My friend Ken and I had planned to ride to McCook, NE, for a ride to eat with some friends from the LD List. We were going to meet at Sehnert's a James Baird award-winning restaurant. But last night, the forecast was for strong thunderstorms with very high winds, and damaging hail. We've both had all the experience we ever need with damaging hail, so we revised our plans. Instead of me meeting Ken and his BMW G310GS in Fort Morgan at 7AM, Ken met me here in Greeley at 8AM. We rode some local back roads through Ft Collins and stopped at the junction of US-287 and CO-14 so Ken could get gas. Then we rode up US-287 to Laramie and stopped again there so Ken could have a snack. [Since I'm on my diet, snacks are very limited for me. I had one of Ken's peanut butter crackers.]
From Laramie we went south on WY-230. The first 20 miles or so we were in the eastern end of the Laramie Plains. From about 1880-1890, the Laramie Plains, which stretch almost to Medicine Bow, were the richest cattle lands in the world. Quite a few of the ranchers were British and they had sunk their family fortunes into their American ventures. But it all came to an end with a monumental blizzard. I've read that snow was 20' deep across the whole basin and when the spring thaw came, it was said that you couldn't walk anywhere in the whole basin without walking on dead cattle. Now there's not the lush grass and there are more horses and pronghorn antelope than cattle.
This is the south end of the plains as they ease into the mountains that are along the Colorado/Wyoming border.
We rode to Walden, the "capital" of North Park. In the mountains, a "Park" is an area surrounded by higher mountains, and in Colorado, we've got North Park, Middle Park with Granby and Kremmling, and South Park with Fairplay. We found a good BBQ spot that hadn't been there the last time I was in Walden and ate a nice lunch before heading east on CO-14. From Walden, at 8100' you follow 14 east while climbing through ranches and Colorado's biggest population of moose, until you cross Cameron Pass and just a little over 11,000'. From there back to US-287, you ride through Poudre Canyon, alongside the Poudre (pronounced "pooder") River, a wild and scenic waterway. We were lucky in that traffic was very light and we could ride at a comfortable and challenging speed. There are several areas in the canyon where narrows so much that there is nothing but road and river between cliffs.
We managed to ride nearly 300 miles (Ken rode 400) and "enjoyed" a strong headwind for at least 250 of those miles...all while riding a circle. Ken says it's some undiscovered law of physics that makes that possible.
From Laramie we went south on WY-230. The first 20 miles or so we were in the eastern end of the Laramie Plains. From about 1880-1890, the Laramie Plains, which stretch almost to Medicine Bow, were the richest cattle lands in the world. Quite a few of the ranchers were British and they had sunk their family fortunes into their American ventures. But it all came to an end with a monumental blizzard. I've read that snow was 20' deep across the whole basin and when the spring thaw came, it was said that you couldn't walk anywhere in the whole basin without walking on dead cattle. Now there's not the lush grass and there are more horses and pronghorn antelope than cattle.
This is the south end of the plains as they ease into the mountains that are along the Colorado/Wyoming border.
We rode to Walden, the "capital" of North Park. In the mountains, a "Park" is an area surrounded by higher mountains, and in Colorado, we've got North Park, Middle Park with Granby and Kremmling, and South Park with Fairplay. We found a good BBQ spot that hadn't been there the last time I was in Walden and ate a nice lunch before heading east on CO-14. From Walden, at 8100' you follow 14 east while climbing through ranches and Colorado's biggest population of moose, until you cross Cameron Pass and just a little over 11,000'. From there back to US-287, you ride through Poudre Canyon, alongside the Poudre (pronounced "pooder") River, a wild and scenic waterway. We were lucky in that traffic was very light and we could ride at a comfortable and challenging speed. There are several areas in the canyon where narrows so much that there is nothing but road and river between cliffs.
We managed to ride nearly 300 miles (Ken rode 400) and "enjoyed" a strong headwind for at least 250 of those miles...all while riding a circle. Ken says it's some undiscovered law of physics that makes that possible.
