Day 29 – Way out there… leaving Pagosa

We stopped at the bike shop on the way out of town. Picked up a tube to replace the one I had to put in my rear wheel after simultaneously breaking a spoke and flatting. We also picked up a $1 map of the most popular trail system in town. As we were getting ready to leave I asked , in passing, “does anyone ride places like Middle Mountain or Devil Mountain?”   I sure couldn’t find mention of anyone riding up there. “Oh, that’s *way out there*, I don’t know… It’s rough.”

CDTbike — finding the most forgotten and unrideable trails, so you don’t have to!

Today was a good one.  Some of the easiest trail we’ve ridden yet… and some of the worst and hardest.

What can I say? I am a sucker for squiggly lines on maps. I’m a sucker for switchbacks and the potential for pristine skinny that few have ever laid tire or boot tread to.

There was, amazingly, some of that on the Dudley Trail.  But only at the end.

I got fooled into taking us down the trail by a freshly cut tree at the entrance and fresh horseshoes in the dirt. It looked promising, the first miles bumping through sublime meadows bursting with flowers.

Our stubbornness played in. It’s so hard to turn around and backtrack.  Even when the fresh shoe prints were long gone.  Even when we hit a big blow down that hadn’t even been touched by anyone. Even when the trail was so overgrown it was invisible. We didn’t flip it.

We should have.

The trail turned into one of the worst messes of a trail I have yet encountered. And I’ve seen some bad ones.  Then the mosquitos swarmed us.  Perfect.  Keep moving!

The trail wasn’t all that long, but we resigned ourselves to a long and miserable walk, mostly downhill, to the Piedra river.  I was cursing myself for suckering us into it…. but, hey, when the option for the most trail and the highest adventure route came to us, we dove right in — knowing that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I did feel bad since Ez was feeling tired (one of maybe three days I have ever seen her tired).  I loved seeing how she didn’t let it get to her and just kept plowing through it.

The trail eventually popped onto a ridgeline and became mostly rideable.  Then the switchback barrage began, and those were ~rideable too.  Wow, a payoff for the battle!

I wouldn’t really recommend the trail to anyone, but I’m glad we did it, and at least there was a reward waiting.

image

The rest of the day was less eventful.  Great trails through Turkey Creek — super smooth and buff.  A surprising downhill hike-a-bike down to Devil Creek (for a shortcut).  A fun and long climb up Middle Mtn, and ensuing chunky ATV trails along it and down it. Caught sight of a bear up there. At Meadow Park we encountered the freshly cut tree, that trickster that got us into the Dudley Trail pickle.

We didn’t have enough time to visit the hot spring above the river, but we are camped just above it, so we’ll walk down in the morning, soak and wash our wounds out, then continue the pedal on into Durango.

CDTbike – riding the trails even the locals won’t try.  Not a chainring mark or any sign of bike travel anywhere up there.  For the CDTbike route (Durango option), we’ll need to figure something else out….

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>