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Southern NM, Northern and Central CO, a father daughter trip with some exciting ST

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Mudd Missile

Mudd Missile

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Mansfield, Tx
This summer was "the summer" for me and my daughter. She is a junior in HS and we don't have that many summers together, so we took this one to make long lasting memories. We started our summer trip heading to Pagosa Springs, CO. We stopped in Taos, NM to drop the truck and trailer with my 530 xcw for later use. We were to arrive in Pagosa on Sunday to check in at a resort around 4:pm so we planned to take our time riding from Taos via hwy 64. Sunday morning we geared up and headed out. The first dirt road we found out of Taos was the one into Taos Mesa. We tested it a bit and decided to come back and explored during our stay in Taos after Pagosa springs. Once we passed Tres Piedras, we found a road to the left and took it. Here is some of the tracks.

https://youtu.be/OgyElogf9LY
 
We arrived in Chama and headed out to the gas station at the intersection of 17 and 64. I was getting off the bike when I dropped the helmet with my Contour camera attached. It landed right on top of the camera braking the mounting part. Fortunately, the camera suffered no damage. However, no more filming from the top of my head. My daughter would be the one holding the camera til we get back to Taos 5 days later. She took a ton of pictures and videos from the back of the bike but uploaded them to the cloud. I can not figure out how to download them to Smugmug.

here is a video from our ride from Wolf creek Pass through FR 380 to Hwy 17 through Stunner pass. It was quite nice on a 990.

https://youtu.be/mKH93AbkJVE
 
Awesome!

We're getting ready to do a family vacation in that same direction. We're headed to Carlsbad Caverns first, then running up the East side of NM and over to Taos, up to Chama to ride the train, and then spend a few days in Lake City. When I mentioned to the kids that I was going to be taking my 1200 GS, the first thing my daughter asked was if we could ride some dirt roads. She loves exploring the little unpaved back roads around here with me.

We've not done any trips just on the bike yet. She turns 11 in December. Seems like 18 is just around the corner!! :eek2:
 
Scott wrote, " We've not done any trips just on the bike yet. She turns 11 in December. Seems like 18 is just around the corner!!".

Don't wait too long and take her as soon as you can. She will never forget the experience.
 
Scott, if any of your family is into "machines", get to the depot really early. It was a highlight to watch them prepare the engines for the day.
 
Valker said:
Scott, if any of your family is into "machines", get to the depot really early. It was a highlight to watch them prepare the engines for the day.
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Well, we have to be there for the train to leave at 8:00am. We are not really morning people, so... I doubt we will be getting there really early :-P However, we will be getting into town the night before fairly early in the day, so we might be able to head over to catch the train rolling into town from that day's tour.
 
I wandered around the rail yard at Chama for a couple hours when I spent the night there on the way back from Montana . If you are in lake city the alpine tunnel road Is an abandoned rail line up the mountain , it would be a easy ride two up and any absolutely beautiful ride too . SEYA
 
Tourmeister said:
Well, we have to be there for the train to leave at 8:00am. We are not really morning people, so... I doubt we will be getting there really early :-P However, we will be getting into town the night before fairly early in the day, so we might be able to head over to catch the train rolling into town from that day's tour.
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Well, don't forget your free hour since Chama is on Mountain time.
 
From Chama we took 84 north to PS and we had our eyes open for any FR that looked enticing. Just a few miles from PS we took a left on a FR that I cannot remember but it would take us to a lake. We went up to the lake and on the way back I felt my rear brake going soft. I stopped to checked it out and saw that it was gone. We rode all the way down just using the front brake and the engine to slow me down. We made to town, checked in in the resort and started shopping for rear pads. Usually Mondays are a rest day for bike shops but I was fortunate to find one open in Durango and it was also a KTM dealer. We headed out Monday morning after breakfast and made it there around 10:00am.

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After fixing the rear brake, we headed out to Silverton to check out the Alpine Loop.

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We stopped for lunch and got some intel on pass conditions. Cinnamon Pass was okay, Engineer pass was so so. We finished our burgers and headed out toward Animas pass.

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I have no videos of our climb since my daughter was holding to me for dear life.
 
:clap: So glad you got to enjoy this trip together!
 
Top of Cinnamon Pass! She really liked it up there.

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We ended up in Lake City and headed out to South Fork. From there we crossed Wolf Creek Pass to PS. More to come!
 
BIG A said:
Awesome!!!! Great memories,and yes they grow up too fast :eek2: :clap:
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bigdon55 said:
Woo Hoo, dirt roads with your Daughter, I don't get no better than that ! :lol2:
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:clap: Well done.
I love to ride with my kids. My son wants to do the CDR. I wish I had a big bike to do some two up riding and camping before those days slip away.
 
On the third day in PS we decided to go and explore the area around Pagosa Junction and the William Creek reservoir. This trip would take around half a day so we also decided to go white water rafting in the afternoon since the water level in the Blanco river were nicely high.

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According to our sources, this area had a bad string of unfortunate events that brought it to his end becoming another ghost town, flood, over gracing, and deforestation. Eventually the train stop coming through and a hwy was built as a bypass.

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Once we got back to town we got ready for our rafting trip. We met our guide and he informed us that we were the only ones going on this trip. We were very happy to hear this.;-):-P
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Half way through the trip we stopped by an ice cream shop courtesy of our guide. We were doing all the work and he wanted to reward us.

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While we were at the ice cream shop, we found out that the transport vehicle that was supposed to pick us up down the river have had a flat and had no spare tire. Therefore, we had some extra time to kill so we stopped by one of the hot springs the locals use that were free. We finished our trip almost at sunset but had a great time.

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On our return trip back to Taos we decided to go over the Summitville -Platoro-Cumbres Pass. We explored the area meaning we got lost and almost got to South Fork.

We got back to Taos with a couple of days to spare before the Sipapu Shinding were to take place. Iz and Oilfieldtrash were to join me then for some single track riding. My daughter was happy to take a break from riding, mountain biking, and hiking.
 
The Sipapu Shinding took place late June. Iz and Oil Field Trash joined me to do some of the single tracks that Izz found on My tracks. We arrived to Sipapu way after the riders meeting so we had no much information about where to start. We decided to go and explore the area and see if we could find the trail heads that were market on "my Tracks". Such tracks were at least 5 years old so there was a good chance that some of them were closed. We ran into some of those and we decided to go back to the ski area and ask some one. We found a local guy that informed us that most of the trails on the south side were closed or not cleared yet. The ones on the north side were ready to be ridden. He also added that the ones on the south side were the most difficult. That got Izz attention and soon we were heading for Comales or trail number 22. Here is how I did just at the beginning of the trail. There was more to come.

https://youtu.be/BxjTgqfI2B0
 
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I was reading on ADV a couple days ago , seems when the rear brake gets low on the 990 it gets spongy . Northern New Mexico is my favorite place for extended riding and camping . SEYA
 
whatever that treail is,let me know so i can never try it, WOW!! that looked miserable:eek2::giveup:
 
BIG A said:
whatever that treail is,let me know so i can never try it, WOW!! that looked miserable:eek2::giveup:
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I was ready to quit within the first ten yards, but somebody kept saying it'll get better. There is more to the story so stay tune in.
 
The first few tenths of a mile of this trail really kicked our butts. We kept running into obstacles that we had to overcome by ditching the trail and bushwacking it. We kept pushing forward hoping it would get better. Unfortunately, I don't have much video since I was more worry about surviving than filming. Finally, we made it to sort of a meadow, however, there were plenty of down trees we had to jump, go around, and sometime drag our bikes under. In one instance we had to push the trunk of a tree till we moved out of the way. I almost got impaled when the branch I was pushing finally broke and I fell down on top of the broken branches, my pressure suit saved my butt and chest :doh:

https://youtu.be/NHDu-tSGDI0
 
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