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Overcast|Mountains|Bikepath
by Elisa
We slept in a wee bit, enjoying sleep on a mattress for the first time in a while. We packed up, making sure to... leave nothing behind in the large house. For breakfast, we made our way to the Starbucks across the street and got sandwiches and some coffee to wake up. We then hit the road, biking about 10 miles downhill on primo bike paths through Silverthorne and the surrounding areas. Our carless experience came to an end while we biked along the highway heading to Steamboat before we turned off and met Kitson, a Canadian biker going northbound on a fat tire bike. Given our tire width of 2” was less than half of his 5”, we quickly passed him on the downhill and powered up Ute Pass, enjoying the views along the way. At the top, we passed by an industrial plant and the road switched to gravel as we descended past the quarry/mining pits and ended up on a backcountry semi-residential road heading almost solely west. We stopped for a snack under some Aspen trees and were passed by Kitson, who we then passed again when he stopped for lunch as well a mile further down. We continued along this road for miles and miles, winding our way between small lakes and recreation areas and enjoying the flat gravel and general absence of cars.
Our progress felt quite slow as the afternoon wore on and we were still going west aka not making any progress for our trip, further slowed by stops to don jackets for intermittent rain. We hopped across the highway we had left earlier, making sure to time the dash across the lanes well to avoid becoming squished biker on the road, and started a gravel climb after passing a sign announcing we were in the confluence region for the Colorado River. As we climbed and then descended the gravel road, we passed many retired school buses filled with rafters and towing river rafts from the direction we were headed. We wound through land that got progressively greener and popped out on a road at the top of a valley in which a fat blue river flowed. A railroad clung to the side of the far valley wall and the echo of the train horn reached our ears several hundred feet up. We descended the twisty road, pausing a few times to wait for some mountain goats to climb up off the asphalt and stop flinging rocks down onto the road. At the bottom of the descent, our bike computer notified us to turn down a rutted, steep road that went for about a mile to a trailhead. Remembering our planning of this section a few weeks prior, we knew there was a trail that led to the campground and was shorter than taking the road. However, the trail had signs announcing no biking and that it was a challenging hiking path. Adamantly vetoing this, I decided we needed to climb back up the mile we had just descended and go the long way by road. So we did, slowly grinding our way through the ruts and steep sandy gravel back to the road. We then climbed a bit more on our tired legs before descending another twisty road into yet another valley. We turned off the road and the Tom Sawyer audiobook we had been listening to together ended as we pulled up at the Radium Springs Campground which was situated by the Colorado River.
At the entrance to the campground, which I expected to be forested but was just a series of sandy areas in a wide open field, there were huge signs stating that online reservations were required and that the only cell service was 9 miles in the direction we had just come. We scouted out the area, finding a few unreserved spots, but learned from other people that we really did need a reservation and the camp host was not flexible about this rule (even though they still used the original old-fashioned envelopes for day pass fees…). We then went around to a few of the RVs and asked if they had Starlink so that we could make a reservation and not have to go back to get cell service. They all said no, but one family had accidentally reserved a group site and said we were free to use their extra picnic tables and space. We gladly started to set up the tent, trying to avoid prairie dog holes, ant hills, and getting too close to the next group site, which was clearly a group of 10 or so college friends, their wives, their many children, and one ostentatious man’s cybertruck, complete with a rafting trailer and their raft. While the party started up next to us, we cooked noodles and chatted a bit with the family hosting us: the father was a developer who had studied Civil Engineering and then bought some property in Breckenridge and grew its value over the years and the daughter was about to start at CU Boulder in the fall. They also had a sweet senior dog whom they took to the river to swim.
Before climbing into bed and watching some TV, we filtered some water and got attacked by mosquitos as we stood in the Colorado River at golden hour, eavesdropping on a group of river rats discussing the currents and heights of the river this year. One of them fastened on a pink tutu and told us he was heading to a Bachelor party on the river before wishing us well on our trip and disappearing downriver as the sun faded into the steep cliff walls. We headed back to the tent to find that the group site next to us was rather noisy and it wouldn’t be until 1am or so that they would really quiet down. In a form of karmic justice, the serenity of the following morning was sharply interrupted by the 7am train rumbling through the canyon with a deafening horn that bounced off the walls. Not only did it awaken the hungover parents, who probably could have gone back to sleep, it also awoke their children.