Mountain Bike over Rollins Pass.

With the end-of-year holidays it's been impossible for me to schedule time on the road. We like to think of running as a simple activity--heck, an hour on the road, what's that? But by the time I get to my locker, change clothes, transport to a trailhead, run, stretch, return, shower--we're talking a substantial block of time.

No runs to journal, it's a good time to document my mountain bike trip from last August with my oldest grandson, a terrific young man called Finnegan. I've been reminded of our trip with a winter run I did in the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago.

There's a narrow window of opportunity to travel the right-of-way of the original pass over the continental divide, Rollinsville to Winter Park, Colorado. At 11,600 feet, Rollins Pass has snow. From winter it blocks the road well into summer--late July, early August is not unusual. And autumn snows arrive early, sometimes in early September.



(Snow was a crippling factor for the original railroad line crossing here, sometimes taking more than 40% of the operating budget just for ROW maintenance. Hence, the six-mile tunnel that now connects the East and West Portals.)

Click on the images to see them in larger format.

So we have about four to six weeks of opening to mountain bike over the pass, traveling from our home base near the Peak-to-Peak Highway (Colorado 119/72) to Winter Park Town and Resort.

As an exploratory adventure I did the ride last year solo, starting from my place in Nederland, riding the 14 miles to the trailhead, 14 to the summit, 14 down the other side to Winter Park. It's a nifty triple-14, if a bit grueling.

This year I had the great joy of having 12-year-old Finnegan with me. Claudia gave us a ride to the trailhead to begin our journey there.

The road is passable for a 4WD vehicle, but not with any great speed. On mountain bike you're really aware of the bumps, rocks and terrain.

While it's the familiar 4% incline most of the way--exceptions where there was excavation to create a tunnel that never materialized--the roughness makes for slow going.

It seems like 14 miles to the summit should go fairly easily in 2.5-3 hours. Last year and this year both, it took about 6 hours. We stopped occasionally to hydrate and refuel, but for the most part we chugged along at a steady pace--in our lowest, granny gears.










Riding is a real act of concentration for about 80% of the time; occasionally there are smooth stretches that allow you to raise your head and look around.





As the road slowly makes its way up the mountainside the view grows more and more expansive, more distracting from the business at hand of dodging boulders and bumps that want to grab you and throw you down.

Riding in August, we saw very few other people--one car camper returning from spending a couple of days near the top with his big Newfie, one fisherman at Yankee Doodle Lake. Other than that we had the time and the space to ourselves.

We had a leisurely lunch at Yankee Doodle, under the watchful eye of the glacier just below Needles Eye Tunnel. Finnegan was hungry. Very hungry.

We'd stop along the way at especially beautiful places, just to make a record of our Big Adventure.

We're just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. It's a heavenly place to live, work and play.

A little after noon, we approached the tunnel. From here, Finnegan rode like a bat out of hell. No way I could keep up with him.

The tunnel was closed several years ago after a fatality from falling rock. This section of the ride requires a hike up over an hellacious trail. A 12-year-old heart is a wonder to behold.

[Addendum February, 2015. It wasn't a fatality, it was a serious injury. Here's news footage of the incident, compliments of mountain history expert Dan Martin.]

Once again playing catch-up, I had a perfect opportunity to see Finnegan at the top


Peak wildflower season in the high country is late June and into July. We still got to see plenty of bright color, especially in the yellows and golds.

Not yet at the summit of the ride, we paused to behold with some amazement the trail we'd been riding on for so many hours. just over Finnegan's head in the image here.

Yankee Doodle Lake is in the lower left of the image, the original wagon trail leading up the mountainside above it.

Just before the summit, we reached the Two Trestles. These span a sheer dropoff of about 1000 feet, and more than one person has gotten the queasies just stepping foot on the first one. Maybe that has something to do with why these are also called the Devil's Slide Trestles.

Finally, the summit. We spent all of about five minutes here, both of us ready to keep on going.

Typical Rocky Mountain weather, the sky was now clouding up and we put on rain gear before beginning our descent.

Riding up alongside Finnegan before starting out, I did an epic tipover as I pulled to a stop forgetting my feet were clipped into the pedals. Pure Charlie Chaplin. You know, to impress your buddy with what a cool guy you are.

We both anticipated an easy, relaxed 14-mile ride down the far side into Winter Park.

Look close for the rider in the blue poncho.

I thought it might not take much more than an hour.

Wrong.

The road was every bit as rough as the eastern slope, and while we were able to speed along a few times, we were on our brakes much of the time to keep from being bounced right off our bikes. We were on the road nearly three hours to make that 14 miles, and despite our front-fork suspension systems we felt pretty beat up by the time we arrived in Winter Park.

We stopped along the way, sometimes just to take in the beauty, more often to rest bodies from the battering we were taking from the rough road.









We'd gotten to the the trailhead in the morning compliments of a ride from Claudia. She made the 80-mile highway trip to Winter Park to pick us up as well.

We were thrilled to see her, arriving at nearly precisely our agreed upon time to meet up.









Because I'd made the trip last year I knew it was a good challenge; I wasn't sure if I'd want to tackle it a second time. Seeing Finnegan's strength, resolve and totally positive attitude about it really impressed me. Even in our roughest sections he never once complained, and every time I glanced up from the road to see how he was doing he was smiling.

I believe he's caught the spirit of challenging yourself to push your limits. I couldn't be more proud.

As Finnegan's Uncle Malachi says,

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Life also sometimes begins with hamburgers, cold drinks and soft seats at a cool Irish pub.

[Here's the long way around, which Claudia drove to pick us up]