Picking up were I left off.. I Woke up to a brilliant day the next morning. The night before though, the weather report was on full panic mode with big storm cells that moving from the pacific across California and Utah, and forecast of cold temperatures, rain, and snow on the Colorado peaks for the next couple days. So it was time to get out of there!
I stuck to my morning plan though and headed south towards Cañon City via Phantom Canyon. Even just the name sounded freaking cool, and knowing that it was 30 miles of dirt riding in a canyon just sealed the deal!
Tunnels blasted through the rocks:
After grabbing a bite in Cañon City, I started heading west to cross Colorado. First I had to ride that little stretch of road called Skyline Drive outside Cañon City: A useless 1 way road that parallels the normal highway, except it's perched on top of a peak with hundred feets cliffs on each side! Well of course I'm in!
(the highway is down below and to the right, the town is on the left)
To be honest.. it was kinda anticlimactic and sounded better on paper than it was in real life.. worth the 15 minutes detour but that's about it
With that out of the way, I took route 50 heading west, following a river for a while. Wonderful easy riding with long sweepers and beautiful scenery:
The weather started getting a little dodgy after a while, but it makes for good pictures:
Just after Monarch Pass (and yes of course, I'm headed right there!):
It's funny how sometimes you look at a map and what you picture in your head has nothing to do with the reality! Take this for instance:
When I see this I think of a nice lake in a forest, maybe a beach or two, i don't know.. well it wasn't anything like that!
That was such a weird place. It felt so desolate and barren.. like being on the moon for some reason. I had definitely never been in a place like that, like a high altitude desert landscape. But it was awesome to see it, and definitely more interesting than what I had pictured in my head.
I made it to Montrose, CO by 5pm. I had a dilemma in front of me. I needed to go south, via Hwy 550 (of 'Million Dollar Highway' fame). But there were some nasty clouds piled up in that direction, and the weather map on my phone showed rain and snow over the area. On the other hand, I could stay in Montrose for the night but if the weatherman was right, I could end up being stuck in snow the next morning and below freezing temperatures for the next few days.
So I said f**k it, and headed south.. It's only a 100 miles anyway, can't be that bad kind of thing
Made it to Ouray in no time, and then started to climb up the pass.. And man was it beautiful.. and even though it was raining and bitter cold (hence no pictures), it was damn gorgeous mountains and wonderful twisty tarmac! As we reached the pass, I stopped for a minute pondering going back to Ouray as I had 60 miles of mountain roads at 10k+ feet ahead of me, in this:
After pondering my options over a wet cigarette, I guess my stupid brain told me something like turning back is for p**sies (yeah I'm an idiot
), so I kept going!
More rain and fog going down to Silverton. A few miles later, the road start going up again ("hum.. didn't expect that").. and then a sign: Pass in 7 miles.. ("yay, another mountain in the freezing rain").. followed a few miles later by a proper snow shower.. got up to the summit, and started going back down on the other side.. after a while the snow stopped replaced by steady rain and I'm thinking it wasn't so bad after all. At this point it's completely dark out, and I'm drenched and cold so I hook up behind a car and plan on sticking behind it for the last 30 miles or so.. then of course we start going up again.. Pass in 5 miles sign.. rain turns into snow.. pass.. snow turns into rain.. getting used to it by now
I eventually made it down to Durango in the pouring rain, checked in the first motel I saw on the side of the road and stayed forever under the shower to warm myself up.
550 was an awesome road though.. even in those really crappy conditions, I could tell this road had the potential to be an awesome piece of riding! I'll definitely be back, hopefully with the sun on my side this time!
Even though I took this picture the next morning, it sums it up pretty well!
