Bikepacking The CT: Kenosha Pass, Georgia Pass, Ten Mile Range.

We started out this misty morning with breakfast at the Tarryall Reservoir Picnic area and I noticed what looked very much like a public washroom at the camping area on the other side of the reservoir. Yay! 

This was the third day on the trail, Tuesday July 21st 2015. We finished The Lost Creek Wilderness Detour, got back onto the CT on segment 5 and headed to Kenosha Pass.


 Along the way I stopped to photograph some wildflowers in a sunny alpine meadow and a short time later got caught in a hailstorm descending buff singletrack through a glade of quaking aspen. By the time we got to Kenosha pass it was warm and sunny once again and during our eight mile detour to Jefferson to resupply the weather alternated between rain and sun several times.

Columbine

Continuing on Segment 6 we got some pretty spectacular views of what looked like Ten Mile Range in the distance. We went as far as the foot of the climb to Georgia Pass and found a nice camping spot with water, an outhouse, and a flat area for the tents.  There were other campers here. My guess is some sort of Christian youth group, as we were serenaded by Christian song accompanied by guitar this evening.

The next day, July 22nd, was looking like the biggest climbing day of the tour with over 6,000 feet of climbing to get over Georgia Pass and then Ten Mile Range. The high point on Ten Mile Range being at an altitude of about 12,200 feet. The only time I've been that high is in a commercial airline. I finally conceded my small gear was to big. I needed smaller gears. I was walking stuff that I should have been riding and it was slowing us down.  At the pass we met another rider who offered to take our photo. He volunteered that he wasn't a big fan of the route because of all the hike-a-bike and rode off on some double track in a different direction.

Georgia Pass

The ascent to Ten Mile Range was a heartbreaker. Soooo much hike-a-bike that I was now starting to have problems with my feet. I had my Sidi XC MTB shoes. What's needed here is more hikeable footwear that you can ride in. I would get it a half size larger and use superfeet because like long distance hiking your feet swell up doing this. At one point (where I was hoping I was near the top - but wasn't) James came back to me on the trail and pulled my bike up. I think I shed a little tear there. The altitude was definitely affecting me and a little later I started to get a headache and took an Advil.

Top of the climb up to Ten Mile Range

Being on Ten Mile Range was a surreal experience my photographs just don't convey but simply remind me of the feeling.  Pretty barren, but there is wildlife here, we saw marmot and ptarmigan. We met another day rider on Ten Mile and learned that there is a series of cabins used by back country skiers in the winter. He pointed out the snow bowl where there is great alpine skiing if you can skin up there. The sun was getting low in the sky and we needed to be off Ten Mile before dark so we were now trying to make time and eventually, with some somewhat hairy descending, made it to within sight of the lights of Copper and camped.

Looking down Ten Mile Range to the snow bowl

Bikepacking The CT: Lost Creek Wilderness Detour

Started the second day on the trail feeling pretty good and it wasn't long before we came across the three dog girl from Manitoba. I couldn't help but think that taking care of three dogs, for a thru hiker, on this trail might be a little over ambitious. One of her dogs was not doing too good so she had left him with a local hiker. She was planning to walk to Durango and then back to Denver and would retrieve her dog on the way back.  The cultural vibe of this place was starting to become more evident to me now. It was almost west coast culture like but different.

This day was to be all about The Lost Creek Wilderness Detour. Five miles of The CT passes through an area that's designated as "Wilderness" and bikes are not permitted. Our detour around this area was about 70 miles of primarily forest service roads. Ouch! The detour passes through an area devastated  by the largest wildfire in Colorado history. The Hayman wildfire in 2002 affected more than 137,000 acres. 

The detour started with seven climbs, each about 500' in elevation, as a warmup. By noon it was around 30 celsius and now there was almost no shade for about 137,000 acres. We had lunch by a lone pine tree. The turkey vultures waited patiently nearby. We carried on and found some water. The mid afternoon storm clouds rolled in. We made  it to highway 77 and it started to rain.

I was thinking we might be able to resupply at Tarryall but there was nothing there. The rain was starting to come down heavy so we took cover under the canopy at the front entrance to an unmanned fire station and had coffee.  Once the rain slowed down to a sprinkle we packed up and rode on as far as the Tarryall Reservoir before running out of daylight. We camped at the picnic area shelter.

The original plan was to be through the detour on this day and positioned for an assault on Georgia Pass.  Didn't make it but we're writing it off as a rain delay. Hopefully better weather tomorrow.

Tarryall Reservoir Picnic Shelter

Bikepacking The CT: Littleton to Buffaloe Creek

From downtown Denver we rode down 16th street then jumped on the southbound lightrail with our bikes. Our destination for today was to be The Essex House Motel. Once we figured we were in Littleton, a suburb of Denver, we got off the train then realized we were to far south. After following the bike path along the Platte River in a northerly direction for a few miles we located the Motel. It was a bit of a dive but the price was right so this was home base for now. We had pizza and beer, rode to REI for freeze dried meal packets and got soaked in a late afternoon downpour which we had not yet realized was to become a regular thing.

We didn't sleep Friday night so Saturday night we had a good sleep. Sunday morning July 19th we packed up  and navigated the bike paths for about ten miles to the trailhead at the north end of The Colorado Trail near the entrance to Waterton Canyon.  We had made it to the start.

There were lots of walkers, hikers and bikers on the dirt road through Waterton Canyon but the Bighorn Sheep didn't seem to mind. We didn't see any bears but on August 28th, about six weeks after we were there, Waterton Canyon was closed to people for about two months because of foraging bears and too many people going there to get selfies with bears in the background. And they think we're crazy.
Once we got to The Strontia Dam our route became singletrack, climbing for about six miles to a lookout point where we met the dayrider from Denver.

Strontia Dam

This was followed by a wicked switchback descent down to the South Platte river where we filtered some water and met the dayrider from Denver again. He offered us some grapes, which we gladly accepted. Next was a challenging seven switchback climb to start the ascent to Raleigh Peak which was kind of a desolate place with the remains of an old mining operation and then miles of bare hills, the result of a wildfire. Later in the day we caught up to a couple on horseback from Missouri with two pack horses carrying their stuff. We had lunch at a campground at Little Scraggy Trailhead with a through hiker then went as far as mile eight of segment three and camped at Buffaloe Creek. Not bad for our first day on the trail.

Bikepacking The Colorado Trail: July 18th to August 1st 2015

I  felt like everything I had done up to now was directly or indirectly preparation for this adventure. There was no tour guide, no sag wagon, no emergency contact to come to collect us if things went badly. Our own preparation, skills, and adaptability would see us through; or not.

One of the first things I did after deciding on the CT was go to coloradotrail.org and order The Guide Book, The Data Book and The Trail Map. I read The Guide Book and left it at home. I carried The Trail Map as a backup to my GPS but did not have to reference it. The Data Book was kept easily accessible and was referred to often while out riding. It was very handy for deciding where to find water, where to resupply with food, and where to camp. 


Another great resource that I kept going back to leading up to this  ride was bikepackersmagazine.com . 
As part of our preparation we did a few overnighters to test our equipment and help decide what would be worth carrying for 800 kilometers along the continental divide.  This was good practice with a couple of significant differences between here and there being that bugs were not an issue in Colorado but the altitude was. 

Just getting to Denver with our bikes and then getting home again from Durango was an adventure in itself. We had decided to drive to Toronto in order to get a direct flight to Denver so that we didn't risk losing our bikes enroute. This meant driving out of Ottawa at close to midnite to catch an early morning flight out of TO then assembling our bikes at the Denver RTD bus terminal and riding to south Denver to a motel. No sleep this day.