Passes & Canyons Blog

After cruising Kebler Pass last weekend we went on up Taylor Canyon and over Cottonwood Pass. This was another of those Colorado roads that I haven’t been on because it wasn’t paved and I wasn’t sure how good it would be on a motorcycle. I had been hearing that it was decent gravel, however, and needed to check it out.

  Cottonwood Pass looking west

Well here’s the verdict. It is not as good a gravel road as Kebler Pass. It is passable, however. I know this for a fact because there were Harleys and all sorts of bikes doing the ride.

I knew that Cottonwood Pass was paved on the eastern side, from Buena Vista, and I have been up there on my bike previously. What I didn’t know was that on the western side, coming east out of Almont, you pass through Taylor Canyon, which is absolutely gorgeous, and the road is paved all the way to Taylor Reservoir. It’s only about 12 miles then from the reservoir to the top of Cottonwood Pass.

Considering all that, I would definitely add this road to my list of good rides in Colorado. Personally, I would prefer going east to west so all of the gravel would be downhill. I just feel more comfortable on a street bike going downhill on rough gravel. And some of it is rough, make no mistake. But if those Harleys can do it anyone can.

I’ll be adding Cottonwood Pass and Taylor Canyon to the website as soon as time permits. I have a lot of good photos but you’ll have to wait until I get the new page up to see the rest of them.

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Biker Quote for Today

Destinations are merely excuses to ride.

I have to admit I was feeling a bit peeved with myself with my failure to have ever made it to Kebler Pass, especially with all these out-of-state riders coming through and doing that route. That shortcoming got rectified this past weekend, and I have to say, it was long overdue.

  Kebler Pass is gorgeous

Kebler Pass is the extremely well-maintained, hard-packed gravel road that run from Crested Butte down to CO 133 over McClure Pass between Hotchkiss and Carbondale. This road may not be paved but even the biggest bagger can take this route with no problem whatsoever. That’s especially great because otherwise, when you go to Crested Butte, you have no choice but to go back the way you came in.

An additional benefit to doing Kebler Pass is that you can take a short side-trip and hit Ohio Pass as well. Just a short distance downhill from the sign marking the Kebler summit, Gunnison County Road 730 heads off southwest to Gunnison. Ohio Pass is just a short distance away and then it’s a rough road heading on down, good primarily for a dual-sport bike. Don’t take your Road King on this one. Extremely scenic, however.

So I want to thank Steve Smith, a rider from North Carolina who used this site to help plan his trip and then sent me his report. I didn’t even know where Ohio Pass was until he described his ride. And now I don’t feel so bad that he has been to Kebler Pass and I haven’t, because now I have.

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Biker Quote for Today

Enjoying life one ride at a time.

I wrote just three days ago about the conditions on Guanella Pass, so with that on my mind, when my wife wanted to head for the high country the next day I knew where I wanted to go.

The last time we were up there was two years ago, and what we saw then was what I described. Well, there is a lot that has changed in two years.

For one thing, the reconstruction work I mentioned has begun, and going up from the Georgetown side the road is horrible. Horrible! It’s one lane in several places, with traffic signals stopping you or letting you pass, but the road surface on most of it is so bad it’s amazing. I can hardly believe the county would let it get this bad, although I wonder if perhaps it is the heavy construction going on that has torn the road up like this. If that’s the case then of course they won’t want to repair the road surface until the heavy work is done. The project won’t be completed for another couple years.

After awhile you get past the mess and then the road is pretty good the rest of the way up. It’s mostly paved, although still rough, and just as you near the top it turns to gravel. It’s definitely passable. We couldn’t really tell what the condition was two years ago because it was all covered with snow at that time.

And it is beautiful up on top! It was beautiful last time, too, but it was an all-covered-with-snow beauty. I had forgotten just how spectacular it is when the snow is gone.

Heading on down the other side it continues as gravel and gets to be a lot of washboard. Then abruptly, about a mile from the top, you hit nice new asphalt. We guessed that this was where we hit the county line. If you look at the picture I included in the last post and you see the poor surface, that’s all been redone. The new asphalt continues for several miles and then you get back to the older surface and intermittent gravel. It’s all very passable, although if it has rained you will face mud.

So bottom line on all this, I still wouldn’t take a Gold Wing on this road but anyone who doesn’t mind doing some dirt would find this a really nice ride. You’ll need to go slow on the part where the surface is so bad but you definitely can do it. Just try not to get caught in a thundershower.

Consequently, I will be adding this road to the Dirt Roads and Side Trips page of the website.

Biker Quote for Today

Patience is the ability to keep your motor idling.

Man, have I got a lot of work ahead of me. If you have gone through the Passes and Canyons, Motorcycle Touring in Colorado website thoroughly you know that even three years in it is still weak in information on some roads. The simple fact is that although I’ve been all over this state numerous times, there were some places I had not been back to since I started the website. Therefore, although I could show a map and talk a little about the route, I did not have the photos and other information I routinely collect and post.

Well, that’s about to change. The OFMC trip last week could not have been better tailored to meet my needs if I had planned the route myself with that in mind–which I did not do. I had made a list some time ago of 27 places I needed to get to. On this trip I hit 15 of those spots. It’s going to take time to work through it all but in the next few weeks you can expect to see improvements on a lot of pages, including:

• Colorado 92 from Hotchkiss to the Blue Mesa Reservoir
• Colorado 65 across Grand Mesa
• McClure Pass
• Monarch Pass
• Red Mountain Pass
• Slumgullion and Spring Creek Passes
• Wolf Creek Pass

And more. Here’s a map showing our route. What a great ride we had.

Biker Quote for Today

The ride IS the destination.

I picked up a copy of this book, Motorcycle Journeys Through the Southwest, on the recommendation of Steve Shards, the Kiwi rider whose pending trip to Colorado I discussed in several posts previously. It’s an interesting book and if you’re coming to the four-corners states (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona) there is a lot of good information about roads you may not know exist. I mean, let’s face it, there aren’t any websites comparable to motorcyclecolorado.com for any of those other states.

What caught my interest was when Steve included some roads in Utah on his trip plans that I had never heard of. I asked him how he (in New Zealand mind you) came to know about these roads, and he told me he read about them in this book. So I bought the book.

The author, Martin Berke, breaks the four-state area up into a number of geographically logical sections.

What I personally find most interesting about this book is that Berke covers a number of roads here in Colorado that I have ignored on the website primarily because they don’t go through to anywhere. That is, these are roads that dead-end or where the pavement runs out and you would need to either turn around or venture out on the gravel — or worse. He also suggests campgrounds up some of these roads as bases for day trips.

Looking through this book pointed out to me that I’ve been a little short-sighted in this regard, both in what I’ve included on the site and in my own travels. Especially now that I’ve started including some of the better gravel roads, I’m going to let this book help me explore some parts of this state that I’m unfamiliar with. I’d say that’s a darn good recommendation.

Biker Quote for Today

Never hesitate to ride past the last street light at the edge of town.

I had a pleasing email in my inbox this morning. It seems the folks at Mile High Harley-Davidson discovered this site and liked it enough to feature it in a post on their blog. They sent me a bunch of rides to add to my Rides and Rallies page and mentioned, oh by the way, we recommended your site on our blog. Boy, did they ever! They didn’t just link to the home page, they gave their readers links to all of the great roads pages on the whole website.

If you are one of the folks coming here via those links, this “Welcome” is for you! Go ahead and explore the site. Then, if there’s something you particularly like I’m always happy to hear that. And if there’s something you’d like to see added I’m even more interested to hear that.

Of course, if you have any events you’d like added to the Rides and Rallies page just send them along and I’ll get them up right away. Thanks.

Biker Quote for Today

Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.

One thing I really love about running this website and publishing this blog is the way I learn about new places to ride from the folks who visit the site. I’m not always able to go check them out right away but they definitely go on my list to get to as soon as I can.

The most recent road to add to my list is the Kebler Pass road coming over from Crested Butte to CO 133 coming down off McClure Pass toward Hotchkiss. I’ve mentioned Andy Simons several times recently and Andy gets credit for this one, too. He sent me some photos from the road and described it as “dirt road but suitable for all bikes (well graded and packed).” Here’s one of his photos that confirms his description.

Now, I have never taken this road, not even in a car. In fact, I didn’t know it was there and that you could go anywhere on a good road from Crested Butte other than back down the road you came in on. So I did some checking to find out more about this road. I found one site with a lot of photos where they had this to say:

This is a beautiful drive, forest road 12, that connects Crested Butte highway 135 with Paonia Reservoir and highway 133. Suitable for any vehicles. If you like aspens, mountains, and many photos ops this is the road for you.

Then there is this site where people can post their comments on various roads and such, where one person says:

i lived in colorado for about five years, traveled as many back roads as i could in that time, and Kebler Pass was by far my favorite…for one, it’s a little out of the way so it tends to not be crowded…it is also breathtakingly beautiful…the aspens in this area are huge, and the aspen stand is enormous, mile after mile of aspens…

I will note that another person on this same site had this cautionary remark:

The road is heavily washboarded in places and was very muddy after several days of rain, but was easily passable with our Subaru and wouldn’t present much of a problem to any vehicles if the driver is paying attention. I wouldn’t recommend towing over this pass however. Big snows at high elevation would be a problem – something to consider if weather is severe. Take your time as some of the curves are tight and the road drops a lot of elevation on the west side of the pass. We saw plenty of deer, but no other large mammals this trip.

So it sounds like it should be no problem as long as it’s dry. If it has rained recently don’t even try it. Fair enough. You probably won’t want to try it in May or June but by July or August it sounds like a go. I know I’m going.

Biker Quote for Today

The only good view of a thunderstorm is in your rearview mirror.

I picked up the January 2008 issue of Rider magazine with interest as the covered touted a story about “Descending the Black Canyon in CO.” Of course I’ve been to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison many times. It’s steep and gorgeous and deep, and the first night out on one of our earliest summer motorcycle trips we camped there. But I’ve never been to the bottom. The only road I knew of going to the bottom was a very steep (7% grade) gravel road going down from the dam that forms the Blue Mesa Reservoir, and I couldn’t conceive of taking that on anything but a good dirt bike, with a lot more dirt biking experience than I can claim.

So of course I was very interested when I saw that the writer, Clement Salvadori, took some road to the bottom on a fully dressed Harley Ultra. What road is this? Why am I not aware of this?

Out comes the map, with the magazine open beside it. Where is this turn-off?

Aha! Now I see. Clem says to continue west on US 50 “a few miles west of Cimarron.” That would be about 12 miles west, and lo, there it is, CO 347, going off to the north. I have to wonder about this road. It’s right there on my new-for-2007 Colorado state map, but it doesn’t exist on the Microsoft Streets & Trips software that I use for the maps on this website. And Clem says it leads you up to an entrance to the park. I have to wonder how long that road has been paved.

Of course I’ve never been on this road so I’ll just share with you what Clem has to say:

. . . it is a well-paved road with a very, very steep descent; I heat up those three brake discs while having a high old time. Down by the river it is a few degrees warmer than at the top, with a small dam and a camping area. . . . I have a look around and then rush back up, which is equally fun and a little less adrenaline-inducing.

Who knew? I sure didn’t, but I’ll promise you right now that the first chance I get I’m going down that road and it will be up on the website soon afterward. Thanks for the heads-up, Clem!