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.