First Day of Spring Ride: Barr Lake State Park

Ah, the First Day of Spring here in the great state of Colorado.   Of course, we had snow on the ground.  It was not much snow in the eastern portion of the Denver Metro area, I believe they got about a foot in the Foothills and more in the mountains to the west.

To celebrate the arrival of Spring to the Rockies, I rode out around 8:00 AM with the temperature in the high teens, on rather slick neighborhood roads, to less slick but with plenty of icy slush main roads.  I was headed north and would end up cruising on Tower Rd all the way to where it ends at the southern end of Barr Lake State Park.

Barr Lake State Park

source: googlemaps

In spite of sometimes iffy road conditions, I made good time in the very light traffic on Tower Rd.  I turned east on 128th Avenue until I reached Picadilly Rd which I took North, pretty much working my way around the eastern half of the lake.

I reached 152nd Avenue and took it westward looking for the entrance to the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory.  I was hoping for a good site at the observatory to pose Natasha by with Barr Lake in the background you see.  Well, I did find the road but the entrance to the observatory was closed.  Oh well.

I backtracked my way back to Picadilly Road and I entered the state park at its main entrance.  I paid my $6 fee at the self-service station and proceeded on down to the park's boat ramp to see what I could see.

Not surprisingly, the boat ramp was closed even though the lake was not frozen over.  There were some good views of the water and hazy views of the distant front range mountains though:

 You access the boat ramp area via a small narrow bridge, the bridge turned out to be the only scenic background object in this particular state park today.

Can you make out the hazy outlines of the mountains in the distance?

Barr Lake State Park's main focus is fishing apparently, there's not much in the way of paved or unpaved roads that I could see.  I did ride by a small herd of whitetail deer but we kept out of each others way.

Having exhausted the park's scenic photo possibilities, I headed back home retracing my route along Tower Road.  The sun, as you saw in the photos, was out in force by now and with the temperature in the mid to high 20s,  the roads were no longer icy in spots, just wet.  This was another reason to go home for lunch as I don't enjoy riding when there's a lot of splashback potential from cars and such.

A short ride, but a nice ride all the same.  I hope to finish off the training for the ABATE Sidecar/Trike Training Course tomorrow afternoon.  Stay tuned for that.