Here's my ride from last weekend. This was a variation of a ride I've done many times, most definitely my favorite within reasonable driving distance. Only 25 minutes from the house. Buffalo Creek Wilderness being the best on the front range but its a 2 hour drive.
This was the first time I've gone up Gold Camp and Old Stage Roads, Lots and lots of climbing, but its all pretty mellow, as opposed to the Climb up St. Marys, which is a unrelenting steep, but short, Hike-a-bike Bitch.
Gold Camp Profile: (the big dip I think is the GPS losing signal in the big tunnel.)
Heading up from the high drive parking lot.
The First tunnel, closed after in collapsed years back
Tunnel detour, climbable but steep, the rains this year have not been kind.
On My way.
Then it started to rain, just briefly. It got very cool after this. Fall is here for sure dude, that sucks because I'm not ready after missing one month of the summer, and its short enough here top begin with.
The big tunnel that resulted in the elevation drop on the profile. (I think anyway)
View of Colorado Springs. From up here you can almost forget its full of religious nut jobs and republicans.
End of Gold Camp Road.
After connecting to Old Stage, made the rest of the climb up to the Jones (trail 701) trail head.
Please, I'm allergic to Lead.
The Captain Jacks Trail Head. Whats weird is the actual Captain Jacks trail is way down the road. The Trail that starts here is Jones/Frosty Park 701
"Technically Difficult." No Shit. I'd always laughed at that because Jones is a pretty easy trail. I guess I'd never paid close enough attention before to realize they were talking about....
.....This trail, which was my destination for the day. Trail 668 "pipeline trail".
It was supper steep, and where it wasn't a washed out trench filled mess, it was loose Colorado Scree several inches deep, absolutely unrideable. This old mining cabin was near the top.
It did eventually turn into this but only after a fair amount of walking.
About 15 miles in you hit this marker although I don't know why, its the only trail...
....but you do find the Namesake "pipe".
The Pipe goes on for several miles sometimes like this where it looks like your riding on the bones of some ancient monster. Other times dissapering completely, or apperantly just sitting on the ground.
The Junction with Seven Bridges trail. I had previously contemplated coming up Seven Bridges to conect with Pipeline, but no way, too steep.
More rollers/rythm section. These are created by MotoX riders and ther a lot of fun. Its almost enough.....
....To forgive them for creating features like this scale model of the Death Star Trench. (standing on my bike the walls were sholder high)
.....and this unrideable feature destined to be the next Grand Canyon.
Followed up by what are refered to in the mountain bike community as "baby heads". i.e. fist sized (and bigger) loose rocks strewn all over the trail.
Trail 666! It has a name but I forget it. Ian and I rode down it once and we paid for it in a big way by having to come up the back side of high drive to get back to the parking lot. It was Hell.
Looking back down old Gold Camp Road. This ridgeline conects to the actual "Captain Jacks" and eventually the "Chutes". Both of which are wild swooping down hills that I was having way too much fun on to stop and take Pictures. The summer rains have been very kind to both trails this year. Pics in future posts maybe.
After this ride, about a total 6 hours, 29 miles, I stopped by my friend Brians house, had a beer, got a ride back up to the jeep, then went home. Slept like a baby.
Basically, I went for show and tell. Which is great actually, these people will probably be scraping fools like me off the street in the future and just might save someones life, the way the EMT's who picked me up saved mine.
I got to give some brief background, or as brief as it could be, and Shanna had the unenviable task of picking just one thing (my many pelvis fractures) and talking about how an EMT should respond to it.
