Saturday, April 05, 2008

Red Rocks Park and Deer Creek Canyon Road

Temperatures in the 60s throughout the ride. Sunny with gusty winds later in the afternoon.

Beautiful riding weather again today, I set out after 1300hrs and headed over to the west side of Denver, near the town of Morrison, to the Red Rocks Amphitheater Park to try my hand at panoramic pictures again.

Saw plenty of motorcyclists, bikers and donorcycles out and about all day. Where I usually could count the number of fellow riders on one hand, today I lost count within the first hour of riding. Good deal, it would have been wrong to be not riding today, no matter what you ride in this part of the country!

I spotted this small park run by Jefferson County called Dinosaur Ridge, I went in and got a picture of Maria next to a patriotically themed stegosaurus:

Dinosaur Ridge

I made my way into Red Rocks Park from Dinosaur Ridge and here's the panoramic shot that best came out of the three attempts I made to capture this particular view of the North Parking Lot.

North Parking Lot, looking towards the South


Ship Rock

Ship Rock from further away

After Red Rocks, I made my way back to Morrison and from there to US285. I headed South on US285 until I got to the Turkey Creek Canyon Road exit. This road is quite twisty in parts but one has to keep somewhat close to the speed limit as there's lots of houses along the road where a car might exit from without much notice.

Once I got to Fenders, I turned onto Deer Creek Canyon Road and twisted and turned my way back towards the Denver Metro Area. The road was pretty clear of sand and gravel though some still remained. I was able to enjoy the turns for most of the road, that is until I caught up with this cager who was cautiously making his way through the last third of the road. Oh well.

Once I was near the Chatfield Reservoir, I just took the usual road to the Waterton Canyon area, from there making my way back towards US85 towards Sedalia and beyond that to Castlerock. I elected at this point to make my way past the "rock" and onto Gilbert Street which eventually becomes CO11. A pretty good road with a few twists and turns to keep one amused.

Eventually, I came to the junction with CO83 which I took North towards Franktown. Past Franktown, I soon came to the town of Parker and from there it was the usual backroads towards my home neighborhoods.

Perhaps 130 miles of riding today, about 3.5hrs in the saddle. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I think I'm getting the hang at shooting for panoramic shots. Still some slight issues with the sky portions blending better, but that's OK.

2 comments:

JulieF said...

Just wanted you to know how much I like your blog. I just found it today when I was looking for some information to send friends who are coming out here from MN to ride this summer. Love your ride reviews and pictures! We belong to a BMW club in Fort Collins (although we no longer own a BMW); it's called Twisted Shaft.

Thanks for making this available!

Julie

redlegsrides said...

thanks julief for your kind words, glad you like the blog.