Mountain Trip - July 2001
One day my buddy, David Hood, calls me up and says that a friend of his couldn't
make a motorcycle trip to Tincup, CO but that I could use his friend's dirtbike
(an XR400 similar to mine) if I could make it up there. So I hopped on a plane
to Denver and then rented a car for the journey to Tincup. I even brought the
seat off my bike with me (I removed foam from mine to lower me down a bit).
Needless to say the borrowed bike felt almost exactly like mine and it ran
great. Paul I owe you one.
The Pitkin/Tincup area of Colorado is beautiful and offers some great riding
(both easy and difficult). It was certainly worth the trip!
*** Silver Plume General Store ***
We spent the night in Pitkin, CO at the Silver Plume General Store. They have
a couple of places to rent there - each with a kitchen, bedrooms, etc. Pretty
nice place actually. And the people there were nice as can be.
*** Jason Young ***
The fish hatchery near Pitkin discovered that their trout had a virus that was causing
deformities in their offspring. Luckily the fish were still safe to eat because
the hatchery placed all their trout in one pond and let us catch as many as
we wanted! Needless to say we had quite a fish fry that night.
*** Cumberland Pass (12,056 ft) ***
On the way to Tincup from Pitkin you go over Cumberland Pass. I just had
to get my picture taken with my rental car up there. It's an easy drive and
very scenic.
*** Timberline Trail ***
On our first day in Tincup we decided to ride the Timberline Trail (aka
trail 414) starting well north of Taylor Lake and working our way southeast.
This single lane trail (no 4-wheelers allowed) is beautiful but has some
extremely steep and rocky sections. After a couple of hours we had only
gone 4 miles and decided to find the nearest exit. We eventually made our
way down via Trail 756. It was one of the toughest rides I've ever been on (on
par with Blanca Peak near Fort Garland, CO). But looking back, damn that
was fun! Above is a picture taken at an extremely easy section of the trail.
That's Jason Young in front followed by David Hood.
*** Mirror Lake ***
It's a fun ride from Tincup to Mirror Lake. Lots of folks ride 4-wheelers
to it. That's me on the left standing with the Hood family. From Mirror Lake,
David and I rode our dirtbikes over Tincup Pass to the small town of St. Elmo
then down to Hancock Pass, over to Napolean Pass and then back through Tincup. What a great ride!
*** Hancock Pass (12,120 ft) ***
That's me and David Hood at Hancock Pass. It wasn't a hard ride to the top
but we were still amazed when we saw a 6 year old on an XR50 go up it. His
family was right there with him - each member on an XR. Very cool.
*** Timberline Trail ***
Jason Young and I took the last ride of the trip - and it was a great one.
We went back to the tough Timberline Trail (see above) but this time we
started at the south end of it near Mirror Lake and rode northward. It turns
out that the southern end is a bit easier to ride and is beautiful - as you can
see. This picture of me was taken somewhere near the Sanford Basin area of the
Timberline Trail. If you look closely you can see Taylor Park Reservoir in the
right of the picture with the Collegiate Peaks behind it.
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