Another great ride with a fun group of guys. Weather was moist and a little windy on the ridge lines, but overall it was a great ride.
Crew: Chaz, Brock, Shane, Mark, Todd, Ryan, Rob and me.
Thanks again to Ryan for taking the pictures and getting them to me. The video is a lot shorter that last week’s video, didn’t put music to it though, so turn on your music player if you like…
This was one of those “early-season, lots of snow, epic” rides! Thanks to Wally for dropping past the point-of-no-return and ensuring that we able to make some good memories. The snow was just hard enough that you could stay on top of it if you kept moving, but when you got to the edges, it was super soft, almost went over the bars a few times. There are a lot of big trees down on the front side of Oxford. Cherry creek was a lot of fun as well.
The video is a little longer than I should have done, but it was hard to cut out all the good stuff, following Brandon up the creek at the end was a blast.
Crew: Brandon, Ryan, Mike and me.
Thanks to Ryan for the pics.
Nice conditions again! Anybody know when the gates are opening for the trails up the canyon?
Crew: Nate, Tyson, Neil, Ken and me.
I know I’m behind on a few of our winter rides, but I wanted to get this week’s ride post out there. I was skeptical that we’d be able to make it on the trails I was thinking about but we were able to do more than I thought we would.
We started on the south end of the range by the silos near Weston canyon and were able to get up on the ridge line. There was some snow on the top that we had to bust through, it was soft and deep, but we were able to make it through. We dropped down clifton canyon, there is snow there too and quite a few logs to hop, it wasn’t too bad going down, but going up would definitely be harder. We hopped over to Davis canyon and successfully got down to Cody’s campfire, but there was a lot of deadfall, a little bit of snow and some mud. Mine hollow was even starting to get a little dusty and there were no issues on that trail at all. The lower trail back to the truck was in good shape and dirt was moisty perfection.
From the trail heading down to Cody’s campfire, we were able to look up on the ridge line and see that the normally-huge-cornice didn’t look too bad for this time of year, definitely do-able. I’m excited for a season full of good rides this year, ping me if you’re headed out!
Crew: just Neil and me.
An old high school buddy of mine has invited us to go out to 5-mile pass with them for a couple of years now, I was glad that we were able to make it work this year. The weather was perfect for October and the kids had a lot of fun riding with other kids their same age and skill level. There is tons of 2-track out there, you can ride forever and it’s easy to get lost, so if you don’t know the area, make sure you commit some landmarks to memory or take a GPS and maps.
The first day out there, Donnie and Bryce took me up a couple of Jeep trails, Rattlesnake and Constrictor, that I’ve read about on http://rockymountainextreme.com a few times. They were a pretty good workout, rock gardens and big obstacles. I didn’t dare attempt “Wayne’s world”, but I did conquer the one at the top of Constrictor (although I forgot to turn on the camera) and make it to the top of the trail before turning around and going back down the whole thing. I had a couple of stupid tip-overs in the rocks, but no real carnage.
The next day we took the kids for a pretty good loop up Sunshine Canyon. There is a mine at the top that some unfortunate Jeepers drove their jeep into several years ago. You can still see the tailgate and rear axle of the Jeep if you crawl out on the grate and look down 60ft or so. The big kids got out for another loop that included a few hill climbs, some rocks, some whoops, a flat tire, a little bit of single track and a pretty good workout.
*Update – here’s some old video of the Jeep from down inside the mine: http://youtu.be/yjy6ulseEQ8
Thanks to Donnie, Bryce and families for the hospitality and good times!
