Last weekend ride for this winter

Today being Sunday and the last weekend for the Winter of 2008, I thought I'd ride up into the mountains to see what was there before Spring is here on Friday.

I rode County Line Road out of town, getting on the C-470 slab westbound for about a mile and then exiting on Wadsworth Blvd. I cruised onto Deer Creek Canyon Rd and along with many bicyclists, enjoyed the winding turns and twists all the way to Fenders. I headed down South Turkey Creek Rd at this point, a winding road in its own right, until I junctioned with US285 which I took southbound.

As I was approaching the small town of Pine Junction where I normally turn South on CO126 towards Deckers; I spied a sunlit mountain peak off to the right. So I turned off instead onto Mt Evans Blvd in the hopes of getting a better look at that sunlit, snow capped peak.


Down the road a ways, a bonus terrain feature showed itself. It reminded me of a smaller version of the El Capitan rock formation at Yosemite National Park at first. What do you think?

Lion's Head

Mt Evans Blvd ends at a private ranch which I think is really a housing development. However, there's a side road one can take to get a little bit closer to the Lion's Head. The road itself ends in a cul-de-sac and that's where I posed Brigitta, my 1987 R80 Beemer, for this shot:


I made my way out, exploring the side roads which lead one to more housing sites and dead-ends. Once I was back on US285, I continued on towards the South to see what I could see. The weather had turned a bit overcast and it felt chilly as well with temperatures in the mid 40s since I was in the mountains.

Near the town of Bailey, I turned onto Park County 43 because once I again I saw a glimpse of Mt Evans. This county road is nicely paved and eventually splits off with Park County 47 heading NW and Park County 43 continuing sort off towards Mt Evans. I stayed on CR43 hoping to get a good look at the mountain but soon reached a point where surrounding hills obscured my view of it.

I turned myself around and rode back to where the road splits off and posed Brigitta once again with Mount Evans in the background:



I made my way back towards US285 and this time turned North on it heading back to the Denver Metro area. I stayed on US285, making my way into the city until I came to the junction with the I-25 superslab. I slabbed it all the way to I-225 which I took to the Parker Road exit. Parker road of course took me to my home neighborhoods which I reached around 3pm. About 131 miles of riding, it surely has been a mild winter for us here near the Colorado Rockies.