Planes, Trains, Automobiles (& feet and motorcycles)....

....and really, really good friends in Colorado.









The first week of August my wife and 7 of the very best people anyone could be lucky enough to call friends met in Durango,CO where we took the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad into the Weminuche Wilderness for a 5-day backpacking trip.

On the other side of the hike my DR650 was waiting to spend the next week playing in the mountains with me.

Waiting between me and my trusty motorcycle, though, were many miles, a couple challenges and one helluva adventure.....

This particular trip started and ended with motorcycles. In this case, we towed the DR650 from Austin to Lake City, CO behind the trusty VW Passat TDI on the always hand Kendon folding trailer:





We stopped at the local breweries then gorged on one last meal of monster-sized pizzas in Durango. The pizza below is the medium...the large is 24" across. It took up almost an entire 4-top table.






After a good night's sleep we all met at the train station to load up:






And head out on the train from Durango to Needleton where the tracks cross the Animas river and we will begin our 5-day, 4-night trip:











Below is the route we backpacked. This map and elevation chart shows the reverse of the actual route we took. Most people hike clockwise from Elk Park to Needleton. We chose to hike counterclockwise from Needleton to Elk Park because several of us wanted to climb a 14'er (Windom Peak) outside Chicago Basin on Day 2. So....The navy blue leg is our day 1, aqua blue is day 2, Green is day 3, yellow (and half of red) is day 4 and red is day 5:






BONUS TRIP REPORT GAME!!!
I'll buy a beer for the first person who can identify this happy motorcycle vagabond I ran across in Colorado on this trip:

Milton

Did you hike out of Elk Park to Molas or did you ride the train back to Durango? Is there a jeep road to Elk Park?

Beautiful pictures.

Jbay said:

Milton

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Ding, ding, ding! One free beer, oh, heck, make it a pint, next time you are in Austin or I am in Waco.

humanrace said:

Did you hike out of Elk Park to Molas or did you ride the train back to Durango? Is there a jeep road to Elk Park?

Beautiful pictures.

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Neither, actually. We hiked to Elk Park then took the train to Silverton, spent the night there in town then took the train back to Durango the next afternoon.

There is no jeep road to Elk Park. In fact, we only crossed one jeep road the entire time we were in the wilderness. It's just beyond Hunchback Pass in the counterclockwise direction. It's right before the green section on the map above becomes the yellow section. On that jeep road it's about 20 miles (2 1/2 hours by 4x4) over Stony Pass to Silverton or 14 miles of rough 4x4 then 17 miles of high-clearance road to HWY 149 then 24 paved miles to Lake City the other way.

Thanks for the compliment on the pictures. It's hard NOT to take a decent picture considering the magnificent scenery but none of my snapshots managed to capture the magic of the wilderness like some folks around here can do. I should've paid more attention to the photography threads.

Cool shots

I am going to dispense with any sort of detailed narrative for and go with the (shockingly rare-for-me) less-is-more trip report method by necessity. I am leaving for NM at oh-dark-thirty and won't get back to the computer until later in the week. Hopefully the pictures will adequately tell the story. If not, I'll return with more verbosity later in the week. Here goes....

DAY 1






Your Host on this Report:




CAMP:








Me and AusWife


Full moon on Nite 1. G'night:


Morning of DAY 2 - Four of us get up early to attack 14'er Mt. Eolus before the day's hike:






Mt. Eolus behind my back where I stand - resolutely - at 13,880 feet pointing at the "Catwalk" and the final climb to the peak. I had neither the time, tools nor inclination to finish this peak. We stopped here and turned around:








We headed down to meet the rest of our group and head over Columbine Pass:




Me at top of Columbine Pass looking down on Columbine Lake:


I go polar bear swimming in Columbine Lake. Brrrrr




Heading off Columbine:



View from Camp Nite 2:


Okay, that's halfway through the photos and we aren't even CLOSE to motorcycles yet and I've got to go to bed to get up early. I'm done for tonight. I promise more photos next chance I get - if anyone cares about the non-riding part of this report....

tricepilot said:

Cool shots

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Thanks.

Fantastic.

I absolutely love the area around Durango. Looking forward to the rest of the story.

great report-- cant wait to see the rest

EXCELLENT photography!! Nice report, too!

Quote "If anyone cares about the non-riding part"

I care!! I walked the Colorado trail 6 years ago and I liked the section from Spring Creek Pass to Elk Park the best. Anybody can ride a motorcycle from Silverton to Creede by way of Stony Pass (I did when I was 55). To walk from the Animas River to the continental divide and back down is special. They built roads on the easiest parts, not the prettiest parts. To see the most beauty, you have to walk. I can hardly wait to see your photos as you descend down Elk Creek. Excellent photos so far. Please don't belittle your photographic skills.

humanrace said:

I liked the section from Spring Creek Pass to Elk Park the best. I can hardly wait to see your photos as you descend down Elk Creek.

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I agree with you about that section. I really enjoyed the Continental Divide Trail. Unfortunately, we got lost (missed the switchbacks altogether) and we were in a bit of a hurry and then a thunder/lightning storm rolled in so we had to expedite that section with very few pictures. I will post what I've got....

HIKING DAY 3:
















HIKING DAY 5 - HUNCHPASS PASS, Elk Creek Trail and Cont Divide:










One of my favorite pictures...on top of the world and COMPLETELY lost...


Back on course, if not on trail....












CAMP NITE 4:









DAY 5 and OUT OF THE WILDERNESS:

DESPERADOES WAITING FOR A TRAIN::












THE TRAIN and SILVERTON:








Charlie Brown -Dog of Silverton.






Okay, that's it for backpacking pictures... Next post will include MOTORCYCLES!!!

Lordy lordy what awesome country and photographs. Thanks fer posting AusFletch.

miltonotto said:

Lordy lordy what awesome country and photographs. Thanks fer posting AusFletch.

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Thanks, Milton. One of the highlights was certainly bumping into you. I love moments of serendipity like that....

After 5 days in the wilderness then a couple nights 'recovering' (i.e., eating and drinking myself silly) in Silverton and Durango it was time to hop over to my in-laws' place in Lake City and recover the motorcycle.

Some other friends from Austin were in the area so I loaded them in my father-in-law's jeep for a ride up Cinnamon Pass and I led the way on the bike:









American Basin (ruined by me standing in front of it!!!!):




The next day was a ride to meet friends in Crested Butte:

HWY 149 between Lake City and Blue Mesa Reservoir:



I stopped in Gunnison for a cup of coffee and spotted a crowd of Harleys. They were being guarded by the GSA on the end like it was a sheepdog. I walked over to check out the BMW and noticed it was outfitted exactly like mine down to the Zumo 550. Eventually, I noticed the Guanajuato, Mexico license plates on the bikes. SW Colorado and Guanajuato are my two favorite places in the world so this was obviously another one of those serendipitous moments I enjoy very much. I wandered into the coffee sshop to find the riders and foudn them taking over the back corner of the restaurant. I bid them good morning and asked about the bikes in 'my old broken Spanish'. Only one of the crew spoke English better than I spoke Spanish. He was the group leader and guess which bike he was riding???



Coming out of the coffee shop I spotted this cool all-electric dirt bike chained up with the bicycles:


Almont, Co:


I met my buddy at his house in Crested Butte:


We went to town for lunch. As I was getting off my motorcycle I heard a friendly "Texas?" from behind. I turned and saw a friendly and vaguely familiar face. After a few blinks to adjust to the morning sun in my eyes I realized it was a true motorcycle Icon from Austin, Texas. Our very own Milton Otto:



I hung around Crested Butte long enough to eat some tacos and see a bear ambling through my buddy's back yard then I shoved off for more riding. Milton mentioned riding the Green Hornet to Taylor Reservoir so I wandered that way thinking I might bump into him again:




More Later......

I've been coming to SW Colorado at least once a year for almost 25 years but this was the first time I had been through Taylor Canyon to the reservoir. It won't be my last. Oh, wait, this time wasn't my last. I'll get to that.






















Just past Taylor Reservoir there is the intersection of two roads. At the intersection is a little compound of cabins and the Taylor Creek Trading Post. The entire place was a hub off ATV and dirt bike activity. There was a small general store, a restaurant and gas pumps. There were ATV's and dirt bikes everywhere. I gassed up, drank a Coke and headed down the dirt road to Tin Cup.


About 5 miles down the road I ran across a young man on a broken down dirt bike. I had a strap in my bag so I towed him back to the Trading Post where he was staying. Afterwards I decided to head home since my wife was waiting on me for dinner. I called and told her I was about a hundred miles away and headed home.

I rode to Gunnison and stopped to call my wife to give her another update. I reached into my tank bag for my cell phone and it was....gone. Doh. It musta dropped out while I was taking the camera out of my tank bag for pictures. The last place I had stopped for pictures was at least 45 miles away and the furthest was 60+. It was about 7pm and I had no way to call a wife who was worrying so I decided to punt on the Iphone and get back. I didn't really hate losing the phone but I did hate losing all my contacts and the music I had downloaded for my riding and the road trip.

I sat around all night and thought about where I coulda lost the phone. I had only stopped about a dozen places for photos. The ride was ridiculously scenic. I had another day of vacation. Easy decision. I decided to get up the next morning, re-trace my steps and hunt for my lost phone.

I rode hard from Lake City to Gunnison, stopped for coffee and fuel then turned at Almont for the ride along Taylor River. I was scanning the road and stopped at several places I'd snapped photos the day before but saw no trace of my phone. I stopped at a little hay farm and lumber yard at a the confluence of the roads from Crested Butte and Almont where I had taken some pictures. I saw no sign of my phone. I reached down with my left heel to kick up the sidestand and I saw some black rubber about the size of a silver dollar poking out from underneath the find, powder-like dirt. I kicked at the dirt and revealed an ojbect the size of an Iphone:



I grabbed it, dusted it up and powered it on. It worked like a champ. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Unfortunately, this cell phone rescue trip used up my last day of riding so I didn't get in any more off road riding. I do have some more pictures of beautiful scenery and dirty yellow motorcycles but they don't seem to have uploaded to my smugmug account. I'll try to get them posted for one more Colorado fix for everyone.....

-Fletch

AusFletch said:

I reached down with my left heel to kick up the sidestand and I saw some black rubber about the size of a silver dollar poking out from underneath the find, powder-like dirt. I kicked at the dirt and revealed an ojbect the size of an Iphone.

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That's just incredible.