weekend trip in Colorado

 We decided to take advantage of a quiet weekend and head out on the BMW, staying in Salida for two nights. Yesterday we rode 3 hours from home to Salida and unfortunately it rained about half of the trip. That's why we have rain gear!

overcast skies along US 285 North in the San Luis Valley 

It stopped raining before we arrived in Salida, a town of about 6,000 people on the Arkansas River in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. We walked to Soulcraft Brewing for an early dinner, then enjoyed a root beer float (Mike) and chocolate malt (Lynn) from 50 Burger while we walked through town and along the paved Monarch Spur Trail that follows a section of the old Monarch Spur railroad. As we were walking down the lovely, shaded streets we passed a couple of deer, one a big 6-point buck, lounging in the front yards, not at all concerned about people walking less than 3' away from them. Salida is a friendly town where everyone says hello as they walk by.

This morning we rode from Salida to the top of Independence Pass between Twin Lakes and Aspen. Independence Pass tops out at 12,095' at the Continental Divide and is the second highest paved pass in Colorado (the highest is Cottonwood Pass at 12,116'). 

Twin Lakes

Thunder clouds started forming so we turned around before we reached Aspen and stopped in Twin Lakes for lunch.

Twin Lakes is an old mining town located right on the glacial-formed lakes at the base of Mt. Elbert, the highest mountain in Colorado and the second highest in the US (highest is Denali in Alaska) at 14,433'.

We then rode CO24 to Leadville, at 10,119' the highest incorporated town in the US. Founded during the gold rush, then mined for silver, in the late 1800's it was home to 30,000 people. The skies were overcast and it rained off and on, so we only stopped for ice cream then rode back to Salida.

We love riding on twisting, climbing mountain roads that often have a sheer drop-off with no guardrails, and had a wonderful time on today's high elevation trip in the Rocky Mountains close to home.

Colorado/New Mexico Loop on a late Fall day

 It was a beautiful late October day yesterday, so we decided to ride 194 miles looping south into New Mexico. Thanks to Butler motorcycle maps we chose a road marked in red, meaning lots of elevation changes and twisties.

To get to the twisty road, we first headed south on US 64/84 through the Chama River Valley. This was our first time riding the BMW on this route that is bordered by ranch land.

We headed east when US 64 split off from US 84 an started to climb up Brazos Summit, the second highest paved road in New Mexico.

What a fun road on a motorcycle - 77 miles with lots of curves and twisty turns, stunning long views with Fall foliage colors, and almost no other vehicles on the road.

The highway tops off at 10,528' and then winds down to about 8,000' in Tres Piedras at the junction of US 64 and US 285 where we turned north on US 285.

What a change in landscape as we rode on a straight road through a high altitude valley with wide open plains and far-off views of the Rockies.

We rode past the Rio del Norte National Monument, an important wildlife corridor and home to people for thousands of years. 

We crossed back into Colorado and turned west in Antonito on CO 17, one of our favorite drives as it twists and turns through the San Juan Mountains over the Cumbres Pass at 10,022'.

We had a beautiful afternoon with perfect Fall weather, gorgeous scenery, and fun motorcycle roads straddling Colorado and New Mexico.

Overcast skies and rain

 We had a short fourth day, riding 149 miles from Island Park, ID to Bozeman, MT. Once again we started the day wearing all of our liners and raingear since the temperature was in the low 50's and the weather forecast called for rain.

US 20 north was lined with pine trees, with occasional views of the cloud-covered mountains around us.

In West Yellowstone we turned north onto US 191, and quickly passed into Montana, riding through the Gallatin National Forest, 3+ million acres that is part of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, stretching through Montana into South Dakota. 

We saw one sign for Yellowstone, but never truly entered the park. There were several signs about bison roaming nearby, and to our disappointment they never made an appearance.

The Gallatin River wound it's way along the highway, the high water due to all of the recent rains and snowmelt churning over rocks. It rained off and on, but luckily never a hard downpour.

We'll stay in Bozeman through the weekend with our son and his girlfriend before we head out again, this time southeast toward Denver.

Ajo to home with some wandering in the middle

 

After a heavy rain with hail last night, we were thrilled that the roads were dry when we started for home from Ajo, AZ at 7am. The ride north on AZ 85 was uneventful, and as we rode along we decided to not retrace our route from Thursday but instead continue on 85 north until we reached Indian School Road.

The Garmin GPS kept suggesting that we take the I10 to the 303 and finally north on I17 - all interstate highways that we wanted to avoid. We realized too late that AZ 85 did not go as far north as we expected, and spent some time wandering around, looking for a paved road that would get us back to Vulture Mine Road into Wickenburg.

After stopping at yet another intersection with a dirt road and consulting the Butler motorcycle map, we realized that we needed to backtrack, take the I10 for about 9 miles, and then we would be back on little-traveled, 2-lane, paved roads.

The Butler map proved correct, and we were soon back on the winding paved roads that led to Vulture Mine Road.

We crossed the same muddy wash from Thursday, today with more mud but no problem at all for the BMW.

I wanted to be sure to get a photo of Vulture City - settled in 1863 to house miners from the Vulture Mine, Arizona's most successful gold mine, it grew to 5000 people. The mine closed in 1942 since it was considered a non-essential mine, not needed for WWII efforts and the town became was abandoned.

Some of the buildings have been restored and it's now possible to book a tour or hold a special event in the town.

The rest of our ride was uneventful as we wound up 89 from the valley into much cooler temperatures in Yarnell, then continued home on very familiar roads.

When I spotted Thumb Butte, I knew we were very close to home. We really enjoyed Ajo and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and being back on the BMW for even a short 3-day trip reminded us how much we enjoy motorcycle travel. We won't wait a year for the next trip!

On the bike again - finally!

 It's hard to believe that this is the first time we've gone on an overnight BMW ride since June of 2021. It's been a busy year, and we decided to finally go on a trip we've planned a couple of times - to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona. As usual, we took the less-traveled road - and boy, was this less traveled!

through Skull Valley

cattle in Peeple's Valley

We started off on familiar roads, heading out of Prescott through the ranching communities of Skull Valley and Peeple's Valley and then enjoying the twisty descent from Yarnell toward Wickenburg. 

In Wickenburg we turned south on Vulture Mine Road. Mike had been here with a friend recently, but all of this was new to me. Vulture Mine Road twists and turns through the Sonoran Desert and over the course of the next couple of hours we saw only a handful of cars.

There were plenty of saguaro cactus and we were glad for the overcast skies that kept the temperature in the low 90's. 

We turned onto Aguila Road, and while we had passed plenty of low areas warning of flash floods, this was the only time the road was still covered in mud from recent rains.

We turned west onto Old US 80, which while it now is a twisty 2-lane paved road that winds through irrigated farmland and solar panel farms, historically it was originally a wagon road between Santa Fe, NM and San Diego, and then part of the southern highway route from Georgia to San Diego developed in the early 1900's and completely paved by 1939.

We crossed over the Gillespie Dam bridge built over the Gila River in 1925-1927 and restored in 2012.

We hadn't gone through a town since we left Yarnell early in our trip, and were happy to stop for lunch at Little Italy in Gila Bend. Prince Harry actually ate here when he was at Luke Air Force Base for helicopter training. The pizza was great! 

We continued south on US 85 which runs straight through the desert on the way to Mexico.

Storm clouds were building which kept the temperature hovering just under 90 - a cool day here in the Sonoran desert. We rode into Ajo, our stop for the night, just before it started raining. Like so many places in Arizona, Ajo was a former copper mining hub. 

We rode about 200 miles today - a short day for us but through a part of Arizona where we haven't been before. Tomorrow we continue south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. 

Sunday morning motorcycle ride

 We love going on weeks-long motorcycle trips where we explore new areas and are never quite sure what might be around the next corner. Short rides through familiar areas have a completely different feel, where we're out simply for the joy of being on the BMW, enjoying the sun on our face and the wind at our back. Today we rode 128 miles to Wickenburg, Arizona and back. We didn't actually get to downtown Wickenburg, and instead rode into the Wickenburg Ranch development, turned around, and headed home.

We rode out of Prescott southeast on Iron Springs Road/Yavapai County route 10 through Skull Valley, a small ranching community that used to have a fantastic diner, which unfortunately is now closed. The post office seems to be the most thriving spot in town. We continued on AZ 89S through Peeples Valley, another ranching community and home to Maughn Ranches that spans over 512,000 acres. 

Just past Peeples Valley we rode through Yarnell, site of the Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park commemorating the 19 firefighters who died here in June 2013 fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. It's a rocky, remote, forbidding area and the hike itself is quite strenuous, reinforcing the extremely difficult and hazardous task our forest firefighters face every day. 89S descends 1300' in four miles on a twisting road that snakes down the mountain into the valley.

The haze in the valley is due to the smoke from the wildfires in California, a sobering reminder of the high fire risk this very dry summer. We rode a few miles in the valley, then turned around at Wickenburg Ranch and headed back up the mountains into the cooler air in Yarnell, passing several saguaro cactus that thrive in the hot, dry, lower elevations in Arizona.

A sunny day, bright blue skies, cooler temperatures and twisty roads make this one of our favorite short motorcycle rides and lead to dreaming about longer rides to come.

High mountain passes and wide open high elevation valleys - fun in Colorado on the BMW

 We left Colorado Springs a bit later than usual this morning for a shorter day's ride to Silverthorne, Colorado, retracing yesterday's route at the beginning on US 24 west through Manitou Spring to Woodland Park where we picked up Colorado 67 north to Deckers. We went from heavy, 4-lane traffic on US 24 to a quiet, sweeping ride on 67 which is much more to our liking. We turned north onto County Route 126 and followed two motorcycles for a few miles, enjoying the twists and turns through the high elevation forest.

The quiet ride ended when we turned south onto busy US 285, following traffic through the mountains. This highway follows the path of a former railroad line from Denver, and at times we saw the South Platte River at the base of the mountains.

US 285 winds up 10,000' elevation Kenosha Pass where the Colorado Trail, a 567 mile hiking trail between Denver and Durango, crosses the highway.

The descent down the western side of the Pass is much more steep, with some hairpin turns to keep it fun. At the bottom of the pass we entered South Park, a wide valley at around 9,000' elevation that is surrounded by steep, tall, snowy mountain peaks.

This is ranching country, and while it was a warm 74 degrees today in early August, we imagined what it would be like in this area in the middle of winter where 145" of snow is the average for the year.

We turned north on Colorado 9 in Fairplay, founded in 1858 during the height of the Pike's Peak gold rush. Fairplay sits at 9,953' elevation and at around 800 people, it's the largest town in South Park. We stopped at the Brown Burro Cafe for lunch before continuing north out of the South Park valley on Route 9 as we climbed up 11,542' Hoosier Pass and crossing the Continental Divide.

The 8% grade made the descent down Hoosier Pass a lot of fun with twisties and hairpin turns.

Route 9 continues into Breckenridge, a popular ski resort and on this Friday afternoon it was also packed with summer tourists.

We turned east on I-70 for about 3 miles to the Silverthorne exit, our stop for the weekend as we spend some times with our sons who live in the Denver area. We'll be back on the BMW on Monday, starting the last 3 days of trip as we head toward home.

250 mile BMW motorcycle ride for lunch

Only people who love riding motorcycles will ride 250 miles round trip for lunch. We haven't ridden with our friends Steve and Kim for several years, and finally everything fell into place for a ride today to Payson, AZ. In the summer we ride north into the cooler mountains, and we were rewarded with a low temperature of 83 degrees today as we rode up in elevation to about 7100' on the Mogollon Rim, an escarpment that forms the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. It's an area covered in pine trees and high, craggy rock outcroppings.

We've ridden this route so many times we've lost count:  east out of Prescott on AZ 169 for a quick 6 miles north on I-17, then east again on AZ 260 through Camp Verde, site of pueblos built into the sides of canyons by Sinagua around 1000 AD. The Spanish came through this area in the late 1500's, and it was the site of a military fort in 1871. Camp Verde is at about 3500' elevation, and it's always the hottest spot on our rides; today it was 106 degrees on our way home.

Thankfully after we pass through Camp Verde AZ 260 starts to wind its way up the Mogollon Rim, giving us long views over the valleys. Steve and Kim rode in front of us, zooming through the sweeping corners as the weather became cooler.

We headed south on AZ 87 through the Rim towns of Strawberry and Pine, doing our best to pass as many of the slow-moving RVs as possible. We crossed the East Verde River, a tributary of the Verde River, about 5 miles from Payson. The East Verde has flowing water and we saw several people jumping into the river to stay cool.

As we came through a roundabout toward the Payson Airport and our lunch destination, a lab-size dog ran out from a gas station on our right and tried to zip across the road in front of us. Mike braked hard to miss the dog as our heart rates zoomed up. The dog kept running down the street as we pulled over to catch our breaths. A man from the gas station walked over and said the dog was a stray and he was afraid something like this would happen, then praised Mike for his superb bike handling skills to keep us upright.

We continued a couple of miles up the road to the Crosswinds Grille at the airport where we watched some small planes land and take off, and saw a large red helicopter, a Sikorsky S64, that's used to fight forest fires. On our way to Payson there were several signs warning about heavy smoke from a forest fire in the area, but the air was clear today. Fire danger is at a high level in this part of Arizona due to hot temperatures and windy, dry conditions.

After lunch we retraced our route back home, vowing to get together more frequently for motorcycle trips in the Southwest.

Follow our route here

Riding north from Salida to Louisville, Colorado

On the third day of our trip from home in Prescott, Arizona to visit our kids in Boulder, Colorado we rode from Salida north on 285 for almost the entire day. The Collegiate Peaks  are a section of the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains, with several named for prominent universities such as Mt. Princeton at 14,204', Mt. Harvard at 14,421' and Mt. Yale at 14,202'. The clouds hovered above, and sometimes just below the mountain peaks and kept my gaze for the beginning of our trip.

We continued on 285 north through the South Park basin, a 1000 square mile grassland flat at 10,000' elevation. There isn't much in South Park except for long-distance views of the Rockies and miles and miles of grassland populated by herds of cows or horses every few miles. The largest town, Fairplay, has about 700 people which says a lot about the wide-open spaces in this part of Colorado only a couple of hours' drive from Denver.

285 took us up and over Kenosha Pass as we continued north. The Colorado Trail, a 500-mile hiking, horseback riding, and mountain biking trail that stretches 500 miles from Denver to Durango crosses the highway at the top of Kenosha Pass.

We ended our 158 mile ride at our hotel in Louisville, where we'll spend the next 2 days visiting our boys who live in Boulder. We start our ride back home on Monday, looking forward to 3 more days riding through the West.