How to Beat the Heat

Wanting to ride, but not wanting to suffer too much from the heat, Creighton and I hit Hewlett Gulch.  This affords the hot and sweaty mountain biker two ways to cool off: a big elevation gain, and multiple creek crossings.  Plus, the trail is relatively easy, not being too steep or rocky.  But, it has its moments!

Back in the day, Mr. Hewlett built a cabin up a gulch, said gulch being just above the small community of Poudre Park, up the Poudre Canyon.  After he set up his homestead, the local indians came by and told him that he built it on a sacred burial ground.  Hewlett wisely said, "Ooookay!"  And promptly left the valley to mountain bikers.  Where now we desecrate the valley with our hoots of a fun descent.

This is the view from the trailhead.  It looks hot and parched, and some of it obviously is, but the reality along the trail is lots of flowing water, and a lot of shade.

Here is what is left of Hewlett's cabin.  It is at a very pretty place, with water flowing pretty much year around.

Creighton poses for a pretty picture.  He is a very nice fellow, super fit, and an excellent mountain biker. He didn't mind at all my wanting to stop along the way and take pictures.

Up towards the top, the gulch widens out.

There are lots of wildflowers still blooming, including my favorite white colchortus.  My goal is to get a few of these blooming in my garden.

As I mentioned before, there are also many water crossings.  The bike gets a bit muddy and the biker's shoes get completely soaked.  But, it is cool, cool water.

Several of the water crossings make for an interesting level of technical riding; because the tires are wet, and the creek is often a dip down and then a steep climb out, it often is quite hard to ride out of the creek bed.  Here I am, attempting to struggle out of a particularly challenging spot.  And failing.

Lastly, a spot which I used to dread.  An impossible, steep, dangerous rock garden.  Used to scare the dickens out of me, and I always walked it.  It was fun today.

How to Beat the Heat

Wanting to ride, but not wanting to suffer too much from the heat, Creighton and I hit Hewlett Gulch.  This affords the hot and sweaty mountain biker two ways to cool off: a big elevation gain, and multiple creek crossings.  Plus, the trail is relatively easy, not being too steep or rocky.  But, it has its moments!

Back in the day, Mr. Hewlett built a cabin up a gulch, said gulch being just above Poudre Park, up the Poudre Canyon.  After he set up his homestead, the local indians came by and told him that he built it on a sacred burial ground.  Hewlett wisely said, "Ooookay!"  And promptly left the valley to mountain bikers.  Where now we desecrate the valley with our hoots of a fun descent.

This is the view from the trailhead.  It looks hot and parched, and some of it obviously is, but the reality along the trail is lots of flowing water, and a lot of shade.

Here is what is left of Hewlett's cabin.  It is at a very pretty place, with water flowing pretty much year around.

Creighton poses for a pretty picture.  He is a very nice fellow, super fit, and an excellent mountain biker. He didn't mind at all my wanting to stop along the way and take pictures.

Up towards the top, the gulch widens out.

There are lots of wildflowers still blooming, including my favorite white colchortus.  My goal is to get a few of these blooming in my garden.

As I mentioned before, there are also many water crossings.  The bike gets a bit muddy and the biker's shoes get completely soaked.  But, it is cool, cool water.

Several of the water crossings make for an interesting level of technical riding; because the tires are wet, and the creek is often a dip down and then a steep climb out, it often is quite hard to ride out of the creek bed.  Here I am, attempting to struggle out of a particularly challenging spot.  And failing.

Lastly, a spot which I used to dread.  An impossible, steep, dangerous rock garden.  Used to scare the dickens out of me, and I always walked it.  It was fun today.

Walker Ranch, Boulder, Colorado

Darcy and I drove to another beautiful open space in Boulder County on Saturday in order to continue her quest for me to see a bunch of new single track in Colorado this summer.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining; it is very fun riding in new places.  Walker Ranch is almost right behind the famous Flatirons, a spectacular rock formation overlooking Boulder.  Here is a weird site, but with a good photo of the Flatirons.  One drives up the mountainside immediately adjacent to the Flatirons on a very steep and switchback filled road.  It is a very dangerous drive, mainly due to rubber-neckers such as myself who want to drive and sightsee at the same time.

Another nice map brought to us by the very well run City of Boulder Parks Dept.  Looking at it, one can see Boulder Creek running through the property, with a loop trail crossing the creek twice.  This means a bunch of vertical gain and loss on the trail.  Either it is suffering time or adrenaline time.  There isn't much else besides long descents or ascents.  Am I repeating myself?

Here is the first crossing we did, at the spot marked "Falls" on the map.  Nice bridge.  Nice bridge to a very steep set of stairs.  Nice bridge to an increasingly ridiculously steep nice set of stairs, where one small misstep sends the bike carrier to their doom!

Darcy is at the right.  Check out the guy below her using his hand to steady himself on the steps.  Steep.  Throw in 6000 to 7000 feet of altitude, and the bike schlepper can be somewhat unsteady on the feet!

This is a view of the Flatirons, from the less common westerly point of view.

The wildflowers are still out in force here.  Indian Paintbrush and a sort of mountain gaillardia.

A hillside of flowers can make the trail disappear.

And last, a nice rock formation near the top of a very long climb back to the trailhead.

Bobcat Ridge, July 5th, 2010

After a heat wave, and some resultant very hot riding, we got a break in the weather on the 5th of July.  Darcy and I decided to ride Bobcat Ridge.  The Bobcat TH is very near Masonville, which is a little town in the foothills between Fort Collins and Loveland.  This area suffered a fire about 10 years ago, and thus far, there is little sign of the pine forest recovering.  We spotted a few pine saplings, and few young aspen, but not much else, tree-wise.  But...the upside for the trail user is astounding vistas and wildflowers galore.  It is a beautiful place to ride.

The beginning of the ride is no fun, if you do it the way we did.  Straight up for over 2 miles, along the power line road.  It is rough and steep.  Darcy rides most of it, but I know what is ahead: pain and no fun.  So, I get off and start pushing right away, while Darcy rides away.  She is waiting for me with a snack and lemonade at the top (ha!), which is near here - a wide open alpine meadow that is nearly level, except for the large boulders.  This is within and near the edge of the burned zone.  Next time we ride Bobcat, we plan on riding up the single track, and then turning around and riding back down.  There are certainly places where the we will have to get off and push, but it will be much more fun than that blasted power line "trail".

The Devil's Backbone is far, far away in this shot, but visible if you zoom in and hold your mouth just right while squinting.  It is in the center of the upper-right quadrant of the shot.  Look for a yellowish strip of land: the backbone formation is right behind that yellow/light colored strip.

Trying to do this makes me want to upgrade my 8 mega-pixie camera to the latest and greatest.

BTW, do these riding togs make me look fat?

Here is an interesting pattern of fallen logs, looking across a drainage.

Darcy, on the trail.  The mountain in the background is Buckhorn Mountain.  Horsetooth Rock is behind Buckhorn.  The two mile slog uphill gives us over 6 miles of singletrack riding once we are up there.  The downhill is a long, fairly technical hoot.  Too much fun to be had to stop and take pictures, today.

Heil Valley Ranch, June 29, 2010

One day of rest and then on to the Heil Valley Ranch with Darcy.  This trail is also in Boulder County, but is built and maintained by the county and is a part of the county's open space program.  The trails there were built in about 2001, and were specifically built for mountain biking.  Thus, they have gradual climbs and are pretty consistently wide.  They also have not suffered too much from erosion, as they are built to shed water instead of letting water run straight down the trail and cause them to become ruts filled with baby heads.
They also have really nice maps along the way.

This trail is also wooded, with a bunch of flower filled beautiful meadows, and how often does one see a TURKEY in the wilds of Colorado?  Never.  Until now.

The bluebells were nice too.

And, where else but in the People's Republic of Boulder will one find a bench to rest at?

Towards the top, a nice view of Longs Peak.

And, near the bottom, a nice split rail fence.

Sourdough Trail, June 25, 2010

I recently joined a Meet-up group that is dedicated to mountain biking, and while I have not gotten together with these people very much, I did a recently.  We drove to a stretch of single track in Boulder County known as the Sourdough Trail.

This trail is an extremely strenuous ride.  It starts at about 9200 feet of elevation and rises to about 10,200.  It is not very well maintained, so as a consequence it is fairly badly eroded.  So, this means lots of loose rubble on the trail.  It is not super steep, but between the baby heads and the elevation, the rider is really breathing.  When you stop and catch up with your breathing, when you start again, your legs feel strong, but your lungs quickly fail and the ride becomes instantly anaerobic.

Here is our small group that made the Meet-up.  Justin is on the right, and Nick is in the middle.  Both are great guys and good riders.  Left me in the dust!  This shot shows the upside of the Sourdough Trail, tho: it is through the woods.  Lots of shade, and combined with the elevation, a good place to ride in the summer heat.  One can also see a bit of brown in the trees, a result of beetle kill.

Here is an interesting feature.  Nick says to me, "There's a few fun little spots ahead, it's probably best to speed up when you see them."  This certainly piques my interest but gets me a little bit skeert.  I have no idea why the trail builders/maintainers would do this, but it looks like that if a tree falls down over the trail, instead of cutting a portion of it away, they simply build ramps of dead logs to help one ride over it. Actually, it was fun.

Here is Justin coming down the trail.  It was about 6 miles up and so one gets a hoot of a long descent for the ride back to the car.  By the end, my hands were cramping from hanging on and applying the brakes.

Here was our reward at the top.  Left Hand Reservoir.  Late June, and still snow on the ground.

Darcy, Tim, and Gordon: Jun 8, 2010 on Coyote Ridge Trail

There are several differences in how the three of us ride a trail.  Tim is strong, fit and very technically able.  He rides it all, uphill and down.  Darcy is strong, and fit, but not as technically able; she rides it all...downhill.  She tries very hard to ride it all uphill, but for reasons that I cannot fathom, she can't ride it all uphill.  She is strong and extremely fit, but can't get over some of the uphill bumps.  Perhaps it is upper body strength.  Myself, some days I am in the middle of them...I can ride some stuff uphill that Darcy can't, and there are several places that she can ride downhill that I can't...or won't.

The following shot is Darcy riding a narrow series of steps.  These steps are not steep, and each of the steps are really quite small.  But, these steps are inside my head, and I chicken out riding them every damn time.

The picture doesn't really show it, but this portion of the trail is poised on a very steep hillside; in fact, to the right of Darcy it is an absolutely vertical drop of about 7 feet, down to a very steep hillside which is covered in rock and cactus.  The vertical drop is in my head, and I can't remove the image of a mental mistake which would send me over the edge onto my head.  So, I stop and walk it.  Clucking like the chicken I am!  Look carefully at Darcy's face and that smile.  She loves singletrack and has a supreme confidence in herself.

On the other hand, I got here several minutes ahead of Darcy.  She sometimes has a bit of trouble with the climb up to this narrow spot, and I was able to find a place off of the trail to shoot her as she came over it.  Of course, Tim came by here 15 minutes ahead of both of us, and is long gone on down the trail.

The next series of shots is another tough uphill rock garden, which is about a half mile further along the trail.  Tim can do it easily, and Darcy and I can do it...if we rest at the bottom.  It is very rigorous, and anaerobic.  The rider must look ahead carefully; both just in front of the wheel and farther up the hill planning a (hopefully) successful line.  It is an intense little bit, and a reason for high fives at the top when we all make it.

First, Tim.  Notice the relaxed eyes and mouth.

Next, Darcy.  Fierce concentration...she is very competitive.  Tim is also very competitive, but not so much around us.

I like this one.  Really shows her intensity.  By the way, she cleaned it today.  These shots also show off Darcy's nice bike.  Titanium hardtail, with pretty much top of the line components.   Tim spec'ed it out for her.  I picked it up and it almost took off like a helium balloon...that really isn't fair!

Here I am now, with a couple of shots by Darcy.

Can't see my face too well, which is just as well.  Grimacing, struggling, fighting for air, balance and leg drive; not pretty!  But...I cleaned it too!