Uraling to Boreas Pass

Friday, July 10

While eating breakfast, I spotted what I think is a prairie dog though much smaller than the ones you can spot on empty grounds on the Front Range.  It was sniffing one of the wire connectors belonging to my solar panels.  Luckily, it didn't find it appetizing.

Today's destination is the pass which crosses near the leftmost mountain in the picture below, Boreas Mountain:

Telephoto view from the campsite

Rode out mid-morning towards the US 285 highway, intending to go south on it towards the small town of Como and the southern end of Boreas Pass Road.

First though, I waited a while for a break in the southbound traffic, in order to safely make a left turn onto the southbound lane.  There were a lot of RVs, pickup trucks hauling trailers with boats, ATVs and campers and just plain cars all stacked up in long lines of traffic.   It could be easily described as "a rolling shit show of RVs and Boats".

They all seemed frantic to flee the Front Range, not that I blame them.  Northbound traffic on the other hand, was minimal.

Finally catching a big enough gap in traffic, I got on the southbound lane and rode down to Fairplay (16 miles away) to get gas for Fiona as I'd failed to fill up her tank while at the camper.

Driving back six miles to the exit for Como, it was bumpy riding on the dirt road up and to the summit.  More cars than I expected, some motorcycles (perhaps 5 total) and bicyclists of course rode to and from the pass; some kicking up huge plumes of dust as they were moving way too fast.  I especially despised the ones that came around blind curves at high speed, hogging the middle of the narrow road.....lovely.

North of the summit sign, there's this one spot that I like posing my motorcycles at with the mountain peaks in the background.  As I approached it from the south, the place was a veritable zoo of cagers.  All the stopping spots were taken and a mass of people wandered up and down that stretch of road taking selfies and group pictures.

Too crowded, so I kept going.  Miles later, I saw a nice view of the ski trails of Breckenridge; which is the town on the northern end of Boreas Pass Road.

 The lake is called Goose Pasture Tarn

and part of the town of Blue River

It was from the above spot that I saw a curious looking site:

Here's what the site looks like using Google's satellite imagery mapping tool:

Weird huh?  I'm guessing perhaps it's a specialized shooting range?  What do you think?

Having no interest in going further closer to Breckenridge and its crowds, I turned Fiona around at this point and headed back towards the preferred views spot.

I was pleased to find the preferred viewing spot free of any cagers or other traffic:

Continuing on for about a mile, I stopped at the pass summit for the requisite picture of the pass sign.  I've yet to explore the buildings that are there, part of the narrow gauge railroad that existed and created Boreas Pass Road I believe.  It was very, to my mind, crowded with folks.

It was past noon at this point and I'd had it with the crowds, minimal as they were, and headed on back to the campsite.  Ah, blessed solitude once more.

More campers had shown up, I counted 14 occupied sites, some with more than one camper or tents set up.  There's even a group of about 4 cars/trucks with small campers and tents now set up across Rock Creek Hills Road; across from my camp, perhaps 1/4 mile away so not too bad.

The after sunset light display wasn't too shabby: