I got my act together to ride out to Colordo to do some dualspot riding. My big Honda road bike was ready to make the pull.

Everything was rolling along Smoothly east of Saint George UT.

I spent a few days with LD at his house near Westcliffe Co. I was 69 and LD was a year older. We'd been riding my DR350cc bike and LD was riding a KLR 250cc bike. We'd spent the night at a campground near Creed Co.

So let me try to tell you about LD and my last day of riding together. We both are getting a trifle bored with simply spectacular scenery. We are trying to find summat new........and decided to ride the San Juan Natl Forest south of South Fork Co, out to Platoro Co near the New Mex border.

We got kinda a late start, and left Creede for the 20 mile ride to the beginning trail at South Fork sometime around 10am. We had no idea what would transpire.

But first on the way a Wolverine wiggled across the road in front of us. Don't see many of those. That was exciting to me. I don't think that I'd ever seen one before.

Anyway we got to the forest road 330. and soon notice a sign that said 330 was going to be closed for a couple months somewhere out there. We didn't really tumble that that was the road we were on.

Out there some where we came across this guy who was enjoying a ride in the countryside kinda like we were. He said his chair has about a ten mile range. Bless his heart.

There was a Summitville and a Platoro out there on our map, and no paved roads in sight. Good, that is what we were looking for. Ho hum, we saw a few deer, and some lakes and made some road decisions. All pretty routine for a day in the Co hills.....no not hills, it's Co Mtns. We started at 8500 ft and were generally going up.....prolly most of the time between 10 and 11000 ft. Temps nice at 65ish degrees.

At one point there was an off shoot road and a sign that said radio tower. We looked around and sure enough we could see a tower up there above the treeline. LD asked me.....do you want to go up there? I says, well, yes, if you want to.

About that time a geezer in a Jeep with 4 kids pulls into that road and says.....Are you going up? So we ask him what's up there. Hes a personable guy, and say he's taking these kids up there to show them a family of fox pups and also a couple hundred elk if they are where they usually are. He say come on up he'll show us too.

We are on that. A mile later he stops and say to look thru his field glasses and see those Elk over there. We do and they are there, but they are way too far away to be very impressive. Still, Elk are elk and we hadn't seen any until now.

He says to follow him to the top, which we do. The top is at 12400 he says, and we can clearly see the rest of the world from there.....but the icing on the cake is the 3 four month old red fox pups that come out to see what's up. They are the cutest things, and not shy at all. They jump from rock to rock less than 50 feet away from us.

We spent 30 minutes there watching and talking to the new geez. He knows the area well and say that yes the closed road is the one that we are on, but that is no problem. "See that trail going over the mtn way over there?.....well, if you follow that 8 miles thru Blowout Pass, you will come to a crossing forest Service road that will take you around the road closure.

We both say, since the road doesn't look well traveled, "can we make it on these bike". He says, "Sure, You can make it on those things". Now, why LD and I think he has any clue as to what we can do on those bikes is still a mystery to me, but we decide to go for it.

I think it was about 3pm when we left the foxes and the mtn top. We get to the main road, and come across a 30 year old couple on mtn bikes towing a mtn bike trailer. We talk to them and tell them of the foxes. They actually consider biking up the mile and a half to look at them. 🙂 That surprised me because I ride a bicycle at home around town 2 or 5 miles, but bicycling a altitude rise of 1500ft is not something that I ever consider doing.

The detour

So we take the new route off across no man's land. It's a meadow with 12 inch tall greass. First we come to 500 sheep blocking our way. More cutness as we see the small ones. Ooooh.............. We go on another 1/4 mile. There were some deep rutts. Turns out it was a meadow with about 10 inches of water flooding it that is below the top of the grass so we can't see the water. Once I get into the water, I desided to go up hill to try and get around it.....no deal.

I chickened out and went back. I looked for LD and he's already on the other side. I still don't know just where he went, but I figured it was across the middle, so encouraged by his success, that is where I went. Struggling and worrying, I attained the other side some 100 yards away.

We are both already past what we would ordinarily attempt in a remote area like this.....but on we went. This trail was more of a quad width of trail, not a real good sign. Anyway the geez had shown me a forest service map that showed this trail, and that we were to take the 2nd crossing trail, 8 little grid squares away, to make our escape.

We went over the first Hill and down thru the trees and over the second mtn......did I say we were feeling pretty lonely out there? Not to mention I had gone down a rocky section that I didn't think I could get back up, if necessary. That kinda stuff makes me nervous. I looked behind me and LD was doing everything I was doing.....maybe just a little different route. Along the way we pass some spectacular scenery.

Some times LD led....The FS map had a marking for Blowout Pass that was only a mile or so from our supposed turn off. We wondered what that would be like. What could possible make someone name a place Blowout Pass?????

LD was leading when we got to Blowout Pass. It was a bunch of rocks that covered the side of the Mtn about a 100 yards square.......and the road appeared to be going to dip down below the rock garden. I was following LD when the trail took off, up, right thru the middle of the rock field.

If I'd been thinking I would have waited for LD to have made it, which I wouldn't have expected. But I followed him in there, until it was to late for me to stop, and, oh shit, LD is bogging down. I managed to get in the other track and go on past him, bouncing over rocks. The old DR was scratching and snarling back at the lose rocks beneath. I manage to keep it upright for the 50 yards involved until I got to a safe spot on top to stop and rest.

Now to figure out how to go back and help LD get started on the side of that rock pile. As soon as I turn my engine off, I could hear an angry Kawasaki tearing a new asshole in that rock pile, and here comes LD over the top. Boy was I pleased to see that.

The corner of the trail thru Blowout Pass

We were so happy to be on top of the trail where it was going level across the rock scrabble, that we took 20 minutes to rest and count our blessing. LD photographed every aspect of that hill trying to get the gist of our accomplishment. I doubt that the pictures will do the hill justice. They never do. Soon we were on our way again.

Our escape cross route showed up right where the FS map said it would be, and we dropped the couple thousand feet to the good road below at Jasper. Prolly 5pm by then and some 10 miles from Platoro.

We rode on into Platoro, a couple of tired and hungry boys. There was a lodge/restaurant there built in 1945 where we had a ground steak and baked potato dinner. We really enjoyed just sitting down on something that wasn't moving more than the food.

About 6:30 we hit the road for our camp. Tired as we were, it was the perfect time to see animals out in the evening......of which we saw many, all deer. We got to the Paved road at 8pm, and made it back to camp By 9:30. What a day.

I was beyond tired. I fell into my tent, not to be heard from again......zzzzzzz