Nothing like a whirlwind trip to celebrate a new decade! This past weekend was a quick trip to Grand Junction and back for some exploring, new trails and a little business. I learned plenty during the business part of the trip and will see if more information comes of it. But the rest of the trip was worth it!
Saturday, after a cool night atopt Monarch Pass, we headed for Hartman Rocks. Sure, We’ve ridden there plenty of time between 24 Hours in the Sage, Growler and all the pre-rides for those events. Those days we headed out specifically to check out sections of the courses. This ride we had no agenda. Just ride bikes. Okay, one agenda - Nick wanted to ride Rattlesnake. He always wants to ride Rattlesnake! We did a little meandering to get there, hitting up some trails that Nick never gets to ride. When the Growler goes counter clockwise, he misses the fun descent off Ridge Trail, so that was also on the trail menu. Despite it being a Saturday, the trails were empty. I’m sure everyone was riding up in CB, dealing with the snow and mud on the high alpine trails. Made it better for us! We were able to session a few rocks obstacles that I always struggle with during Growler. This time, I figured out my line and got that rock on Gateway. Hartmans is growing on me - I was terrified of the rocks and spent every section between the rocks on my first Growler looking towards the next outcropping. Now, I look forward to them!
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| Nick studying the trail as the sun set over Grand Junction |
The plan for Saturday night was to head up the Grand Mesa and find a spot to camp there. I’ve never been up on the Grand Mesa, so was really looking forward to exploring the trails up there. The drive up was amazing - the contrast between the desert in the valley below and the green near alpine of the Mesa. It was almost 11,000 feet at the Mesa Top parking lot. I spent some time studying the maps, trying to figure out where would be the best place to set up camp for the night. I wanted to run in the morning and then we would ride. Except... When we got out of the van and walked over to one of the map kiosks on the mesa top, we were swarmed. Beyond swarmed. The mosquitos were Minnesota quality in both size and quantity! Even with copious amounts of bug spray, we couldn’t hike down one of the trails near Carson Lake without clouds surrounding us. Um, yeah. Not gonna try camping there! I didn’t feel like getting eaten alive just to check out some new trails. So down we went into the Grand Valley. We would deal with the heat of the desert over the mosquitos of the mesa. We actually found a decent place to park for the night and settled in. It would be hot, but there were no bugs! And we were close enough to the trails for me to get up at sunrise and run before it got hot.
A short run on the Lunch Loop trails and then it was time to head to ride. Since we weren’t going to explore Grand Mesa, the next best thing was another new trail. Palisade Rim this time! It wasn’t quite dry last time we were in Grand Junction, but with 90* heat it was definitely dry now! Our goal was both the lower and the upper loops. The step of the lollipop from HWY 6 up was quite the climb. And there was something that our trails in COS are now lacking - technical features and rocks to have to climb. Nope, no nearly smooth path here - this was a challenging and fun climb. The first half of the lower loop was pretty easy - more climbing on fairly mellow singletrack. We kept climbing after reaching the junction with the stem to the upper loop. Not hard climbing, but sustained and hot. No shade at all! Wasn’t too bad as long as we kept the pace easy, which Nick was happy to do for me. Once we started downhill though, the trail edged ever closer to the cliff side. Too close for comfort for me! Focusing on the trail was all I could do to keep moving. I was still struggling as we got closer and closer to a huge drop off. Me and left exposures don’t do well at all! I couldn’t get out of my head, even just looking at the trail right in front of me. Then finally, we go back onto the stem again. I could relax for a little! There was more chunky left exposure coming and I wanted to have gotten out of my head before we hit it. No such luck. We were quickly in the exposure section and while I was able to ride some things, there were other things I had to walk. Not because of the technical features, but because of the exposure. That is life. I know when it’s coming and when I need to just get off and walk. But overall, Palisade Rim was a fun trail. It’s always nice to get something different. And with the Palisade Plunge coming, there’s going to be more there!
Monday afternoon, on the way out of Grand Junction, we decided to check out the RAT. It was a bit of a detour, but again - new trails! We didn’t know what to expect at the Ridgeway Area Trails, but worth a chance. While the trails weren’t the techy, rock filled trails Nick loves there was still plenty of fun to be had. Too bad I was feeling like crap after a busy morning! We stuck to the easier trails - the flow trails and the steady climbing. I was definitely sluggish and cranky with how I was riding. There will be another day to fully explore the RAT.
And finally - the last day before it was time to start heading home and reentering "real life." Long run time! I had grand plans of covering 25 miles on the CT. Keep it simple and easy - just a straight up out and back. Maybe a double out and back pending on where we camped for the night. But when we got parked and settled for the night, I started looking at the maps. Sure, I could do the planned long run and get the miles. Or.. We were camped in the shadow of two 14ers - Shavano and Tabaguche. Maybe I could work those into my run? I’m not going to start peak bagging any time soon, but I’ve ridden past the start of the Shavano trail so many times. This would be the perfect opportunity to explore. Of course, I conveniently ignored the more then 4,000 foot elevation gain from start of the trail to the summit - in less then 5 miles. Why let reality get in the way of a good idea? I might need to drop the total distance of the run - I only had six hours - but I could get a lot of ground covered in six hours.
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| Taking the left this time! |
In the morning, I headed north on the CT. I was at least going to do Shavano - I'd decided that much. If the trail got too sketchy or I started running out of time, I would bail on Tabaguche. It didn't take me too long to get to Blanks Cabin. The trail was pretty easy running once I got to top of the climb out of the North Fork drainage. And this time, at the sign I'd passed so many times, I turned up. Right away, I knew the climb would be slow. I settled into my ultra power hike mode and started marching up the hill. The trail was loose, rocky and full of baby heads - perfect training for Sheep Mountain! Of course, I stopped plenty of times to look around, take photos and generally enjoy the time being in the mountains. There was so much water and so many flowers!
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| Because you can't NOT take a photo of columbines.... |
The trail was steeper then I'd anticipated - that convenient fact about ignoring 4,000 feet of elevation gain coming back to bite me. I pondered turning around a few times. It was slower going then I'd wanted and steep enough that the descent wouldn't be all that fast either. I kept telling myself that I had six hours - I would be able to make up the time once I got off the mountain and get some solid distance still. Once I hit tree line, the trail started getting crowded. Seriously - it was Tuesday and I hadn't gotten as early a start as I wanted. Yet there were so many people on the trail, both still climbing and descending! Welcome to the trail leading to the summit of a 14er.... At the saddle just south of Shavano, the trail deteriorated into near rock scrambling. I picked my way up and up, dodging hikers. They were all giving me looks like I wasn't prepared with my little pack, but I was probably carrying more emergency gear then any of them. Finally, I reached the summit. More people - which made getting the summit photo nice, but I was in awe of how many people were there. Once I glanced over towards Tabaguche, I decided that I wasn't going to tag both on that day. There was a long snow field that I could see people climbing up. Add that into descending back down onto a ridge line, then having to climb back up I would run out of time. Clouds were also starting to build around me, so after photos, I hightailed it down and off the mountain. They aren't going anywhere.
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| At the summit of Shavano |
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| View to the north - Mount Elbert looming close and the snow field across the Tabaguche trail to the left |
Those clouds started rumbling just after I got back onto the CT, with pea sized hail and heavy rain soon following. I'd continued a little further north on the CT and turned around as the rain picked up. Again, time was getting short and I didn't want Nick to be waiting too long. He'd gone on his own adventure up the North Fork Road, but that mean he wouldn't start getting worried as my six hour deadline approached. The running back south to van was pretty smooth, but my distance was no where near what I'd wanted. When I reached the van, I told Nick I was going to go south for a little longer, figuring it would be easy to get a few more miles. Yeah - the CT climbed right away from the road and my anticipated 20 minutes turned into 30. Whoops...
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| Clouds loom over the North Fork valley |
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| There's a good reason the road was closed. Avalanche! |
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