Summer Approaches: Longer Days and Expanding Horizons

The weather has been great in Chaffee County, CO. The high-country snow is melting, the Arkansas River is running high and tea-colored. And I've been getting out and riding a ton. I've hit my favorite two sections of the Rainbow pretty hard in the last 3 weeks or so, the Bear Creek Section and the Silver Creek Loop, but I'm ready to break routines and start visiting my other singletrack options. These are magic places that I really don't see from November to April.

Now stuff up to about 10,000 feet is open and rideable. So today I made my first 2007 visit to the Colorado Trail to ride Blanks Cabin to highway 50.



I spent about two hours pedaling pavement and gravel to get to Blanks, which is more widely known as the Mt Shavano trailhead. Shavano is a local 14er, and Blanks is the typical jumping off point since you can drive to there.

The aspens were beautiful, dandelions were blooming everywhere, and it was a good day to be riding.



I just beat a thunderstorm as I rolled out onto US 50 at about 1 PM, so that's the way to do it.