Oh Pagosa

For the first time in I don't know how long, I was a regular old tourist! I traveled on a weekend and did all of the touristy things there were to do in Pagosa Springs. It was a girl's family weekend and my aunts and cousins from both Arizona and Omaha, as well as my mom and myself all met up for a little family fun. And fun we had, let me tell you! We stayed in two separate condos: one for the moms and one for the cousins. Most of our time was spent talking and playing games like Catch Phrase (my favorite!!), Guesstures, and Apples to Apples. Just a bunch of silly board type games that were, I must say, quite a riot with 6 female family members. It was pretty great to see everyone; to be honest, I was happily surprised.

Then on Monday I had the day to slowly make my way back to Grand Lake. I decided to try to find a good place for a quick ride and then head homeward. The day before I found a bike shop that I thought I could stop by for some ride ideas. I pulled up, got out and asked the guy rolling bikes out where a good mountain bike ride would be. He simply said, "I don't know, I don't ride mountain bikes." Can you believe that?!?!? Neither could I. After a bit more prompting, he told me that there is a dirt parking lot a few miles down the road that had some kind of a trail leading out of it. Not exactly the help I was hoping for. Oh well. I took matters into my own hands and decided to drive around town looking for perhaps another info source. Then, I remembered reading something about a mountain biking area behind the post office. Found it! It was called Spa Mountain and it was pretty cool to have a trail system right in the middle of town! I briefly looked at the map at the trailhead and figured it was a small enough area that I couldn't really get lost. I also saw that one section to the east of the mountain was rated red (most difficult) and not recommended for mountain biking. I hit the trail and off I went. Climb, climb, climb and then I found myself in a bit of a clearing with a great view. I wasn't too impressed with the amount of marking of the different trails. Once in a while there would be either a green, blue, or red number nailed to a tree but a few times I got a bit confused and ended up not on a trail at all. Finally, I found a blue arrow pointing down the back of the mountain, which I decided to follow. After a fun tight switchbacky descent, I ended up dead ending into a river!

So, after admiring the river and sheer cliffs to the west where I had just come from, I backtracked a bit and found what kind of looked like a game trail, or rarely used steeeeeeep trail that I eventually understood to be that red trail that wasn't suggested for mountain bikers. Now I see why. I climbed and climbed and climbed (on foot pushing my bike since the pitch was so steep) and laughed out loud at how crazy this idea was. Hoping that it would eventually lead back to the less intense trail system, I kept going. Finally, I ventured upon this













Holy SH*T!!!

Ssscccaaarrrryyyy!!!!!! I thankfully walked up on it and was pretty grateful that I wasn't bombing down the trail and then thinking mid-air that, "Oh, isn't this special?!" Maybe if I was some kind of downhill daredevil this would be fun, but I still don't think that there is enough of a landing area. You just shoot right into the straight down narrow steep singletrack. You'd have to land it slowly and beautifully to not just tumble down the crazy steep edge of the mountain! I don't get it. But maybe that's why it isn't widely used. I did actually see a whole bunch of tire tracks around it though. IMBA, this area needs your love!!





Steep, off camber, crazy!!!! After about a half hour of hike-a-bike and taking pictures, I got to some rideable trail and recognized where I was. I finished up the ride and headed back into town for pizza and tea for the road. It is such a beautiful area that I had to stop every few mile to admire the scenery. Here are a few more photos...






Treasure Falls and a few photos from the top of Wolf Creek Pass, which may be one of my new favorite passes in Colorado.

Alright, enough already!!! Hope you enjoy the pics!