Day 40, 41 - Section 3B - Colorado
09/03/06 to
09/04/06
Steamboat State Park, CO - Rest Day
Rest Day
I ended up staying here for 3 days and during that time
I met more people than I have in the 3 years I have
lived in San Diego. I ran into Peter and Yoke again.
On Sunday morning I went to church and I was glad I did.
I met a lot of wonderful people and was invited to lunch
by the pastor. After lunch they invited me
to come with them on a family campfire picnic they do
once a month. We drove up to Rabbit Ears Pass and we had
a terrific time.
I am continually amazed by the hospitality in these
parts.
Steamboat Springs was a great town to
take a couple days rest. The bike shops were some of the
best on the trip and had a great inventory of parts. The
restaurants are also very good. My favorite restaurant
was Winona’s.
Another nice part of staying at the
Steamboat RV park was the free shuttle bus came to he
campsite every half hour to take campers into town. The
camp site is 2 miles from town.
Day 42 - Section 3B - Colorado
09/05/06
Steamboat Springs RV Park, CO 105m to Lynx
Pass 143m = 38 miles
Up, Up, and Up
I hit the trail after having lunch with Peter and
Yoke at Winona’s. I wanted to make this lunch special
because this will most likely be the last time I will
see Peter and Yoke. I ordered a huge kosher sandwich on
rye and it was divine! I took half of my sandwich with
me for the trail.
The first 1/3 of the ride was paved then
it turned back into dirt. Even though the
whole ride was up hill, it was very easy. While on the
trail I saw a really neat gopher snake and took pictures of it.
 
Tonight I camped with Mark, another solo
GDMBR rider I
met at Steamboat Springs RV Park.
The campground at Lynx Pass was very nice and quiet.
The water pump was a bit tricky to find and the water
was cloudy white, but safe.
Before arriving at the campground, a mile back on the
trail, I heard a loud thump in the forest. It sounded
like a big animal fell over. I couldn’t see anything so
I kept going. Two hours later when I was cooking dinner
in camp, a hunter came driving in on his ATV. He looked
really pale and not very coherent. So I asked if he was
ok. He replied no and I administered first aid to him for
trauma. Evidently he was hunting for Deer when he fell
out of his deer stand that was 10 feet up in a tree. The
noise I heard earlier was him hitting the ground. I felt
bad for him, but I was also relieved that it was not a
deer.
Day 43 - Section 3B - Colorado
09/06/06
Lynx Pass 143m to Williams Fork Reservoir
194m = 51 miles
Character Building 101
This morning started off wonderfully. I felt great
and the weather was excellent.
 I
soon came to my first major stream crossing. Normally
this stream is 4 to 5-feet deep but it is late in the
season so it was only knee high. I have seen in other
peoples journals were riders were up to their chests in
the stream. The water was painfully cold!
By mid morning some fierce head winds kicked up and
it started to rain. The trail conditions were great
despite being wet. I love the dirt roads in Colorado.
They are treated with something that keeps them from
becoming soft and muddy. The rain made things even more
dramatic and beautiful. Although the wind was annoying,
I was happy to be riding and seeing all this. The air
felt like an early snow was coming and the Aspens were
starting to turn yellow.
Radium was an interesting place. The trails were
fairly steep but not too difficult. The downhill
portion was really sketchy because the trail was very
steep and eroded in some sections.
 
The ride turned strenuous near Kremmling. The route goes
through a high pressure wind zone that was between two mountain
ridges and the head winds were very intense. I struggled
to average 4 mph during this section.
Tonight I camped at Williams Fork Reservoir. There is
no water pump so I had to filter water from the lake.
This area is very exposed and the park service posted high
wind advisories all over the place. Fortunately, at the
moment, everything is peaceful.
Day 44 - Section 3B/4A - Colorado
09/07/06
Williams Fork Reservoir 194m to EOS 233m to
Frisco 6m = 45 miles
Frisco
This morning was bitterly cold and heavy with frost. For the most part
the route was an easy up hill, except for a really steep
6 mile section that was downhill and super fast. My
average speed on the decent was 44mph. I had to stop
and put on more cloths because the wind chill was so
cold.
I made it into Silverthorne, CO by noon. I kept going
towards Frisco because that is where the camp site is
located. Frisco is the next community on the other side
of Dillon Reservoir. It was much nicer than Silverthorne. I was going to camp
tonight, but it
started to rain so I stayed the night at a hotel.
After having dinner at an Italian restaurant, the
weather became extremely stormy with wind and rain.
Back at the hotel, I used the computer in the lobby
to update my GPS. Finding the resources to update my GPS
are very scarce.
Day 45 - Section 4A - Colorado
09/08/06
Frisco, CO 6m = 0 miles
Rest Day
It was very stormy all day. I went to the outdoor
shop and bought a MSR 6-Liter dromedary water bag.
Day 46 - Section 4A - Colorado
09/09/06
Frisco, CO 6m to Salida, CO 113m = 107 miles
Wide Open Range
 This morning was another stormy day. The forecast for
today and the rest of the week called for severe
afternoon thunderstorms and snow showers.
There was no way I could make it from Frisco to over
Boreas Pass before the thunder storms came in. And
today they were expecting snow down a 1,000ft below the pass.
A lot of snow fell on the peaks last night. So I cheated and took a shuttle up to Banker’s
Tank which shaved off about 10 miles.
 
That was a wise decision. Although, the ride going up
would have been very easy, I would have run into severe
weather. I arrived at Banker’s Tank and could see the
thunderstorm coming in fast. I had to ride for 3 more
miles up to the Pass. As I reached the Pass, the
thunderstorm hit with a fury and I was being sand
blasted by BB sized hail. In another few days to a week,
this pass will most likely be impassable for a bike.
This pass was one of the more beautiful rides I had been
on and I wish I could have ridden the whole thing.
After descending a 1,000 feet, the hail became a
drenching cold rain which lasted for the next 10 miles.
My original camping destination was Hartsel, CO.
Hartsel looked really creepy and I did not like it for
the same reasons I did not like Atlantic City. So I push
on with no real goal in mind.
After Hartsel, the terrain was barren desert
and then transformed into forest near Salida. This
was probably one of the better day’s to be on this
section. It was dry, cool, overcast, and there was a
slight tail wind.
 I would not want to ride this section
on a hot, sunny day, nor on a rainy day. At times the road
had ruts at least a foot deep. It was apparent that some
sections of this route are impassable during heavy
rains. Even though it had rained recently the road
surface was nice and hard. The wind is very dry and the
roads tend to dry out in about an hour. The wind is so
dry, I had to use a lot of lip balm for the first time.
It was getting dark and I had only 10 miles left to
Salida. The night was moonless and pitch black. I was
riding down a steep section at a slow speed when I
crashed. I didn’t see a boulder and hit it hard enough
to throw me over my handle bars. I got back on my bike
and continued on into Salida. I should have spent more
money and bought a better head light.
I made it into Salida by 10pm and stayed at a hotel.
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