More Trail Riding with Yagi

Sunday, July 12

As I waited for the weekend crowds to go on back home and for the rolling RV and Boat Show on US 285 to reverse direction, I thought I'd do some more trail riding.  This time, I went north of Kenosha Pass via US285 (traffic was heavy) to explore these trails:

Martha clued me in a while ago about this app, very handy to find trails that allow motorcycles and finding your way around as it uses the phone's GPS to geo-locate you when you're not sure where you are.

I would end up riding all of FR811, most of FR123 and parts of FR810 as well.  These forest roads were accessed via Park County Roads 58 and 60.  Yagi could barely maintain 45 mph on the steep highway portions leading to/from Kenosha Pass, luckily traffic wasn't too heavy the times I was on the highway, mostly.

CR58 allowed access to FR811 from which I then turned onto FR811.A.  When exploring I always tend to make continuous right turns to try and cover most areas.  Eventually I turned right onto FR811.B, a narrow trail rutted deeply in spots which allowed me lots of practice at keeping the motorcycle going straight while riding on the side of a sloping trail!

Eventually, FR811.B meets up with FR123:

The pond I found feeds into nearby Lininger Lake

A bit further on, the road was submerged under water that came up to my knees.  How do I know that?  Because I decided not to proceed to where 811.B junctions with FR123 as I was riding alone.  I didn't want to drown the motorcycle you see.

I did take off my boots and put on my water/hiking shoes and then waded across, boy the water was cold!  After ascertaining the water was indeed right at knee level with a loose sandy/gravel bottom, I definitely decided not to chance it.  

As I walked through the water obstacle, I spotted this GoPro Hero camera underwater:

As you can see, it's been in the water a while, the lens is all scratched up and the casing is beat up.  I did recover a Micro SD card from it and soon as I can read it, I'll see if I can ID the owner who lost it probably doing a water crossing that didn't go well.

So I retraced my way back along FR811.B until I reached FR811.A, I turned right where it junctioned with FR810 which took me all the way back to the US 285 highway.  I wanted to check out FR123 regardless so I got on the slab and went further north until I could exit on CR60.

Took CR60 to this junction with FR123.

Before I turned off onto FR123, I had proceeded onwards for a few miles until I got to the entrance to Red Cone Pass Road.  Yagi hit reserve on its gas tank at this point and a combination of that and warning signs saying Red Cone Pass was for "experienced 4x4 drivers"; I decided to put off Red Cone Pass till I had done some more research.  Here's a video that shows the road pretty well:  Video Link

So, returning once again to the sign in the above pic, I rode the initially very technical FR123 (lots of big rocks and ruts) until finally reaching an area full of Jeeps and the drivers.  I continued onwards and eventually came to the portion where FR123 and FR811.B meet up.

By this point I had decided I'd walk Yagi across the submerged 50 ft or so of roadway.  I went to don my water/hiking shoes and one was missing!  Dammit!  I had placed both under the cargo netting behind me on the seat and apparently one worked itself free.

Losing the shoe wasn't a big deal, but the orthopedic insert inside was not inexpensive!

So, barefoot, I ferried my riding gear over first, then came back across (damn but the water was cold) and proceeded to push Yagi over to the other side.  About halfway there, my feet were hurting and I was getting tired as the loose sand/gravel on the bottom caused quite the drag on Yagi.

Looking down, I could see the water level not very close to the airbox so I fired up Yagi (had to pull the choke lever for some reason (engine got too cold perhaps?) but she finally caught and we slowly made our way to the other side.

I dried off and waited for feeling to return to my legs from the freezing water.  Then donned my riding gear and started retracing the route back to US285 that I'd done earlier, but this time much slower to be able to scan and look for the missing shoe!

No luck, got all the way to US 285 with no sign of the shoe.  I had to return to the campsite to get more gasoline for Yagi by this point.  So I delayed retracing the CR60 portion of the riding till after getting gasoline.

It started raining, off and on, as I rode back to camp.  Most of the campers were gone by the time I got to the URRV at 12:30PM.  So that was good news.  Got Yagi fueled up and rode back out.  I got off US 285 at the exit for CR60 and less than three miles later there it was!

17.4 miles from the campsite, there was my missing shoe!

As you can see, the skies weren't looking that great  so I turned around and rushed back to the campsite.  It started raining harder and the wind started blowing quite hard as I worked my way slowly on US 285 crawling up to the summit of Kenosha Pass and barely able to hold 50 mph on the way down due to the strong winds.

Finally turned off onto CR56 and away from the cager traffic.  The rest of the way was just rain, slick spots that looked dry but didn't offer the same traction as before.  Made it back to camp safely, oiled Yagi's chain due to all the water exposure today, and used the rest of the afternoon to recuperate.

The weather did improve once the storm clouds moved onwards.  By 4PM it was nice and sunny again with temperatures in the mid to high 60s!

Trail Riding with Yagi in the Pike National Forest

Saturday, July 11

Boy the place is filling up with campers!  I counted 25 sites, some with multiple vehicles and tents just in the northern half of the dispersed camping area I'm boondocking in!

Sunny and warm, but not too hot.  Just about right I would say for morning riding, and relaxing in the shade during the afternoon.

I decided to ride the trails to the south of Rock Creek Hills Road, the main road traversing the dispersed camping area.  Just wanted to see what I could see, find where I could go, and just basically doing some enjoyable pootling at slow speeds on my trusty goat of a motorcycle: Yagi.

I would end up riding a lot of the trails, nothing very technical and the one part I skipped was the part I knew was too much for me, as I'd biffed it when attempting it last time I was here with Yagi!

 Along FR823 and FR824

 Near the junction of FR130 and FR 392C

Part of FR 1301A, it dead ends at a fenceline

Basically, with the exception of FR130 which I didn't take all the way to South Park, these trails tend to end or originate along Rocky Creek Hills Road with the other end tending to dead-end along private property lines.  

The rest of the afternoon I spent resting and reading a book, waiting for what promised to be a nice and cloudy sunset:

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:

Camera troubles and displacing to a nearby site

Thursday, Jul 9

Went riding on Yagi, my '06 TW200 to further explore a  set of trails located near the southern end of the dispersed camping area within the Pike National Forest within which I'm boondocking.

Nice set of trails, with further stuff to explore at the end of the main trail within but I ran into technical problems with my camera.

I had been taking pictures of possible future campsites when I got the "camera error turn off power" message on the LED screen.  Dammit.  I tried removing the battery, waiting a few and then reinserting the battery but no luck, same error.

I didn't have good signal where I was at so I packed things up and headed back to camp where I did have a good signal.

I noticed, back in the URRV, that the shutter screen was down when I took off the lens.  Hmmmm.  Some googling later, it turns out to be a pretty common problem.  One suggestion before I tried a system reset was to shake/tap on the camera body to get the shutter to release from whatever obstruction was keeping it from moving.

I tapped the camera from the bottom and top, nothing.  But then when I re-inserted the battery and turned on power, the shutter screen retracted!  Yay.  I shot many test shots and everything seems to be working fine.  I guess all the dusty conditions I ride in at times finally took their toll?  

Must come up with way to shield camera from dust I guess.  Closing up the zippers on the tank bag would surely help eh?  Such a PITA sometimes though.  Oh well.

I was relaxing outside in the shade of the URRV's awning in the afternoon when I heard truck engines coming nearer.  I looked around and saw not one but two trucks with travel trailers in tow, parked near my campsite and looking like they wanted to settle in!  WTF.

Given, my campsite was at the eastern end of a rather wide open field suitable for group camping but dammit!  So I kept an eye on them and after some discussion, I guess they decided to leave me alone and headed off elsewhere.  Good riddance I thought but after a call with Martha decided to displace to a different site.  The weekend campers were coming you see.....

I'd seen the site empty during my morning riding so after confirming it still was with a short ride with Yagi; I hurriedly broke camp and claimed the smaller site.  Its clearly a one camper site but not cramped.  It's even farther from the main road (Rock Creek Hills Road aka CR39) and I think has a better view of the mountains to the west.

 Shot from access road which parallels the area's main road
(FR392A)

 Some nice trees for shade

Pretty close to the view I had before, but more of 

Mount Boreas is visible; its the rightmost peak.

Did some light riding on Yagi in the afternoon to check out my neighbors.  The place is indeed starting to fill up.  Still, breathing space remains for now.

Had a visitor come by, got as close as perhaps 50 ft from the URRV.  He munched away at the grass nearby, mauled a tiny pine tree using it as a scratching post and finally meandered away.  

Then, the Golden Hour started:

A clear skies sunset: