In the shadow of Pikes Peak

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Starting out in the morning - kinda chilly at 9000 feet!

Waking up to freezing temperatures but sunny skies, Nick and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and do some exploring on the bike yesterday.Time to load up the backpacks with cold weather gear and some food and just see where the trails would take us! He'd just gotten his GPS working as well, so we were able to experiment with that. On the game plan - Pikes Peak and the Ring the Peak Trail. We drove a few miles up the tool road, parked the car and hit the trails. With in a few minutes, we were on the Ring the Peak trail. There were some sweet sections of single track before Catamount, with a nice downhill winding through the aspens. The views of the Rampart Range were great, but looking over to US 24 on the op of Mount Ester was a little crazy. That was a long drop - it had to be quite the climb up on the Ring the Peak trail. Nick told me he and Dan had just hiked it last year, pushing the bikes. I had total sympathy, since there were a few hills I was pushing my bike up on this ride!


View from South Catamount Dam

Nick verifying our location on the map
 The goal was to reach Catamount Reservoir, then just ride around for a while. Since Catamount wasn't open yet, we had the trails and roads to ourselves. Nick was taking waypoints on the GPS and comparing to the map, so we knew where we were on the mountain's slopes. Finally, we hooked back into the Ring the Peak trail and decided it was time to turn around. Nick wanted to go a little farther, but I was starting to get tired. It would be mostly downhill back to the car, but there were some long, sustained climbs to conquer first. We'd had a good ride and learned some new double and single track trails. It was such a great day - a little nippy, but just wonderful riding weather. In the end, we timed things perfectly. After we got off the mountain, the clouds started descending and snowflakes started flying!

Riding among the Aspens on the Ring the Peak Trail


Comments

  1. John CarterMay 4, 2011 at 5:04 PM

    Love your blog. I started reading it right after you did Silverman. Your writing is very interesting.

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