Approaching Independence Pass from Aspen

This was my first trip through Independence Pass and it was exhilarating to say the least. During the initial climb upwards, the road presented me with nothing but blind curves and frighteningly narrow one lane spots, where giant chunks of granite hung over the pavement. It was impossible to pull over and take pictures of the breathtaking scenery all around me. But at least I enjoyed the ride! After some time, the road became more forgiving and I took a break at the Independence ghost town, where I finally took some pictures. Soon after, I was at the top of the pass, 12.095 ft above sea level. My motorcycle was running rich from the lack of O2, but kept going without any problems. I was on a strict time frame, so I took off again, winding my way through the aspen lined road, until I was back in familiar territory, near Mt. Elbert and Leadville. I continued on despite my sore butt and made it to Keystone. Jason and I hung out and had a great BBQ that night.

The next day, Jason took me around Breckinridge and Dillon, which I’ll include in the gallery below. We had some good fun riding a new roller coaster at the summit, though it cost us $18 for one ride! They have to make their money in the off-season. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Breckinridge brewery, where it’s always $2.50 pints.

On my last full day there, Jason suggested we ride the Georgetown Loop Railroad out of Silver Plume. Here’s the official description from the website:

“The Georgetown Loop Railroad was one of Colorado’s first visitor attractions. Completed in 1884, this spectacular stretch of three-foot narrow gauge railroad was considered an engineering marvel for its time.

The thriving mining towns of Georgetown and Silver Plume lie two miles apart in a steep, narrow mountain canyon. To connect them, the railroad’s builders designed a “corkscrew” route that traveled twice the distance, slowly gaining more than 600 feet in elevation. It included horseshoe curves, grades of up to 4%, and four bridges across Clear Creek, including the massive Devil’s Gate High Bridge. The Colorado & Southern Railway operated the line for passengers and freight from 1899 to 1938, when it was abandoned.

In 1973, the Colorado Historical Society began restoring the railroad as part of its 978-acre Georgetown Loop Historic Mining & Railroad Park. A replica of the High Bridge was completed in 1984, in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its original construction.”

The little train chugged along the twisty tracks through dense forest and over Clear Creek, stopping halfway near the mine entrance.

Jason and I spent the extra shekels on the mine tour, which was very informative. For example, miners were always hired in pairs. One miner would set and hold the bit on his shoulder, while the other would strike it with a sledgehammer. Imagine the feeling of having a sledgehammer striking right next to your head over and over again! These men were tough hombres! Now the mine was dark and the only source of light was from a small candle behind the hammer operator. The light from the candle would reflect off the end of the bit, giving the hammer operator a small, shiny target. When it was time to switch duties or change drill bits, the bit handler, who couldn’t be heard because of the cacophony of hammer blows in the shaft, would put his hand over the bit end, effectively masking the shiny target. Obviously, one had to completely trust the other in this endeavor and since money was the incentive, (if your partner was killed or hurt, you’d lose your job), there were no recorded accidents in this mine during its entire operation. All I can say is, wow!

Jason and I boarded the train again for the descent down into Georgetown. As you can see from the pictures, the scenery was stunning. The tall bridge we crossed was a replica of the original, which of course was made out of wood. Speaking of wood, we learned something on the tour that was at once shocking and reassuring. When Silver Plume and Georgetown were founded in the mid-19th century, the settlers had little choice but to use the surrounding forest as raw material. In a relatively short time, 40 square miles of forest up and down the valley was gone. We saw pictures of the towns back then in the mine owner’s cabin and there wasn’t a tree in any of them, except those planted for decorative purposes. Yet now, 150 years later, the forest looks as though it has been there forever. So much for destroying nature, if you ask me.

Enjoy the pictures and I’ll be back soon with my last post, The Rocky Mountain National Park.

A friend of theirs, Maggie was a last-minute addition. We all arrived Friday evening and set up camp at 10,000 ft. Having lived at sea level all my life, I was a bit apprehensive about the hike. Being a smoker didn’t help my confidence either. My lungs already felt heavy at this altitude. Laurie assured me that Mt. Elbert was the easiest hike of all the 14ers in the area, but considering Leah and she had been training for this hike all summer, I was still nervous about my chances making even half way up.

We got a late start in the morning, but thankfully it couldn’t have been a better day. The sky was a clear blue and the temperature wasn’t yet unbearably hot, though that wouldn’t matter as we would gain elevation. As we climbed the ever steepening trail, my legs seemed to work just fine, even though my lungs felt like they were full of insulation. After just a couple of hours or so, we were approaching the tree line, which is at 12,000 ft. After a snack break, of which there would be many, we continued on past the point where trees could not survive. Here, I hit my second wind. My lungs opened up and I felt stronger, but that didn’t really matter, I found out quickly, because the trail began to climb at an even steeper angle than before. And it was full of loose rocks, which made the going much slower. At this point, we all took breaks every 20-30 minutes, just to catch our breath. We didn’t mind though, because as you can see in the photos, the view was spectacular, or dare I say, breathtaking! The goal was not to get to the top, but to enjoy the journey, no matter how far we hiked.

Since we got such a late start, there was no way we would make it to the top and get back before dark, so we decided to start the trek back down. I’ll put it this way: there were times when I wished I could have called in a helicopter EVAC team to take me back to camp. As apprehensive as I was to climb up the Mt. Elbert, I neglected to realize how torturous it would be to walk back down. In the end, we spent a good 8 hours + on Mount Elbert and I will not soon forget the experience. I don’t know when I’ll ever be that high up again, barring a plane trip.

I’ve been to Grand Junction a half-dozen times and was there primarily to visit family and friends, so I have no pictures of the town itself. Suffice it to say, it is a beautiful town surrounded by spectacular scenery. For those of you who enjoy mountain biking, Grand Junction and nearby Fruita offer the most challenging bike trails in the world. No joke!

Now, on to the star of this post. The Colorado National Monument is one of my favorite places to visit. This was my 8th visit and the second best I have experienced. The best trip was when my grandfather and I drove through during the spring of 2009 when wildflowers were in bloom, carpeting the usual brown and red landscape with bright blues and yellows. The highlights of this trip through was definitely the motorcycle and the fact that the road had been recently paved and was smooth as glass and grippy as sandpaper. It was early morning and birds of prey dotted the clear sky looking for their first meals of the day. The air was cool and refreshing on my face. I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. Enjoy!

My butt very, very sore, I carried on, determined to sleep in a bed that night. The scenery was beautiful, no doubt, but I really didn’t pay much attention until I reached the edge of the Grand Teton National Park. What a glorious mountain chain! I could spend hours trying to convey the majesty of these mountains, but it would simply be a waste of time. If you have the chance, you must make a visit. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

By now, I was really sore, as you can imagine, and just wanted to get the hell off my bike for the night. I pulled into Jackson and immediately saw a problem: the town was full of tourists. I spent the next hour darting all over the town trying to find a motel room. I finally found a room at the Snow King Motel. After a lengthy shower and some horizontal time, I decided to take a walk around town. Consideirng the beauty of Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons which I had just witnessed, I just wasn’t digging this touristy little burg. Any town with this many t-shirt shops makes my stomach acid churn. It has it’s charms, I’m sure, but I wasn’t really in the mood to be around this many people. Luckily for the reader, I did take some pictures, although half-heartedly.

The next morning, after a great cup of coffee and a delectable homemade muffin, I hit the road. After a lovely ride through the Bridger National Forest (another one!), the mountains and trees gave way to the wide open praririe. Needless to say, I rode fast and hard on this stretch of road. The only really event of note was a man I met at a gas station. He was riding a 1989 BMW 1200S with a mountain bike partially disassembled and strapped to the side of his bike. His name was Mike and he had been on the road for 45 days and had logged over 9,000 miles. He was in his early 50′s, I would say, and he made me feel like a wimpy in my endeavor to make a 2,000 mile trip.

And funny enough, Mike lives very close to where I am now. We’ll hopefully hit the road together in the near future.

I continued south along route 191 to Rock Springs, WY, where I took a break for a while in a Starbucks. Seattle is never that far away these days. The clouds were threatening of rain for the first time during this trip, but I had little choice but to go farther. I soon found myself riding through fairly heavy rain on a twisty part of the road with no safe places to stop. It wasn’t a very fun ride, but it was worth the trouble when I finally made it the Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

Here, I met some more fellow travelers, Mike and Dan. These guys had done 4,000 miles in the past 2 months! We chatted for a while about our trips and parted way, Mike returning to Oregon, while Dan back to Indiana. I had really wanted to camp that night, but after the rain storm, my tent was soaked, so I had no choice but to go into Vernal, UT for the night. Mike and Dan had just come from Vernal and said it was a decent, though unimpressive place to stop. The landscape became drearier after the Flaming Gorge park and I prepared myself for a couple of boring hours. But I was wrong. As I got closer to Vernal, the elevation was dropping quickly and to compensate for this steep decline, the road had a set of 8 gloriously tight switchbacks to carve. I always hated these in a car, because of the loss of speed, but on a motorcycle curves are a blast to ride. I pulled into Vernal with a smile on my face and hope that I would find some more twisty roads like that before this trip was finished.

These are the best of the bunch, in my opinion. After a five or six hours of this stop and go riding, my butt was so sore that I began to lose interest in my surroundings and just wanted to get back on the open road and find a motel. I loved my day in Yellowstone and plan to go back when I can. I’m too tired to write more. Please enjoy the pictures!

I continued down the deserted interstate and noticed that my rain covers were blowing around like one of those inflatable tube men you see at used car dealerships, so I decided to pull off at the next exit. I stopped on the shoulder of the exit ramp, killed the engine, took off my helmet and got to work. I had some straps that would keep the rain covers on, but I had to dig them out of the luggage first. As I dug through my clothes, I heard an unfamiliar sound. At first, I thought it was coming from the woods, which surrounded this country road exit. I prayed that it wasn’t a bear looking for some breakfast. I nervously scanned the tree line, but couldn’t see any movement. The noise continued though and I still couldn’t figure out what it was. I found my straps and started putting them on. The sun was well above the trees now and the noise grew louder and louder. It finally dawned on me what I was hearing. The guard rails all along the exit ramp and interstate were expanding in the morning sun, the metal popping, groaning and echoing all around me. It was one of those rare moments when reality really surprised me.

Missoula was a scant 65 miles away and would be my next stop. As I mentioned in the last post, exploring a town in motorcycle gear isn’t much fun, but I did manage to look around and get a feel for the downtown area at least. For those who don’t know, (or are too lazy to look into it), Missoula is home to the University of Montana. Accordingly, the downtown area is chock full of coffee shops, cafes, restaurants and breweries. Missoula’s claim to fame in my mind is the Big Sky Brewery, which brews a favorite beer of mine with the best name, Moose Drool.

A great place to grab a beer!

I made a rookie mistake the minute I parked the motorcycle. I tried to put it on the center stand, but with extra weight of the luggage, I lost control and my poor bike fell over on its side. Luckily, it fell away from me and in plain view of another rider, who was kind enough to help me pick it up. That was an aggravation my back didn’t need! I busted a mirror and had to hobble it back on, but it lasted the rest of the trip. Cursing myself as I walked down the street, I hit a coffee shop to get out of the heat for a while. Then I took a walk around. I wish my pictures turned out better, but I found it hard to focus. I still had many miles to go before I could really rest.

I really wanted to grab a beer, but it was just too hot and I had too many miles to go. After a couple of hours, I hit the road, hoping to make my way to Bozeman before dark. A few hours later, I crossed the continental divide.

It's hard to tell, but that was the Continental Divide.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this would be the first out of four times I would cross the divide on my journey. As I approached Bozeman, MT, the sky began to grow a dark grey. Thankfully, I had already made reservations for a motel room. This is what the sky looked like soon after I pulled in to my room.

A close call!

I waited out the storm in a Chinese restaurant across the street. An hour later, the sky cleared and I took a walk. Happily, I was close to downtown. Bozeman is another college town, hosting Montana State University. The downtown area was even nicer than Missoula, in my opinion, and I really want to return someday. These were all taken with my iPhone, so I apologize for the quality.

I have to admit, the Chinese food wasn’t sitting too well with me that night, so my desire to take pictures was greatly diminished.

I had a lot of fun in both towns, but I especially enjoyed the ride. Montana is not as spectacular as Colorado, which you’ll soon see for yourself, but I’m glad I decided to explore this state a bit.

Next post takes us into Yellowstone Park!

Eastern Washington, with its rolling hills carpeted with grassy pastures, corn, bean and wheat fields, has always reminded me of western/central Kansas. In other words, a little boring on the eyes. The Columbia River gorge, on the other hand, is always a spectacular sight!

About 4 hours after I left Ellensburg, I arrived in Coeur d’Alene, ID. The lake gleamed like a jewel in the bright midday sun. As I rode into town, I wondered why I had never visited this place before. Now that I had the opportunity, I quickly realized the intrinsic problem of motorcycle touring; dealing with all my stuff. I was hot and sweaty in my gear and I didn’t want to leave my bike alone for too long. Needless to say, my visit was brief, but nice. Coeur d’Alene’s downtown area is lined with quaint cafes and stores of a touristy nature. Considering my smelly state, I opted to grab a burger and huckleberry shake (delicious) at the local Zip’s and then take a walk.

After an hour or so, I couldn’t take the heat any longer and decided to get back on the road. I had many miles ahead of me and I had no idea where I was going to stop for the night. But before I left town, I took a short ride on scenic route 97, which snaked around the edge of the lake. I wish I had more pictures, but the road was narrow and winding, so there were not many places to stop.

Coeur d’Alene Lake is absolutely stunning, but I found out that it is completely bereft of life. In essence, it’s a gigantic swimming pool, the result of poisonous mining runoff over the decades. A very sad tale.

Back on I-90 East, the road climbed upwards and through the Coeur d’Alene National Forest. I welcomed the shade from the dense trees that lined the interstate, but it was short lived. I exited the forest into a series of valleys that harbor old mining towns like Kellogg, Wallace and Mullen. The sun seemed to sink faster and faster behind me. I was worried I would have to do some night riding, which considering Montana wildlife, was not a good idea. I saw some signs for motels in a town called St. Regis. That would be my stop.

This is for you, Sheldon.

Ok, bad joke, I know, but I enjoyed my stop in this one horse town. I had some dinner and visited the local bar/liquor store. This was a novel concept to me in comparison to Washington State’s draconian liquor laws. I met a local, Jim, and his out of town friend, also Jim, and we had a few drinks.

We awoke mid-morning on Sunday and set out. After hiding the canoe and equipment in the tall grass along the river’s edge, I followed Chris to the pull out point. The highway runs parallel with the Yakima River and offered some great twisty spots where I could lean just a bit more than I was accustomed to in Seattle. It was great practice for the many rides to come during my trip.

After we secured the truck, Chris jumped on the back of my motorcycle and we drove back north. Chris and I are stout guys and I think we were over the weight limit for my bike, but she performed admirably. The only scary thing was feeling Chris shift his weight while he was looking around like a toddler in a candy store. I had to continually nudge him with my elbow to get him to focus. Obviously, we made it back and our river adventure soon began.

The Yakima isn’t a big river and the rapids we encountered would be considered a Class 1, but when you’re in a plastic canoe, even the tamest of rapids can seem daunting as you approach, especially if you come in at the wrong angle. Chris and I had a lot of practice in this particular canoe on Lake Washington, usually with a 12-pack of Kokane in the middle, so we weren’t too worried. Chris decided to bring his electric trolling motor, which meant we had the added weight of a deep-cycle battery, which put the canoe off-balance a tad. The motor was an ingenious idea, because there were long lazy stretches of river and it was nice to take a break from paddling. All the more so, because I snapped my paddle in two early in the trip navigating the most formidable rapid in this particular stretch of the Yakima. Don’t ever buy cheap, collapsible paddles. I didn’t find it very effective or fun to paddle with half a paddle. It was like watching a T-Rex trying to swing a golf club. There was a long stretch after this rapid where we both sat back and enjoyed the scenery. To our left was the highway of course and more than once people would wave at the crazy guys in a canoe. Everyone else was either floating on big clusters of inner tubes or kayaking. We were the odd men out for sure. To our right were beautiful cliffs of rock and grass, which occasionally gave way to large open prairies to our right. As we talked and enjoyed the scenery, I, being in the front of the canoe, had forgotten to keep an eye on the ever-changing topography of the river. When I did happen to look ahead of us, I saw the frightening looking white caps that told me we were heading for a large boulder. There was no time to paddle and the river was too shallow for the trolling motor, so I told Chris to hang on. We hit the boulder straight on and thankfully, it had a flat top. The plastic Coleman canoe bulged under our feet as it effortlessly skidded over the top. We had a good laugh and I decided to keep an eagle’s eye on the river from that moment on.
About halfway into our 18 mile float, we came across a cliff that was a mecca for diving. Perched at the top like so many mountain goats, young people were cajoling each other to jump off. The trolling motor came in very handy here, because it had just enough power to keep us stationary in the current. This is where Chris decided to start doing “river doughnuts”, spinning us around and around while we egged on the would be cliff divers. The floaters coming by were offering them beer if they would jump. I only saw one kid out of five actually catch his beer as the current rushed them down river. I wish I had some pictures of this.
After the cliff, we found an island and decided to beach and have some lunch. These are the only pictures of our canoe trip. Ah, my poor, pale, sun-starved, Seattle skin! I got such a hellish sunburn! The rest of the float trip was relaxing and after 5 hours, we ended up near the Roza Dam, where people were buzzing about in power boats and on jet skis. Chris used his trolling motor to maneuver us onto the shore and as we pulled the canoe out, a park ranger approached us and told us that next time, we weren’t allowed to use any kind of motor. Leave it to Chris to not read regulations! Luckily, we got off with a warning.

On the eastern slope of the gloriously green Cascade mountain range lies Ellensburg, WA. A quaint college/farming town, Ellensburg once vied to become the capitol of Washington state, but lost out to Olympia due geographical and probably political issues. (It’s difficult to remember every hand that needs to be greased and how much grease to use.) That was just a supposition on my part, I’m not writing a history lesson here. I stopped here to visit my friends Chris, Hanni and their beautiful little daughter Elouise. It was also a chance to catch up on my sleep and acclimate myself to the daylight hours again. (I had been working nights for 5 years.)  I apologize for the lack of pictures, but I wasn’t yet in the photo taking mood.

At first, I was planning to move the usual, boring way, but the idea of “barreling” down the highway at 55 mph in a Uhaul truck with my motorcycle in tow was not very appealing. I had done it too many times already. The idea of a motorcycle trip just felt right. In the end, I spent a month on the road. This is a chronicle of my trip for those of you who are interested. Please enjoy!