Our last full day on the BMW in Colorado

 After a weekend with our sons in Silverthorne, Colorado, we started our trip toward home in Arizona today, our 13th day on the BMW. After a short ride on I-70 West, we turned south on Colorado Route 91, riding through the snow-peaked Rocky Mountains.

We climbed through Fremont Pass at 11,318' where we crossed the Continental Divide once again. The highway up to the top of the pass was very easy riding with gentle, sweeping turns. The descending route was more fun with tighter corners, but no hairpin turns.

Leadville started off as a gold and silver mining town, and mining continues here today with Climax Molybdenum Company, a subsidiary of Freeport-McMoRan continuing operations in this area. The National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum is in downtown Leadville, and while we didn't have time to stop today, we would love to come back to Leadville at 10,151' elevation and spend some time.

We turned south on US 24 in Leadville, riding alongside the Arkansas River that starts in Leadville where we glimpsed rafters and kayakers enjoying the August day as we followed the sweeping turns of the highway.

This part of US 24 is the Collegiate Peaks Scenic Byway, and we rode north through here a few days ago.

The Collegiate Peaks are several mountains, some higher than 14,000', named for famous East Coast universities such as Yale, Princeton and Harvard. We made a quick lunch stop in Buena Vista, which we learned is pronounced "Booyna-Vista" to rhyme with 'beautiful'. We continued south on US 285 through the Upper Arkansas Valley with shadowy mountains to the east and west as we rode on the straight highway through irrigated agricultural fields. 

The landscape changed as we passed Poncha Springs, climbing up and over Poncha Pass at 9,025' elevation, one of the lowest elevation passes in the Rocky Mountains. 

We were now riding through the where the Rio Grande River is born. The valley lies at above 7,000' elevation and is 74 miles wide, giving us long-distance views across the irrigated fields to the mountains as we zoomed along the straight 2-lane highway.

We had one more pass to cross before we ended the day's ride, and after we turned west onto US 160 we once again we crossed the Continental Divide over Wolf Creek Pass at 10,857' elevation.

The approach to Wolf Creek Pass is sweeping, gentle turns and then the descent heading west featured tighter turns and steeper downhills. We came down into the Upper San Juan Basin as we rode into Pagosa Springs where we are spending the night.

Today's ride featured high, snowy mountains with twisting roads; and straight highways through irrigated agricultural land. It's our last full day in Colorado as tomorrow we'll cross into New Mexico and Arizona as we head home.

Riding around Basalt Colorado on Fryingpan Road

We rode about about 80 miles today on our rest day, heading out Fryingpan Road from Basalt, Colorado toward the Ruedi Reservoir.

Much of the history of the West revolves around trapping, mining and ranching, and this history informs some of the colorful place names we come across. Fryingpan River, and the road that runs along it, supposedly gets its name from a band of trappers who fought with Ute Indians. Two of the trappers survived, and when one left to get help for his injured friend, he tied a frying pan to a tree so he could find the spot.

Today is a Monday so there was very little traffic on the road that sweeps around tight turns as it follows the winding river.

Steep wooded or grassy mountains rise along the river on one side, and on the other side we rode past tall, red sandstone cliffs.

13 miles from Basalt we came to the Ruedi Reservoir, built in 1968 to divert water to the thirsty cities in the Front Range. 

We continued on east past the reservoir, climbing higher into the mountains. We passed the tiny settlement of Thomasville, established to support the railroad that used to run where the highway is today as well as the lime kilns that produced powdered lime from the limestone rock in the cliffs. One of the residents really wants to traffic to slow down, and placed a traffic cone with a tree branch as well as a very small child's chair along the center line in the highway - seeing these definitely made us slow down.

Continuing west, we passed Norrie Colony, a lumber camp in the 1880's that included a school, dance hall, and post office. 

I was surprised to see another dam on the Fryingpan River. Chapman Dam was built in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps. This is a much smaller reservoir with a campground along the side.

Fryingpan Road continues on, climbing to 11,925' at Hagerman's Pass which is about 5,300' higher in elevation than Basalt. We turned around before the pass, retracing our way west back to Basalt.

It was a beautiful morning for a short ride, and we spent the rest of the day walking around downtown Carbondale. Tomorrow we head west toward Pagosa Springs, continuing our wandering trip through Colorado.

Riding into the Chiricahua National Monument

We spent last night at the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, AZ, an old copper mining town and now home to artists, restaurants, and quirky little shops. The Copper Queen is supposed to be haunted, but we didn't hear - or see - any ghosts.

We're celebrating Thanksgiving by riding to the Chiricahua National Monument about 75 miles northeast of Bisbee. It was established in 1924 to protect the balancing rocks and hoodoos that were formed by volcanic activity 27 million years ago that eventually eroded into the fabulous rock formations we see today.

To get to the Chiricahua National Monument we headed west on AZ 80 and then rode on local 2-lane paved roads through the grasslands with distant views of mountains that cover this part of southeastern Arizona.

The Chiricahua Mountains are known as 'sky islands' because they're surrounded by vast acres of grasslands, similar to an island surrounded by the ocean.

The Chiricahua Apache called this area the "Land of Standing Up Rocks". The Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts meet here, along with the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre ranges making this a unique geographical area.

We rode on the 7-mile long paved road that winds through Bonita Canyon. The temperature dropped 12 degrees as we descended into the canyon, which is shaded by tall oak and cypress trees along the creek. The road climbs out of Bonita Canyon and winds around the mountain with distant views of the high mountain peaks. The park road ends at Massai Point at 6870'.

We stopped for two short hikes so we could see the rock formations up close at Massai Point and Echo Canyon.

We retraced our route back to Bisbee, continuing our non-traditional Thanksgiving by enjoying dinner in the Copper Queen Hotel's Saloon with a 100+ year old lifesize portrait of the British actress Lily Langtry that covered one entire wall.

Tomorrow we ride back home to Bisbee, swapping Black Friday shopping with something much more fun - riding the BMW motorcycle.