Chalk Creek East on the CT

We again hit the Colorado Trail (CT) from near by the campground, just about 8 miles up the Chalk Creek. Ideally we would have taken it all the way to rt 50 but without a shuttle that would be way to big a day. We got everything ready last night so we could get an early start incase of afternoon t-showers like yesterday. Howie even made awesome bagel egg ham n cheese sandwiches in the morning in anticipation of a long ride. We hit the trail about 7:45, rolling over chalk creek on a nice bridge. The first half mile was pretty rideable although it was definitely up and through rocks. After that, the next mile or so was pretty much all hike-a-bike. The grade wasn't terrible, about 500 feet of gain per mile, but it was so loose and sandy even if you had the power I don't think it would be possible to ride. The picture above shows the view at the top, looking back up Chalk Creek Canyon. From that point I could see where we needed to head yet the trail did not seem to be going in that direction. The trail takes a bit of a circuitous route apparently due to private ground. No biggie, just a few extra miles and a few extra hundred feet of climbing.


This picture was actually taken on our way back but this is the piece of trail we rode next. You can see where the creek gets its name, as the first people that made maps thought the cliffs looked white as chalk. The ride was completely different than yesterday as the trail surface was much looser, even sandy in places, although it still looked to be granite based. Most of the ride was either completely out in the open, through what was apparently burned out forest, now sort of meadows, not very dense forest, or exposed benchcut trail on steep slopes that didn't favor tree growth. There is also a fair amount of horse traffic although we didn't actually run into any. So my educated opinion is that the looseness of the trail tread is mainly due to sun exposure, basically getting baked and not helped by the horse traffic. We did hit a few shaded areas and the trail was remarkably better in them. The initial climb was about 1000 feet upto about 9400. We headed down to about 8900 then actually had about the most level trail we've seen in Colorado for a couple miles, fast, flowy, long sight lines. We figured we could cover alot of ground if this kept up. Well it didn't, probably a good thing, it could get a little boring. We started climbing up through a light canopy of pines and aspen actually encountering a number of small rocky technical sections. Im definitely getting more acclimated to the elevation because I looked at them as fun challenges rather than something to dred. I cleaned a number of them and didn't feel lightheaded at the top. The exposed benchcuts necessitated your attention because if you got too far to the edge the loose tread could easily send you down the side of the mountain. We ran into a few more backpackers/hikers that were more than willing to step out of our way and we had a nice exchange with each. After about 3000 feet of climbing and 11.5 miles in 3 hours or so, we decided it was time to turn around and head back. That trip went much easier, with probably less than 1000 feet of climbing. The last piece, down what we had hiked up was actually a little better than I had anticipated, I was at least able to ride it all the way down although I did have to put a foot or two down on a few of the tighter switchbacks. All told we were out there a little over 5 hours with a total of 23 miles.