eventually we gave in. So on Sunday, the rest of us, including Grandma and Amos, made a day trip to Leadville so that we could check up on or possibly rescue our daughter. We did neither, but we had a pretty good time.

Quinn and I brought our old, white, well-used and well-loved, almost-matching Santa Cruz bikes with the intention of getting a little high-altitude pedaling. We stopped in at Cycles of Life to get some suggestions about the Timberline trails, which are just outside of Leadville. The Timberline trails are very much like Michigan mountain bike trails--lots of linear distance of trails squeezed into a fairly small area. Small concentric circles and twists and turns and ups and downs. The guy at the shop was very friendly and helpful--gave us a map and some suggestions for trails and directions. He also had some good ideas for Cindy and Sharon for their exploration of the Mineral Belt trail--a paved trail, mostly old railroad grade, that makes a big loop around Leadville. Cycles of Life seems like a great shop.

The trails were fun. Here is our Garmin log. It was raining, so the fog and clouds obscured our views of the surrounding mountains, and the rain moving towards us across the valley made us feel a little rushed to get in our ride and be done. 

Here's Quinn checking out the view from the "Upper Deck."

Most of the trails were moderatily easy cross-country trails, fairly rocky, with lots of curves, but easy enough that most any mountain biker would find them fast, fun, and rideable. There was one trail, "Jump Trail," that had some interesting features. Here's Quinn testing one of the drops:

After having a hot, rough ride the previous day at Deer Creek Canyon, it was nice to have this fun ride to finish out the weekend.

Little Scraggy Trail and Centennial Cone

We are running out of summer. Out of desperation for some vacation, we extended our weekend into a Monday. But I'll start back on Saturday when Quinn and I went to the Buffalo Creek area to do some trail building with COMBA. We worked on a continuation of the Little Scraggy Trail, the first half of which was completed last year. Eventually it will be about a 10- or 12-mile loop connected to the Colorado Trail. This was our first trail building event with COMBA. We met the group at 8:30, had some coffee and muffins, and then walked a couple of miles to the section of trail we'd be working on. The trail was flagged, so mostly what we had to do was use some tools to remove the organic layer and get the slope right. There were some more challenging spots where we had to figure out how to get the trail past loose rocks in and out of a drainage. It was fun. Here's a picture of Quinn with a McLeod.

We worked until about 1:30, then walked back to the staging area (in a campground) where COMBA set up a grill and we had a mid-afternoon lunch. Quinn and I brought our bikes with us, hoping for a ride after the trail building was done, but we were pretty tired, and then the afternoon storms rolled in. So we just headed home.

Sunday was spent running errands and spending money. Quinn's feet are growing at about an inch a month, I think, so he's almost always in need of new shoes. I also did some cleanup on the black tandem, including replacing the fluid in the suspension fork, and we set up my Nickel for Luca to ride the next day.

Monday morning, instead of going to work, we got an early start for a ride at Centennial Cone Park. We loaded the bikes and gear onto the big black Armada and picked up Abbey's Luca on the way. Cindy and I rode the black tandem, the kids their usual bikes, and Luca rode my Nickel. It worked out pretty well that way, but tandem mountain biking is a challenge! Click here to see our route on Garmin Connect.

Quinn had to make sure the tandem was working before Cindy and I got on it.

It was a beautiful day to be out. The high temperature was only about 80 F, so it was very comfortable; just a little warm in the sun.

The rain has made for happy vegetation this year.

There aren't many challenging rocks on the Centennial Cone loop, mostly just a bunch of tight switchbacks, but there is one fun staircase. Quinn rode it very smoothly.

Tandem on the Colorado Trail

It's been a long time since I found the time and effort to post anything here. Not since spring break back in April. So what's been going on?  We lost a lot of time to an unproductive house hunt; I made two work-related trips to Wisconsin in May and one to Utah in June; Cindy had bus competitions in May and June; Abbey and Cindy ran a half marathon in early June; Quinn got a computer and became assimilated; there was school, of course, which wrapped up at the end of May; and Abbey went to Drum Major Academy (boot camp). And at the end of May we moved out of rental house into a different rental house a few block down the hill. So we've been busy. We've had some fun, and a few good rides, but this spring and summer have just about gotten away.

But this weekend Cindy and I have had an unusual experience: Quinn and Grandma flew to Texas for the week, and Abbey went up to Greeley for Band Leadership Training. We have a weekend to ourselves for the first time in 16 years. So we went mountain biking, of course.

Since it was just the two of us, we thought a tandem ride would be the way to go. We rode up the Waterton Canyon road to Lenny's Rest and then continued west (down and up) until we reached the highest point on the trail along the south side of Strontia Springs Reservoir. Click here to see our route on Garmin Connect.

We were looking for something we might not do with the kids. This was definitely that. It was undoubtedly the hardest ride we've done on the tandem. Not the six miles up or down the easy road in Waterton Canyon; just all the rest of it. That stretch of Colorado Trail was not "built by mountain bikers for mountain bikers." It was rough and rocky and steep, with many, many very tight switchbacks that we could not handle on the tandem. It was wet and slick and thickly vegetated. We pushed and dragged the tandem through many steep rocky trail segments. I can't count how many times we had to dismount, drag, and remount. It was really hard work, we were battered and scratched and bruised and exhausted. It was really challenging and fun. I cannot think of a better way to have spent our day together!