Nick fishes out another layer on top of Guanella Pass.

Nick is in town with his bike and we’re doing some riding. On Wednesday we rode Guanella Pass.

The great thing about going somewhere and riding with a local is that the local knows all the good roads, most of which you may have no idea exist. So I kicked around several ideas as to what route to take on this ride.

First thing, as always, is getting across town. I live just four blocks off US 285 so 285 is almost always the best way to start off. We headed out to Morrison and then turned up CO 74, up Bear Creek Canyon. At Kittredge we turned up Kerr Gulch in order to avoid the traffic and the busyness of downtown Evergreen. Plus, Kerr Gulch is really a nice ride.

Reaching Evergreen Parkway up by Bergen Park, we jogged just a couple miles over to take the road leading to either westbound I-70 or the overpass across I-70 to get on old US 40 up Mount Vernon Canyon. No surprise, we chose US 40. US 40 is the highway that I-70 replaced and while it wanders away from the slab most of the time, at other times it is basically an I-70 frontage road.

Cruising up through this area I was reminded of what I have seen repeatedly of late, the huge proliferation of dead pine trees. It has all appeared suddenly but it must have been happening for a while. Presumably these trees were fighting pine beetle infestations but with the drought this year they finally lost the battle. A lot of them. This place is a forest fire waiting to happen.

We ran up Floyd Hill alongside I-70 and then down the other side where, at the bottom, you have a great view of the really large highway project now under way to smooth out the sharp turn at the very bottom that has been a thorn in the side of highway planners for decades. At the bottom we turned left, fed onto old US 6, which fed onto I-70, and got off again at Idaho Springs. Time for a break and an explanation for Nick of what he had just seen.

We stayed off the slab, using US 6 to make our way up the canyon, to Georgetown, and then headed up Guanella Pass.

Guanella Pass is big for “leaf-peeping,” cruising the high country in the fall to see the leaves changing color. It gets pretty spectacular in places and this pass is a close-to-town favorite. It’s too early for any leaf-peeping just yet but I did note that just a few aspen were already turning. They say with the drought, though, that this year’s show is likely to be a bit subdued.

I was a bit chilly coming into Georgetown so I put on a sweatshirt while we were there and told Nick what I was doing and why. This is not my first rodeo. Nick figured he’d be fine. We hadn’t gone far up the pass at all when I was feeling very glad to have the extra layer. We stopped at the top and Nick pulled out an extra layer, too.

We cruised down the other side looking to have a bit of lunch in Grant but the food truck that usually sits where the pass road hits US 285 was not there. What was there was a row of A-frame cabins and another row of rectangular cabins with slanted roofs. None of that was there the last time I came this way. Turning toward Denver I pulled into the parking lot of the Shaggy Sheep cafe but as has happened every time I have thought to eat there it was closed. I just always come by on the wrong day of the week. So we rode on to Bailey and had lunch there.

Then it was on down 285 into town and back across town on 285. Right at the peak of the commute, with lots of stop and go and heavy traffic. This was not the 100-degree weather we had recently but we were still roasting. Nick knew where he was going now so he changed lanes to try to make a little better speed but again, not my first rodeo, and we got home with me right behind him.

So it was a short ride for me, a substantial ride for him, and the first step in getting him prepped for the four-day ride we’re doing right after Labor Day.

Biker Quote for Today

“Be at one with the universe. If you can’t do that, at least be at one with your bike.” ~ Lennard Zinn