Steamboat Springs to Silverthorne, Colorado

---

Hi folks. This will just be a quick post with a bunch of photos that we've taken over the past few days. We reluctantly left Steamboat Springs on Friday, riding up into the mountains of Routt National Forest. It was a pretty big day of climbing, crossing over Lynx Pass (9100-ft), culminating in a really nice night at camp where we met up with Paul and Susan (whom we met near Steamboat and hung out with a bit when we were all there). Paul and Susan are a couple of great folks and avid mountain bikers who rode this same, 2900-mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route 10-yrs ago and decided that they hadn't gotten enough abuse the first time they did it. Something else really cool happened that night too: Jim, an incredibly spry, motocross-riding octogenarian that we met and chatted with earlier that day, came riding into camp on his Yamaha enduro with a six pack of beer and a bag of homemade cookies for us... and boy, was that well received! Paul, Susan, Fi, and I enjoyed chatting with him for a while over cold beers and chewy cookies; as it turns out, Jim was an elite cyclist and alpine skier in his heyday, having moved from Los Angeles to Colorado. Just one of the many interesting people we've met along the trail.

Since crossing over into the eastern flank of Colorado's Front Range, the terraine has turned remarkably arid again. We've posted a bunch of pitiful photos that, hopefully, demonstrate this. Another observation that may be a little strange for East Coasters (such as me) is that the mountains on the Front Range are devoid of trees at the lower elevations but then become very forested at higher elevations - today that critical elevation was about 8500-ft where the mountain road leading up to Ute Pass (elevation 9500-ft) went from barren to forest. Kind of the opposite from what we're used to seeing in the Appalachians where the trees get shorter and more sparse at increasing elevation.

Today, we rode from the lovely little town of Kremling to where we're chilling out in a motel room in Silverthorne. After today's ride of 52 miles and 3500 vertical feet of climbing, we've accumulated about 1250 total miles and over 64,000 vertical feet of ascent. Tomorrow, we'll tackle the 11,500-ft Boreas Pass, crossing the Continental Divide again, about 15 miles south of Breckenridge.

---

Photos

Cruising along at 9100-ft
The ride down to Radium, CO (a popular put-in spot for rafters along the Colorado River) was a blast, especially atop this ridgeline road, meandering along the 9100-ft contour.

Camp at Lynx Pass
From left: Trail Angel Jim, Fi, Paul, and Susan, hanging out enjoying the beer and cookies that Jim brought us at the end of a long day of riding.

19-century Wells Fargo stage stop
Still standing, located in Routt National Forest, this is where mail and other parcels going from New York (or other locations on the East Coast) passed through on their way to California... and vice versa.

Stream crossing on Forest Road 206
The one thing we neglected to pack was a canoe.

Arid terrain near Kremling, CO
Looking more like southern Utah than Colorado, the eastern flank of Colorado's front range is more desert-like than we expected.

Williams Fork Reservoir
South of Kremling, near Arapaho National Forest.

Enjoying the ride
Fi, enjoying the last few moments of an exhilarating descent on smooth pavement from Ute Pass and out of Arapaho National Forest.

Comments

[Faye]

well done
well done Fi and Ken your posts are super and I enjoy sitting down to read them! I think you are both doing a wonderful job of keeping upbeat as I'm sure there are some real hard times :) keep up your adventures guys. Loads of love Faye xx