Uraling along Squaw Pass Road

Another beautiful and warm Fall day here in Colorado.

Scarlett, my 2014 URAL Patrol Sidecar rig and I rode out of our home neighborhoods shortly before 9:00 and spend the next hour or so dodging church-goer traffic frantic to make what I must assume was the 9 O'Clock show at their church.

Once free of the metro area, I headed west into the foothills using Bear Creek Canyon Road out of Morrison, winding and climbing my way past the little mountain towns of Idledale, Kittredge (where I spotted a URAL rib parked by a restaurant; turned out to be Steve and his daughter out for breakfast).

After chatting with Steve for a bit, continued motoring on CO74 and ended up at Evergreen where I stayed on CO74 and headed north out of town towards the turn for Squaw Pass Road aka CO 103, the road that leads to CO5, the Mount Evans Road.

Mount Evans has been closed for the season, though I doubt its because of snow, more likely because a date on some bureaucrat's calendar in the CO DOT had been reached.

Very windy today, what Fall Colors I did find will not last much more as the winds had pretty much picked clean the Aspen Trees in the usual spots for pictures.

 Just a few miles west of Echo Lake, a view of the top of 

Mount Evans, snow-free as you can see.

 At the scenic overlook less than a mile from Echo Lake, where

one can "see forever" on a clear day.

Got to Echo Lake and found it swarming with cagers, so elected to not even stop and get a picture of the Mount Evans Peak before making a U-turn and starting back down the way I'd come on Squaw Pass Road.

 There really isn't much fall color left on the Aspens along the road

but here's a spot for you.

I decided to ride down Old Squaw Pass Road for a change, found it to be bordered by many homes now although there were more groupings of Aspen trees to delight the eye with their Fall Colors.

I left Old Squaw Pass road soon after the above pictures, rejoining Squaw Pass Road which I took back to the town of Evergreen and basically retraced my route back towards the Denver Metro area.

Got home safely shortly before 2:00 PM after covering perhaps a bit over 120 miles or 200 Kilometers of rather meandering riding.  It was close to 87F when I got home, a warm day indeed.

The snow, cannot come, soon enough.

Fall Colors Uraling, Last Day

Monday, 28SEP15

I woke to somewhat "brisk" temperatures in the Gunnison, CO area.  The temperature on Scarlett said 34°F(1°C), and it was a motivator to get moving fast to get everything packed on and hitting the road with fleece jacket and liner under my riding jacket!

Sunrise at the Blue Mesa Reservoir

The "supermoon" hanging above the reservoir at dawn

I had breakfast 20 miles away in Gunnison at a McDonald's restaurant where although their wifi Internet access was working, it seemed "throttled" for picture uploads which is why I am writing this posting a day later.

A brief stop to look west while on US50 heading for the summit

of Monarch Pass.

Shortly after the above picture, I came to one of the usual stopping points for pictures.  There's a rock ledge of sorts that protrudes quite a way out into emptiness with a long drop down to the valley below.

I set up the tripod and using the remote control app for my Sony A5000 and my iphone app, I positioned myself sitting on the ledge for a picture:

Doesn't look too bad right?  Here's what the ledge looks like from a wider angle where the tripod was set up:

It's a long way down to those pine trees below....

I don't have a fear of heights, but I do have a healthy respect for heights.  Here's a view of the ledge as one is walking out onto it.  I am not ashamed to admit that I only walked out part of the way before "caution" stopped me.  It was all I could do, to slowly sit down with my feet hanging in space, to pose for the picture.

Let's just say I didn't spend a long time sitting on the ledge afterwards.

The Ledge

Scarlett and I continued upwards to the summit of Monarch Pass and she posed with the distant mountain peaks:

Near the summit of Monarch Pass

We rode down to Salida on US50 with no incidents until we were twisting and turning along the curvy road that borders the river between Salida and Cañon City.  There was construction at one point and traffic had come to a stop as the two lane highway became a one lane road.

I'd been watching this 40ft RV in my rear view mirror thinking he was going pretty fast even though he was far enough behind me.  Sure enough, I had come to a stop after a curve (there had been signs saying: Construction! Prepare to Stop and so on before the point I had stopped behind a line of cars).

I was watching my rear view mirrors and as I feared, saw this monster RV whip around the curve that was hiding me and the line of cars in front of me.  He slams on the brakes and starts veering to his left to avoid collision, and I had already started moving the rig with "elan" onto the shoulder!  The idiot stopped less than ten feet from where Scarlett and I had been sitting while on the road.  Always, leave yourself room to maneuver around the car in front of you when possible.

I looked at this idiot, he didn't even have the grace to look ashamed.  Once traffic started moving again, I made sure to stop and let him get far ahead of me while I took a picture of this huge bronze Buffalo I saw next to a sign advertising taxidermy services:

Later on, I caught up with the idiot from Montana in his 40 foot Phaeton RV in Cañon City.  I pulled up next to him at a stop light and he would steadfastly refuse to look in my direction.

Note: Skyline Drive was closed due to maintenance so no pics from that scenic bit of road.

The rest of the ride home was via CO 115 to Colorado Springs and from there used the I-25 Superslab to get home by 2:30 PM.  Started the 25,000 Kilometer maintenance services on Scarlett right then and there by changing out all her fluids to include the oil filter.  There rest of the services will be done this week between work stuff.

The temperature soared to the mid-80s by the end of the ride, a temperature change of over 50 degrees Farenheit!

Scarlett, I'm happy to report, performed marvelously during this four day trip.  1574 Kilometers or almost 945 miles covered in the four day's worth of riding both pavement and dirt trails.

Fall Colors Uraling, Day 3

What a great day of riding today, a lot of it was off-road on trails ranging from easy gravel to gnarly rocks and small boulders.

I packed up the rig and was riding into Durango just past 8AM and by good luck I happened to catch the Silverton - Durango Train as it was also leaving town headed north!

I motored ahead of it and positioned myself near one of many railroad crossings along US550 and got this video:

After the train passed, I got back on Scarlett and actually passed the train as we moved at URAL speed north on US550.  This time, I positioned myself to catch the train at another railroad crossing:

Train chasing done with, Scarlett and I headed north and captured a few pictures along the way.

 This time, without the lens bloom that it had when I took this shot yesterday.

 Engineer Mountain

Shortly after the small town of Hermosa, I took the exit for the Lime Creek Trail also known as Forest Road 591.  It turned out to be ten miles of hilly/rocky/gravelly forest road with technical spots and terrain to keep one quite entertained and somewhat fearful at times.  The scenery along the way was as beautiful in terms of Fall Colors as the stuff one saw on the highway.

Emerging from FR591 back onto Hwy 550 and I cruised north a short distance before spotting the sign for "Ophir Pass".  I went past, but shortly afterwards made a u-turn and decided "what the hell" and go for it.  After all, two other Uralisti couples had made it up to the summit of the pass, surely Scarlett and I could do it as well.

The road from the eastern end of Ophir Pass road begins pretty easily though with its steep parts.  It got worse as I gained altitude but still it wasn't as bad as the rocky sections on FR591.  Still, once I got near the summit, there came a set of switchbacks with steep inclines which overheated my clutch.

 First spot where I backed down from the slope on the right to
let the clutch cool down a bit.

 After waiting ten minutes (should have waited longer), I
made it up to the spot below.  You can see how steep things
were for Scarlett and I in the pic above.

 You can almost see the summit from here!

 This time, I resolved to wait almost 20 minutes for the
clutch to cool down.  I amused myself by building the stack
of rocks pictured above.

The 20 minute wait did the trick, and I gunned Scarlett's engine and we shot up to the top of the pass.  In less than a mile, we were at the summit sign.

 A view to the west from the summit of Ophir Pass

 Scarlett at the summit of Ophir Pass, the sign is on the rock pile.

It must have been a good 15 minutes of taking pictures up on top before I decided to start headed back down the way we'd come up.  I didn't go down towards the west side of the pass road as I would have ended up somewhere south of Telluride and stuck with riding the long way round on the San Juan Skyway back to Durango.

Here's some of the sights as Scarlett and I descended back down towards US 550.

Back on US550, I headed north with the eventual thought to overnight in Gunnison, CO.  Along the way, Scarlett and I got a few more Fall Color shots:

Passing once more through Ouray and tanking up at the gas station to the north of town; I made my way to Ridgway thinking at the time to go to where US50 junctions with US550.  Instead I zoomed past the sign for Owl Creek Pass.  Once again, I made a quick U-Turn and saw this:

 What a gorgeous set of mountains right?  It made the decision for me to ride Owl Creek Pass road to get to US50 instead of boringly paved highway.

 A view back towards the mountains of Ouray and Silverton

 The centerpiece of this mountain range is called Courthouse Mountain
I would end up really close to the leftmost rock formation that looks
like a watch tower.

 Owl Creek Pass road was smooth gravel with several roughly
wash-boarded sections that threaten to shake things loose
on Scarlett and me.

 Getting closer, a view of the peaks from "Vista Point"

 A closeup view of the watch tower just before Scarlett and I
reached the summit of Owl Creek Pass

 The requisite picture of the pass sign.  I let Scarlett cool
down here for a good 20 minutes or so as she was
smelling "hot"

Nearby the summit sign, I found the below small stream coursing slowly by.  I cooled off a bit with some of the cool water and then spent a few minutes playing with the camera's shutter priority mode to "blur" the water stream.  What do you think of the result?

Everyone cooled off, we motored on down Owl Creek Pass road towards the valley below, here's some sights:

 There were perhaps ten people, with large lenses attached to
expensive looking camera gear; all looking at the shot above, waiting
for sunset I think.  I just shot it and kept riding.

It would be at least ten more miles of gravel road before I finally got to US50 only to find myself over fifteen miles west of the campground (Elk Creek) where I had decided to stay.  I passed by the one suggested by fellow Uralista Jay B as there was no cell signal there whereas I knew there was at the Elk Creek Campground by the Blue Mesa reservoir.

The sun lower and lower as I motored eastward on US50, I finally got to the campground as the last rays of the setting sun were painting the sky:

Picked out a site (there were plenty of spots), got registered and once back at the site I started setting up camp.  The super moon/blood moon combination started up right then and I spent a hurried bit of time setting up camp, trying to get shots of the moon as the eclipse happened, cook dinner and also check in with Martha.

At the beginning of the eclipse, after a while I gave up.

Dinner was freeze-dried Chili Mac as darkness enveloped the campground and temperatures dropped.

I was a tired puppy today, lots of riding on rough trails and that always jostles things around enough that one is happy to lie down for the night.