Yesterday I headed out with Colorado Trail Race veteran Dennis Helton. We went up on one of the local singletrack mainstays, unsure of how snowy it would be. Well, we ended up riding for almost 5 hours, rarely seeing any dirt at all. Instead, we slowly rode the slippery crust up to Squirrel Gap and then turned around and slid, crunched, surfed, and crashed our way back down. After the blog/facebook posts from
Joe,
Mike, and
Jill, it seems that this sort of riding is par for the course all over the country this week.
Steady climb without much room for straying off the firm snow at the center of the trail
Green leaves in winter are for some reason slightly disconcerting
Lucy chases after Dennis
We cleared quite a few downed trees from the trail
Strange ice crystals growing out of the ground
All the stream crossings eventually led to two frozen up derailleur pulleys on my bike
Gentle, precise steering required, or else...
Dennis lost traction on an off camber section and slid down 15 feet, narrowly avoiding landing in the water below
More marvelous ice crystals
Steady climb without much room for straying off the firm snow at the center of the trail
Green leaves in winter are for some reason slightly disconcerting
Lucy chases after Dennis
We cleared quite a few downed trees from the trail
Strange ice crystals growing out of the ground
All the stream crossings eventually led to two frozen up derailleur pulleys on my bike
Gentle, precise steering required, or else...
Dennis lost traction on an off camber section and slid down 15 feet, narrowly avoiding landing in the water below
More marvelous ice crystals
1 comment:
sheesh, kurt! more snow at lower elevations than i thought. sorry you didn't get the sensation of speed on squirrel gap. it's a goodie sans ice. great shot of dennis down below trail. i failed to detail *exactly* what i meant by 'all mountain' kind of rider. i hope you had fun.
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