Last day of our 2-week Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana trip

 We enjoyed sunny skies our two days in Lakewood, CO visiting our son and his girlfriend, and today the rainy weather finally caught up with us. It poured all night and continued raining hard as we loaded up the BMW (thank goodness our son has a garage). We worked our way through busy Denver traffic and headed south on US 287. Due to the heavy rain and temperatures in the low 40's, I wasn't able to take any pictures until we crossed Kenosha Pass at 10,000' and dropped down into South Park, the third and final high altitude valley - over 9,000' - in Colorado that we've ridden through on this trip.

We crossed Trout Creek Pass that marks the southern end of South Park, and once again it started raining. As we wound down toward Buena Vista, the rain stopped and we were able to enjoy views of the Collegiate Peaks, the highest concentration of mountain peaks >14,000' in the country.

The rain picked up again but we had a rain-free window when we stopped for a delicious lunch at the FlaminGo food truck. They're open until 1pm - don't miss it!

More rain, then another dry spell as we rode through the San Luis Valley, a major agricultural center. 

As we started up Wolf Creek Pass, 10,857' on the Continental Divide in the San Juan Mountains, we knew we were close to home. 

Pagosa Springs is on the western side of Wolf Creek Pass and even better the sun was shining!

We rode 303 miles today for a total of 2090 miles on this two-week trip, visiting our two sons, riding through two national parks, and seeing more of the West. Now that we live in Colorado, we plan to explore more of the area this summer - and hopefully not when it's raining!

Wide open valleys, snow-capped mountains, and city riding

 Today had a little bit of everything. We started out in Buena Vista, CO, with partly cloudy skies that allowed the sun to bounce off the glittering snow-capped Sawatch Range mountains that contain several peaks over 14,000'

We headed north on US Route 285 which winds through South Park, a high altitude basin that covers more than 1000 square miles. This is wide-open ranch country at about 9,000' elevation and as we watched the clouds roll in we thought about the hardy and adventurous ranchers who settled in this area.

I started off the day wearing all my warm clothes, liners, and rain gear due to the cool temperatures in the mid 50's to low 60's plus the threat of rain. We stopped along Route 285 for Mike to pull on his rain pants just as the first raindrops started to fall. The rest of the day we rode in and out of rain as we crossed Kenosha Pass at 10,000' elevation, leaving South Park and riding through the Pike National Forest through the Front Range of the Rockies into the Denver area.

We started off the day with very little traffic, and ended up riding in 6-lane traffic into metropolitan Denver to stay with our son in Lakewood, CO. We're here for the next 3 days when we continue our motorcycle trip to Deadwood, SD.

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.

Riding through the Rockies

We're back on the BMW after spending two days in Boulder, Colorado with our son. Hiking, going to the movies (Operation Finale and Black Kkklansman), and enjoying busy Pearl Street was a lot of fun and a good break from the trip.

We've ridden the BMW in Colorado many times over the past 5 years and have learned to be prepared for abrupt weather changes as the elevation climbs to over 10,000' in the Rockies. The beginning of the trip we headed along the edge of the Front Range, passing by the area where we hiked the day before.

We weren't very far into the day when we reached 8000 miles for our trip. We left home 37 days ago anticipating that we would cover approximately 9000 miles on our cross-country adventure, and we should be close to that by the time we get home to Arizona. Mike says the BMW is made for this type of long-distance riding, hovering up the miles on a comfortable ride.

Boulder sits at 5200' elevation, and after leaving the Front Range we started to climb into the heart of the Rockies over the Kenosha Pass at 10,000'. I always hope to see mountain goats or bighorn sheep, but the only animal we saw today was an antelope.

Even with the heavy Labor Day traffic, we made great time through the mountains. Dropping down from the Kenosha Pass we entered South Park, a vast, high, flat mountain valley at about 9000'.

We could see 14,000' mountain peaks all around us until the clouds descended and it started to rain lightly. Time to put on the rain gear!

As we crossed Poncha Pass with high sheer cliffs that bordered both sides of the 2-lane highway into the San Luis Valley the rain stopped, the sun came out, and we enjoyed a beautiful summer day.

We stopped for lunch in Del Norte, once a bustling city of 10,000 people during the mining boom years, and now a small, quiet ranching town of about 1700.

We only had about 60 miles left on today's trip after lunch, and since the sun was shining in Del Norte I took off my rain jacket. We forgot we had one last mountain pass to cross today:  the Wolf Creek Pass over the Continental Divide, and at 10,387' our highest elevation of the day. We saw the rain clouds in the distance and once again stopped to put on raingear. The temperature dropped 20 degrees to 46 degrees at the top of the pass, and we shivered our way through the hairpin turns over the top of the pass until we dropped down to Pagosa Springs.

We're spending the night in Pagosa Springs, enjoying the views of the San Juan Mountains and walking through the town for dinner. The San Juan River runs right by our motel, and we ate dinner at the Riff Raff Brewing Company which is completely heated by geothermal heat from the world's deepest hot spring that gives the town it's name. Tomorrow we continue west through Colorado until we turn south toward Arizona, giving us one more day to enjoy Rocky Mountain motorcycling.

Here is today's route