Kenosha to Breck

Officially this ride is know as the Colorado Trail from Kenosha Pass to Goldhill trailhead. And it kicked my butt. Stats are 33 miles and about 4500 feet of climbing just about all over 10,000 feet of elevation. It's a shuttle ride, needing to leave a vehicle at the end point to go retrieve the vehicle at the starting point, so we hooked up with my buddy Griz who now resides near Breckenridge. I think I first met Griz at a Wilderness 101 race a number of years ago and managed to get invited to his next "Grizvitational" where he got 10-20 of his riding buddies from across the state together for a weekend of camping, riding, drinking, eating, and great fellowship among like minded individuals. He has also written and published a number of mountain bike guides for PA as well as being an expert ice climber among other past times. His school teaching gig leaves him plenty of time in the summer for play. Well Griz not only served as a shuttle buddy, but guide and moral support for this amazing but LONG ride. Living and riding at altitude helps with his amazing abilities but he really is a truly gifted rider and both howie and I owe him a ton of thanks for going at our slow pace, he definitely put a few karma points in the bank on Thursday. The ride starts at 10,000 feet at the pass and climbs another 200 feet or so in a forested cover before making its first decent across a beautiful meadow/valley. We talked with another rider from OK that mentioned how beautiful the ride was in the fall with the aspens changing colors and its easy to see why that's so. Before getting all the way down, Griz started to point out where we would be climbing over and I was starting to get a little nervous. We bottomed out about 9800 feet before turning skyward for Georgia Pass at about 11,800. For those locals reading, the average climb visually looked like you were maybe going up Laurel Run Rd, but the effort needed to make the climb felt like you were going up "the wall" on thickhead, or trying to climb Croyle. We took a break at a beautiful vista mid way up. Griz was having some issues with his new tire seating properly so by the time howie and I caught up to him there, he already had it off, reseated and inflated. Plus he had been taking the climb easy to start with.

I fell off the pace a little bit and as we got to about 11,500 feet the trees were pretty much gone and I was slowly making time across and up these vast meadows. Above tree line, like I had mentioned before, the trail tends to not be quite so nice, more rutted and looser, which can be a bit frustrating when you are almost hyperventilating. It was true here, but not nearly as bad as we have seen in other places. When I got near the top, I had three guys pass me going the other way. I thought initially that they were doing the whole trail the other way but then realized they were the three we had seen down in the valley below us at some point and were just doing and out n back. I reached the intersection just shy of Georgia Pass where howie was waiting and there was another couple also doing and out n back and thought we were a little nuts for doing what we were doing. I was starting to agree with them.

Another 100 feet or so of climbing and we found Griz hanging out at the pass, letting all the mosquitoes feast on him so we would not be over taken when we got there. We all headed down through wonderful singletrack, a little rocky above treeline to start, but then buff fast greatness,

followed by some technical rocky sections as we neared the bottom creek crossing. From there it was up and down for a few miles, the down being a lot more fun than the ups, I was starting to really feel it. After about 20 miles or so we took a break to eat before the next significant climb of about 1000 feet or so, we had already been out 3.5 hours at least. I was eating my fluff and sipping at my camelbak when I started sucking air. Figuring the bladder was just at a bad angle I held the pack upright with no success at finding any more water. I still had a water bottle but 20 oz was not going to do the trick for the rest of the ride. Luckily I brought the water filter along and we were sitting right next to a creek. Howie checked his bladder and it was near empty as well. This was actually the first time since we started bringing the filter along that I had actually needed to use it, others have used it a bunch but Im usually pretty good on water consumption. We both filled up about 3/4 of the way, about 75 oz. I maybe had 20 oz left at the end of the ride. I ended up walking a good bit of that climb as I just didn't have much left in me for any sustained steep climbs. The payoff on the other side was pretty amazing though, excellent single track through the pine forests with intermittent vistas. We had a few more small climbs again with excellent payoffs of amazing trail. It finishes down a series of tight switch backs. Since I had not had any real switchback experience since last summer I was a little tentative on the first two, putting a foot down but then making the next two. As Griz makes the 5th, he says "bonus points for making this one", making me a little apprehensive, but somehow I managed to pull it off with out sliding down the steep hillside. The one was pretty easy. A spin through some houses, another couple hundred yards of single track and we were back at Griz's truck, right where we left it, about 6.5 hours after we started the ride.
We took his truck back to retrieve the Beast then headed back to Griz's house in Frisco where he graciously was allowing us to stay. We showered and then walked over to a Mexican place and were ready for bed after that.