Dividing Waters on Independece Day

Sometimes, you have to make things work.

waking up at 3:30am to get them all accomplished is sometimes necessary and worth it.

My original plan was to get up early and ride Three Sisters and go celebrate the forth later with family and friends. Then I sent out a text to a few friends that was a joke but wasn't at the same time.

"Jones Pass super early?"

"Ummmm....yes"....was the reply from Lubes and later Slow

Lubes decided we should meet at 4:15am in Golden since I needed to be home around noon and we had a shuttle to set up and we can't ride Jones with hitting Pavilion Point down in Silver Plume.

by 6am we were sitting at 12,300 ft and the views east were looking like this



The snow cornice was the smallest we had ever had to climb....maybe 12-15 ft tall...My 1st attempts resulted in a small slide of maybe a foot or two due to ice at the top edge. That slide was enough to make me and slow nervous so we headed north just a bit and found a friendlier climb up and over

Photo Cred: Lubes



After that, it was game on!











One thing about reaching an altitude of 13,215 is there is some hike a bike. I keep an attitude of hike a biking is good for the soul. It teaches a person to calm themselves and settle into the beauty that surrounds them.



it also leads to more of this



and this...photo cred: Lubes



oh, and I guess a little more hike a bike



and before you know it, your on the top of the world..(13,215 ft)...yes, those crazer fockers, Lubes and Slow were on Singlespeeds while I kept true to duel suspension and gears



and when your on top of the world, its all downhill from here...with a climb or two being the joke and the reality













We took a small detour to Herman Gulch Lake and by this point we were maybe 2 to 3 miles from I-70 and the hiking traffic became heavy. We probably saw 40-50 hikers on our way down and we kept our speeds super slow while most hikers simply stopped off trail for us or we stopped for a second or two to say hi as they passed. No Stravassholing here. =)



Over the past weekend, Slow and me took Hirsch out for his 1st high country adventure ever with Wheeler Pass. Be sure to checkout the post on MTBR.