Day 0 - Thursday
The day before the unofficial non-organized spodefest, I met up with Victor (The Rider Formerly Known as vlj.com) at 6am on the way out of town. We were planning on meeting at the park and ride by the Interstate, but he pulled out of his neighborhood just as I drove by. We stopped briefly to set codes on our FRS radios for the drive to spode central. These radios later proved indispensable during the trail rides.
Our plan for Thursday was to arrive at Taylor Park by lunchtime and do a half day easy ride with the big 4 strokes. We were going to meet up with Mike Troast. I knew the planets were in alignment when Mike caught up with us halfway up Cottonwood Canyon. We stopped briefly on top of the pass before heading down the 14-mile dirt road into Taylor Park. The weather on Thursday was great. There were reports of a cold front moving in that night. Snow was forecast above 10k feet. The lowest elevation we would see for any of the rides was 9500 feet. Maximum elevations would approach 13k feet.
After checking into our cabin and grabbing a quick lunch, we unloaded the big bikes, checked the maps, and headed for Napoleon Pass. We would be riding over three passes higher than 12k feet. Mike was riding his KLX650, I was on the XR650L (a.k.a. DreamSickle), and Victor was on his do-everything XR400. I had just mounted some old knobbies on the XRL and removed the passenger pegs and mirrors in preparation for the first real off-road riding I've done with this bike in the year that I've owned it. After winning the sound test competition at the last NCTR meeting and being accused of cheating by using a street-bike, I felt the need to redeem the DreamSickle and myself. Just to prove the point, I even wore the jersey I won at the meeting.
After riding the car road to Tincup, we turned off at the cemetery road and started up Napoleon Pass. The first few miles to the old mine site contained a plethora of loose baby-head rocks. Riding a bike a full 100 pounds heavier than my ATK took some getting used to. When we reached the mine I took a picture of the XRL in front of a huge old pump. The two pieces of equipment had a lot in common - earth shattering momentum and a 2000 pound flywheel.
After riding over Napoleon Pass, Mike showed me the way to the top of the Fairview Trail. I wanted to take a group in this direction later in the week. There's a labyrinth of roads required to reach the top end of Fairview, some of them not on the map. Mike and I switched bikes for the ride up the jeep roads. The KLX certainly had a lot more punch and firmer suspension than the XRL.
From Fairview we rode down into Pitkin, another quaint mountain community. We followed the road to middle Quartz Creek and took the old stage road for three miles. This was quite a rock garden in spots. Snotty rock beds in the woods and a long rock garden with flowing water toward the top. I was starting to get the hang of riding the big beast. The plush suspension and blinding momentum merely required me to point and twist the throttle to smash through the embedded rock fields.
From Quartz Creek we rode to the top of Hancock Pass. We paused on the way to St. Elmo to take pictures of a huge timber mining building that was preparing to topple into the road. In St. Elmo, Victor and I slowed on main street to watch a brown mole hip-hop across the dirt road. On the way up Tincup Pass I was finally getting the hang of the big bike. As long as the rocks were embedded and baby-head size or smaller, I could blast my way through. On the other side of Tincup Pass Mike led us onto a "short cut" that was a long chute filled with loose basketball size rocks. It was quite the wrestling match as the big bike pushed the rocks around.
At Mirror Lake we turned onto the Timberline Trail. A long climb led us to an old mining site where we tried to figure out some of the equipment. It appeared that a 1920s Buick front end was used to power a belt driven water pump. The equipment was amazingly well preserved. From the mine we took an ATV trail back to the Tincup road and high-tailed it back to our cabin to arrive minutes before a cold rain started. This rain would last through the night, turning to snow by morning. Day zero saw a total of 75 miles.
-Jeffrey Deeney-