Ridgway State Park...September 10 - Day 15

(Kim's Perspective)
Today was PHENOMENAL!!  No, really, it was truly AWESOME!!

We slept in a bit this morning and then I texted Shele at 9 to see if they had heard back from the ATV rental place.  Unfortunately, no one got back to them and Mr. Sitt was thinking they'd bail early and head back home.  :(  Bummer.  The idea of leaving early to head home is both an alien concept to me and one that fills me with despair.  Why would you want to leave this bit of heaven on earth?  I suppose Bill and I are used to being away from home for extended periods of time and since we always manage to occupy ourselves with plenty of activity, we are never ready or willing to leave before we absolutely have to.  I was hoping they'd change their minds, but around 9:30 or so, they stopped over to let us know they were going to head out.  We weren't in a rush to ride since the temps were still quite chilly, so we chatted a bit and then they left to pack up their camper and we packed up our bikes for a ride.  By the time we headed out of the campground, I saw the Sitts heading out to the main road.  I sped up so we could say goodbye one last time and then they turned left and we turned right and headed on down the road.  

The plan was to ride Last Dollar Road (again, one of the things on my "to-do" list) and then make our way to Yankee Boy Basin.  In Ridgway, we turned right onto route 62 and drove for about 12 miles on what ended up being another beautiful mountain highway with killer views.  The air was crisp and the sky was bright and I was already enjoying myself immensely.  We saw the NF Access sign and turned left onto Last Dollar Road.  The dirt and gravel path took us past some incredible mountain homes and ranches.

I know it's wrong to covet, but c'mon, look at this place! 

Eventually, the road turned off and narrowed to a smaller single lane dirt road and slowly meandered through open fields...

...and through an amazing stand of aspen trees.

I LOVE aspens and walking along this dirt road with huge white tree trunks towering above me was very surreal.  It was so quiet.  The only thing you could hear was the wind rustling the leaves.  I told Bill I felt like I was in a Lord Of The Rings movie and fairies or hobbits or something were going to walk out of the woods.  The pictures just don't do the trees or the moment any justice.  I stowed the camera and we rode a little further until we popped out into this...

The words "awesome", "spectacular", "fabulous", and "phenomenal" get used lots in my writing, but I'm not eloquent enough to describe it any better and, well, that's what comes to mind whenever I see these views.  They truly are breathtaking.  Obviously, the bikes were parked and out came the camera again.

 Bill rode to the edge...

 ...and I simply walked to the edge to see what was on the other side.

I set the timer on the camera and scurried over just in time (running in the 'stitch on loose rocks is harder than one might imagine).

Finding room for my Gumby legs so I can appear shorter than Bill looks more ridiculous than just looking taller.  :)

We scarfed down some dried mango and climbed back on the bikes to continue our ride.  The road was easy, enjoyable riding.  It wasn't technical at all which allowed me to look around and take in my surroundings.  I love riding the bike, but I also love being able to enjoy the scenery, so I was having a great time on this easy trek.  Then, we encountered the water crossings.  The first few weren't terrible and we both rode through without much drama.  The last two were...uh....a little larger...

Having no idea what to expect (is it deep?, is it thick mud? is my front tire going to be swallowed up and I'm going to take a swim?), I was reluctant to ride through.  I most definitely didn't want to take a swim, but I also didn't want to have to touch down in my hiking boots (which are old and no longer waterproof), nor did I want to risk dropping the bike and have the camera get ruined.  It pained me to request it, but I explained my concerns to Bill and asked him to ride my bike through.  I know....I'm embarrassed to admit it...I pulled the girl card.  Disgusting.  Anyway, I walked through the woods and met him on the other side.  We were both dry and happy....which may not have been the case had I ridden through. ;)

As we were stopped, a Jeep pulled up and we chatted with the driver a bit.  We told himm about the other "water features" he would encounter and we watched him drive through.  I scrambled to get a pic.

We packed back up and continued on our way.  At another overlook...

 

...we chatted with an older retired couple who were mountain biking up from Telluride.  What?!?!  That's a heck of a ride (mileage AND significant elevation).  The gentleman mentioned that if you live in Colorado, you just end up having a healthy, active lifestyle.  Yes, I suppose you would.  They do this ride at least once a week.  Wow.

That's him zipping down the road a few minutes later.

 We stopped a few more times to ogle the houses we passed as we descended towards Telluride.

Much to my dismay, we came to the end of Last Dollar Road and turned onto 145 towards Telluride.  Then, I saw it...and my first thought when we rode into town was..... "Ummm....Stanley has some competition".  I'm in love!  It was incredible.  The town sits in a box canyon and is probably a death trap if there's ever any apocalyptic weather events, but I suppose the payoff is that you get to live in a storybook setting. No really, it looked like the opening scene of a Disney or Pixar movie with huge mountains and monster waterfalls cascading down opposite sides of the screen...

Standing there looking at it, you expected to see a fire breathing dragon swoop down into the valley or a little girl with eagle's wings doing somersaults in the sky.  So cool.

As we were stopped along the road snapping photos...

 

...a local trotted by on the hike/bike trail that rolls through town.  She was probably in her late 30's, tanned and toned and pushing a baby stroller.  I may have rolled my eyes just a bit.  :)  Bill asked her about good places to eat.  She recommended a Mexican restaurant, a BBQ joint, and a pizza place.  We drove around and settled on the pizza place since it offered street parking in front of the restaurant which enabled us to keep an eye on the bikes. 

Dog friendly towns rock.

Come to find out, we were about to indulge in the best pizza in the world. 

No, seriously, it won first place in last year's international pizza competition. So we did in fact eat the best pizza in the whole world.  :D

Such an adorable little town.

We finished dinner, geared up, and went outside to load up the bikes.  I wanted to walk around town a bit before we left, but at this moment...

...Bill realized that we were supposed to pay for street parking.  Ooops.  Rather than messing with all that, I hurriedly took a few more photos...

How cute is this?!!  The speed limit on all the roads is 15 mph and motorcyclists, bikers, pedestrians and cars happily jockey for space on the streets.

...and then we just hopped on the bikes and headed back to Ridgway.  Sort of.  We had decided to give Ophir Pass a try.  We were talking about it as we were finishing our meal and, given the butterflies I got in my stomach, I was concerned I may have some intestinal distress from the anxiety and pizza combo. Fortunately, the pizza settled well and didn't conflict with the anxiety to present me with a craptastrophe.  

Ophir Pass is classified as a moderate trail mostly because of the narrow shelf pass. Successfully navigating the pass would shave significant amounts of time from our journey home since it cuts across and connects 145 to roughly the halfway point at Red Mountain Pass on route 550.  Not successfully navigating the pass would result in A) having to turn around and riding 145 to Placerville and picking up 62 all the way to Ridgway (i.e. a very long and cold drive) or B) our death.  Neither option was particularly appealing.  We made our way out of Telluride and headed south to pick up the pass.  Another beautiful drive resulted in more stops and more pictures...

Unfortunately, Ophir Pass is not listed on the  NF Access signs so we drove about 15 miles before we pulled over and consulted our newly purchased Colorado 4x4 trails book (which totally rocks by the way) and realized we were way past the access point.  We turned around, and knowing the ride was going to be chilly (the temps drop quickly when the sun starts to go down), we zipped back the way we came.  We turned off on the road towards Ophir and headed through town.  By town, I simply mean a scattering of houses in a large clearing.  The roads were all dirt with speed humps made of heaped up dirt piles.  At the entrance to the pass, we stopped to check with two guys on bikes (an R1200 GS and an R1200 R) as to the condition of the road. They said they had to turn around.  Bill asked why....one replied with "I ran out of skill".   The other commented that it was too rocky but that we would be fine on our bikes.  I piped up and said that I was a sissy and regardless of the small, capable bike I was on, I might be turning around too. We said goodbye and carried on. 

The road was somewhat rocky and rutted and we had to negotiate a few stream crossings.  The trail began to slowly climb and then finally opened up to the section that traversed the mountain side.  Yikes.  The road went from rocky to a full on thick base of rocks that apparently came down in a recent rock slide from the heavy rains.  No, seriously, we were riding over a rock slide.  I was so not comfortable.  I don't mean physically comfortable, I mean I was straight up scared.  Bill stopped and asked me if I was okay continuing.  I replied with "I don't know".  This was another Half Dome experience for me.  I was there, I was scared, and there was virtually nothing I could do about it.  Turning around on that stuff wasn't really an option.  First, there wasn't much room and second, it was so rocky, it was just a broken ankle waiting to happen.  I took a deep breath, started the bike up, and continued on.  I got tossed around a couple times on the bike as the front wheel bounced from rock to rock and made its own line on occasion. The thing about your bike taking its own line on a shelf trail is that it's not afraid of shooting off the side of the mountain and plunging to its death.  I, however, am.  I had to stop twice just to compose myself after two especially hairy experiences that scared me pretty good.  My hands were shaking (I hate when my body betrays me like that) and my heart was racing in my chest.  (Really, this is not a betrayal but your body taking charge when your good common sense is miserably lacking.)  Fortunately, the quip about mind over matter is mostly true.  After regaining my composure, I continued on and made it off the shelf and to a much more reasonable section of trail.  Needless to say, I stopped to get some photos. 

Psychotic selfie I shared with friends.  :)

 

Find the pika!!  So cute!

There was no way I was going to ride something that harrowing and not get evidence of it. For all you crazy, hard core dirt riders out there, maybe this isn't a big deal to you, but it was some advanced riding for me.  Again, if it wasn't for the shooting off the mountain to your death part, it might not have been so bad, but knowing there was very little room for error changed the difficulty rating by an exponential margin.  I was glad I didn't chicken out and that I did it, but if I never do it again, that will be fine with me.  After a quick break, we continued to the next section...

This section of shelf only had maybe a 50 foot drop....no biggie!!  I got this!

...and stopped for a photo op at the pass sign.

YEAH!!!  I'M ALIVE!!!!

YEAH!!! I DID IT!!!

YEP!  I'M NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN!!!

Computer generated mountains?  Nah, that's just Colorado.  :)

The sun was quickly descending so we picked up the pace down the other side of the mountain and finished the trail. 

We turned left on 550 and headed north through Ouray and continued on to Ridgway.  We made it to the campground just before dark and talked extensively about our day.  Yes, it was indeed terrifying and exhilarating and awesome and beautiful and fantastic and I LOVE IT here!  We're both loving it here and consequently have decided to stay a little bit longer so we can get some more riding in.  Wooohoooo!!!!!  After all, we didn't make it to Yankee Boy Basin today and we have until Sunday to get home....why rush it and end our vacation before we absolutely have to?  It's not like we have endless opportunities (and by that I mean money and time) to be out here doing what we love to do.  "Let's ride, Baby!!"