Most of the pics I took have been put up on instagram, so I won't repeat them here.
We didn't leave until Saturday morning, and it was raining/snowing/sleeting pretty good as we headed south on hwy 115. Wet and miserable, but we made decent time down to Coyote's Coffee Den in Penrose. We would have just pushed through to Florence Brewing, but it wasn't open yet.
Got to Florence Brewing right at noon when they opened. 44 miles. A few IPAs later, we were pedaling again.
Leg two went up to Guffey. 115 to hwy 50 in Canon City, over towards the Royal Gorge, then north on hwy 9. Beautiful scenery, but 40 miles of climbing really put a hurt on me. We stopped at the Fishwater Saloon for some burgers and beers. And they had a band there.
We were originally planning on leaving Guffey and heading to Hartsel, though over beers we decided to attempt a shortcut which looked much more fun and may or may not have been paved (Kircher was on a skinny tired road bike). County road 102, which magically turned into county road 112 at some point, then a left on county road 11, to county road 1, which would get us to the Florissant Fossil Beds. From there it's a quick spin to the town of Florissant and hwy 24.
We only made it six miles outside of Guffey before the sun went down and it was time to stealth camp. We found a small field behind the empty Guffey Fire Company, threw down our sleeping bags, and went to sleep. Over 90 miles on the day with lots of climbing. I slept well, despite being woke up multiple times by howling coyotes.
We were off at 7:30AM on Sunday. Nice downhill to start the day, but it was cold, so we hid the bikes and took a short hike to check out Paradise Cove.
22 miles from the Guffey fire station to Florissant. Grabbed grub and caffeine there and started the final trek home. Luckily the shortcut also got us around Wilkerson Pass as we were both pretty beat. The climb up to Divide was no joke, another 1000 feet in eight miles, but luckily Paradox Beer Company was open by the time we got there. Paradox was the high point of day two, and it was all downhill from there, including a stop at Bierwerks and the end of the trip at Fossil Brewing.
But wait, what is a bike trip without something going wrong? Everything damn near went perfect, until, with less than three miles to go, Kircher got a flat.
Very tired, but I had a blast the entire trip. 145 miles over two days, with night outside number three on the year. Learned a lot and I'll definitely be doing some more of this kind of stuff.
3 comments:
Way to go!
Looks like a cool trip, some cool areas!
Hadn't you bikepacked somewhere near Cherry Creek SP before?
Ha! Yes! But that included a hotel and a ride home. Still a great time.
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