A quick mountain bike trip in winter.

Here we are in in the new version of HAM (doesn't have a name yet). For simplicity I want to keep the name the same, KC wants it to have a new name. Oh what a great problem to have I guess. 

Either way it rocks and this post isn't even about that. Check it! This is home! 

Use the Fruita welcome center to ready your rig, fill up with H2O or just pee. This place is fee free and awesome! 

This is just some helpful-or-not information to get you off your ass and riding in the desert. 

Oh look nobody else around, they must be working or something?!

Two days is plenty of time. Here is what to do: 

get in your car, truck, camper or whatever and drive to Fruita or Grand junction, get a hotel in Fruita or Junction (off season should bring lower prices on rooms) negotiate with them because they are vacant and should be desperate. We know because last month we tried sneaking into the hot tubs at the motels or hotels and not a trace of humans anywhere.  Leave on Friday night or other night of your choice around 3 -5 pm, get to Fruita and have dinner at The Hot Tomato Cafe. Bring snacks if you can't wait that long. The Hot Tomato http://hottomatocafe.com is on 124 North Mulberry St., downtown Fruita. If you choose to stay in GJ there are lots of choices for food but you're on your own. 

Get up the next morning but not too early. It's winter and cold early morning and your ass will be sore if you ride too much anyway. Drive to Rabbit Valley and park on the north side at The Trail Through Time. If you camped you have camped on the south side of I-70 and there is a sign there to direct you where camping is allowed or just stealth camp and move in the morning when light is abundant. 

You will be riding the Zion Curtain but skip the first section because it seems to be missing as of 2/19/2015. We spent an hour looking for the trail but with the rain, moto heads riding cross country and cattle, it vanishes. Trust us. Go to the right on double track from where the trail head map is located just after you exit the wash and have passed under I-70. You will meet Zion Curtain on the left about a half mile after leaving the sign. Ride it all the way to the Kokopelli Trail. Wee! 

Expect this to take a tad bit longer than expected because the trail is techno in spots and radical in others. Over 32 miles you can breathe the winter from your soul while negotiating steep short climbs that total about 3,400 feet in ascent. Awesome fast winding and hair raising descents, walking a few crazy sections because it's not that fun to carry a bike 15 miles with a broken collar bone. Great single track called Parallel 2. This section follows along side Kokopelli for the remainder of the ride. Sweet rolly fun! Bring the newer version of the Fruita/Grand Junction Latitude 40 map for reference. 

You should finish in about 5-6 hours if you're not lolligagging. Back to camp or car to drive the 30 minutes back to The Hot Tomato for beer and a slice. Try not to over eat because it will kill your buzz and you don't want a fat belly poking out every where back at the hot tub. 

Riding 6.5 miles, roundtrip, to hike the Ruby Canyon overlook trail the first evening we arrived. Start before 4:30 otherwise it gets very dark and frigid. Bike from camp 3.25 miles, hike a lollipop of 5.5 miles, then back to camp. Bring the dog of course, yours may need to run beside you. Ours fits in a pack. Take note. 

Go to bed at a reasonable hour, 10:00PM, then repeat on day two only this time ride the Western Rim. This is a shorter ride of about two to three hours as your legs may take a little while longer to warm up. What you will be looking for is fantastic single track that weaves along a rim, maybe the western rim?!

A heck less climbing than the previous day, think recovery. Reverse the direction of yesterday's finish and ride out the same sweet single track but backwards! It is like you have never ridden it. See Lat 40 map for easy route finding. Finish by riding the Parallel 2 or stay on Kokopeli back to camp or car for something different. 

Hopefully you're back at I-70 at 11am to blast home and BOOM! Having dinner at home by early evening.

Kasey after passing under I-70.

These trails have rich and deep history going back long ago. Try and imagine having multiple wives and 15 children. A Zion Curtain is a curtain that gets servers of alcoholic beverages out of view of drinking customers at restaurants as to discourage them from drinking too much! Mmmmm! So smart! 

Winter Mountain Biking in Colorado...

We have been very fortunate this year to have had so many mountain bike-able days here in Colorado! Not only have we been able to ride from home, we've had 60 degree + sunny days in Pueblo and Fruita, CO.

Here's a recap of the best places to go mountain biking during the Colorado winter...Let us know if you have any favorites we can add to this list!

Fruita, Colorado:

We headed out to Fruita in January, for a sunny stretch of 3 days, following some heavy snow. We went straight out to 18 Road, and promptly accumulated enough mud to last me the season. We didn't even bother to get the bikes off the camper, since our shoes were so coated in thick, gooey mud that we could barely lift our feet.
Apparently, 18 Road is good only when it has been dry out for a LONG time...We will revisit in the late spring...

So, we went back into town and set up camp at the wonderful James M. Robb State Park campground, right off the interstate in downtown Fruita. You can drive, if you are sane, or ride, like us, from town to the Kokopelli Trailhead. It was about an extra 45 minutes of riding each way, but we didn't have to take the truck and camper apart. From the trailhead, you can hit a variety of awesome loops (called "Mary's Loops"), rated beginner to insanely unrideable. These trails were completely dry, much warmer, and tons of fun!

Kokopelli Trailhead

On Rustler's Loop (beginner loop, but fun for anyone!)

Of course, it's not all about the bike. What would true camping be without a little bit of R & R...?!

Getting his daily Vitamin D dose...

 Lake Pueblo State Park, Pueblo, CO:

Probably our newest and most exciting place to ride is down in Pueblo, at Lake Pueblo State Park. It seems that few people have caught on to the awesome riding down here, maybe because it's Pueblo, and maybe because it's the devil's furnace come summer...
No shade, completely exposed - totally perfect for winter riding!

We recommend camping at the state park, because then the trails start literally from your campsite!

Home sweet home...

There is something here for everyone, including crazy log drops, homemade scary bridges, flowing singletrack, you name it! Perfect place to work on skills and get in some hours.

Straight shot to Pikes Peak!

There's also a cool dam that we walked out to. Note, it took almost 2 hours to reach the dam from camp, definitely not what we were looking for in our "recovery walk"...

Needed to sit down after all that walking...



Wouldn't have believed us if we didn't have photographic proof! A bent piece of driftwood sitting in exactly this position below the dam!
 

And of course, we wouldn't be camping if Hal didn't do this...



 

Hi Delta!

That's our brief list. We are heading soon to Rabbit Valley, just west of Fruita, to ride the trails over there. The Western Rim Trail was great fun when we did it last year, hoping it's as awesome on the second go-around.

Thanks for reading and let us know if you have any hidden winter mountain biking gems that you want to share!

Help us name our new camping setup!

Happy 2015!

We have a good reason for neglecting the blog, other than the holidays, and that is that we got a brand new truck and camper setup for 2015! We said our sad goodbyes to Pushkin and HAM, and now have a long bed Ford F350 diesel truck and Lance 1050-S truck camper.

External view

View from the back

A bigger sink and full range with oven!

 

Slide-out dinette!

Queen sized bed!

And Delta likes it!

 

Problem is, we can't decided on a fitting name combo! Hal wants to use HAM still, but I think the new setup deserves its own name.
We like names that work well together, like Pushkin and HAM, making Hamkin.
I suggested Ping and Pong (for PingPong), but Hal said that would only work if we had a Toyota or Suzuki! Ha!

So, we are open to suggestions and would love to hear from you! We will let you know what the winning name is once we decide.
Thanks and stay tuned for new year adventures!

~KC & Hal~

Urban Adventures....

It's been a while since we've posted, it would appear...

Life has finally slowed down a bit, thanks to the cold weather and the approach of winter.
After the Colorado Trail, we proceeded to stay busy, finally cracking in October and designating November to be our "Off Month".
So, what do the Clarks do in an 'off-month'...?! We go urban adventuring!

We went to Baltimore, Maryland, to visit our very good friends The Bells, who used to live near us in Colorado. We had a fantastic time visiting with them and their two lovely girls, seeing their hometown, playing games, going on walk/runs, and watching the girls do their homework. Is it just me, or does the level of academics for grade school children seem to far exceed my own college education?! These girls are doing an hour or more of homework each night, creating riddles and solving fraction math problems! They are the smartest girls I know, and we thank them and Stacie and Matt for opening up their home to us! Love you guys!

In between our visit with our friends, we took a one-night detour to our nation's capitol! I had never been to Washington D.C., and it had been a long time since Hal had been there, so we took the metro in from Baltimore and spent a day and a half walking around and seeing the sights. For the record, D.C. is our most favorite big city, hands down! The people were all extremely friendly and helpful, the city was clean and well taken care of, and all the museums and monuments are FREE! Also, it was about 60-70 degrees both days and sunny, which helped...

We arrived in Chinatown, and proceeded to get a free map from a kindly lady standing outside of the metro station. 

Chinatown



On our way to Union Station, we saw this very rare and endangered albino squirrel! Well, maybe not so endangered, seeing as it was scavenging in the grass for leftovers, but certainly rare to us!

Washington D.C. Albino Squirrel!



Union Station



We did notice that there was construction work going on, everywhere, in the city. Even the Capitol was covered in scaffolding. Not to mention the heightened security...We couldn't get close to the Capitol or any of the Congress buildings.

Capitol construction

As close as we could get...

From the Capitol area we headed to the Smithsonian museums. We hit the Botanic Gardens, the American Indian museum, and our personal favorite, the National Air and Space Museum. We also breezed through the Museum of Natural History, where we saw the Hope Diamond. Turns out it doesn't look all that different from the one in the movie Titanic - Ha!
Then we found ourselves a nice hotel near the National Mall, put our feet up for a bit, and headed back into the city for a delicious, authentic Mexican meal!

The next day was Veteran's Day, which we didn't plan, but it was neat to experience. The whole National Mall and surrounding streets were barricaded and blocked off due to the inaugural Concert for Valor. Hal was marveling at the immense amount of police, fire, and ambulance support that was present the entire day...



All the ambulances, and this was only from one street!!!







We walked and saw all the monuments, including the White House, before we took the metro back to Maryland. I think we had to have walked at least 10-15 miles each day, and we still didn't even come close to seeing it all! We definitely want to return to D.C. again, maybe for 2 weeks, and explore Georgetown and spend more time in the museums.



Barricaded from the Washington Monument...

A picture of our reflection in a mirror. Note the Washington Monument in the background...

Hal with the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial in the background...

As close as we could get to the White House

Looking across the Reflecting Pool..





Thanks Bell Family and the wonderful city of Washington D.C. for a fantastic urban fall adventure!

P.S. If you are interested in urban adventuring and fast-packing, we highly recommend these brand new packs - Ultimate Direction-Fastpack 20.  Thanks to Mom and Dad, for giving them to us as an early Christmas gift! They have two sizes, S/M (which fits me) and M/L (which fits Hal). They fit in the overhead bins on the plane, so no extra luggage charge, and they are super comfortable. We wore them all day, both days in the city, and didn't have sore shoulders or anything!

Thanks for reading and hope you are all enjoying fall!

The Day The Walking Stopped.

Another couple of weeks have passed and so have the aches and pains of walking. We walked into Durango with Steve and Rita (Kasey's parents) who had met us at Gudy's rest stop, which was about 4 miles from the finish. We hurried along the last three days so we would not have to be on the trail another night. It was great but we are glad to be able to duck indoors when it starts raining! We did about 25 miles a day-ish for a few days to accomplish this. Woo Hoo!

 

The cold above 12,000 feet was better than the hot days because we didn't feel like we needed to bathe as much.

 

 We got back to Creede after another respite from the trail to work a couple of shifts. Remember we had planned to complete the CT in one go but had to rest to fix KC's knee. I'm glad because I had a bad Achilles issue that needed some rest also. Shhhhh! Don't tell KC.

 

Some of the best places to walk were from Creede to Durango. Our favorites were the Weminuche Wilderness , The Grenadiers, and then into Durango. But really Segments 24 and 25 were our super favorites. High mountain landscapes with jagged peaks and open expanses where one can see the trail extend forward for miles. We are used to the mountains from Denver through the Collegiate Range so to us, those have become fairly mundane.

 

 

This night we went up high and stayed there above 12,000 feet for more than three days.

The wind howled like a hurricane all night and then continued for two days. It made our noses peel.

Thankfully we had dehydrated lasagna to ease the suffering.

 

 

Dora the Explorer!

 

 

See the resemblance?

 

All told we were on the trail for 24 days, four of which were half days or less. It was a memorable experience! I wish I could say that it changed our lives or something huge, but it didn't. It was beautiful and gave us more ideas for more adventures. KC was planning more suffering as we were suffering. I think everyone or everyone that is capable, should have to walk a longer trail such as this one.

 

 

 

In the background is a lake that we would like to come back to soon. Near Lake City maybe?

Crazy awesome landscape everywhere.

 

 

 



 Over yet another pass...

 

 

 

And another...

 

 

This is the only way to roll! Notice the size of that pack.

 

 

 

Granola lunch stop. Mmmm!

 

We saw a guy here at this lake with a 70 lb. pack who told us that that was how real men hiked. Oh yeah, it was 5 days into his trip and we were about two days from the end. Also he had the pack on the ground and was taking pictures of ducks!

 

 

 

???

 

More of the same. And have we mentioned how awesome these Dirty Girl Gaiters are?!

 

 

Seconds from the finish...funny how it just ends after walking about 22 miles a day for three weeks... Now what?

 

Yay family!

 

 

 

THE END!





Segments 14-20, only 8 segments left!

Here's a brief recap on our 2nd foray onto the Colorado Trail...Segments 14-20...

We leave soon for the remaining 8 segments, roughly 145 miles to Durango and the end of the trail.
It's been quite a journey, definitely taking up more of the summer than we thought, and it's most certainly been harder than I thought.

These middle segments included about 115 miles of trail, most of it on or through ranchland and cow herds. I'm just now starting to forget the stench of cow pies!

Cattle Country...

 There were also extremely scenic sections, like coming to the top of Marshall Pass and the Fooses Creek area as well as the San Luis Peak and surrounding high country outside of Creede. We had one particularly crazy weather day when we went from sweating in the 85 degree sun to freezing in 40 degrees and the most epic hail storm ever! All within the span of two hours! Colorado mountain weather-if you don't like it, wait five minutes!!!

Oh boy, yet another afternoon storm!

Almost to Creede!

Top of Fooses Creek Trail

 One of the best things about this trip was the trail magic and fellow thru-hikers.  This seemingly-abandoned horse trailer was actually converted into a hiking shelter, courtesy of one of the local ranches. Inside it was stocked with duct tape, books, a chair, Gatorade, and sodas! Such a welcome treat in the middle of all the pasture-land.

Hiker shelter, courtesy of Coleman Ranch



And we somehow, amazingly, caught up again with our friend John, whom we had met on the very first rainy day leaving Waterton Canyon! I can't fathom the stars that aligned to allow us to meet him again, after he took the Collegiate West route and after we took four days off from the trail... It was fun to hike with him and hear his captivating stories. Thanks for the fun trail times, John, we hope you made it safely to Durango!



And speaking of friends, Hal and I's friend Andy drove all the way to the hard-to-find trailhead in Creede to pick us up when we were done! Thanks a million Andy, wolf-pack for life ;)

Happy to see Andy!

Allrighty folks, that's the short recap version!  We'll look forward to finishing and sharing the final pictures! Thanks again for all the support!
Happy Trails...