Summiting a 14er

Well, I cheated. Yesterday I took Ayla and Sophie and drove the highest road in America, the Mt Evans Scenic Tollway. Tabetha was out of town for a Yoga retreat and I had the little ones. I considered taking the singlespeed, putting the girls in the trailer and try dragging and yanking them up the mountain. Thing is though Ayla has just about outgrown our trailer, the girls squabble alot in the trailer, and I just felt like being a lazy goat this weekend so I left the bike alone.



My Sweet Sophie at Lube's Bar-B-Q the day before.



Ayla playing in one of the few snow patches remaining on Mt Evans. Funny thing while only a few patches remain here at 14,000 ft...there are still plenty of mountains below 12,000 ft that have snow cornices over 10 ft tall.



From the tippity top. The top of Mt Evans is somewhere around 130 feet higher then the parking area and 1/4 mile up. I strapped Sophie to my back and Ayla refused to budge saying she'd rather ride my shoulders. I don't think either one enjoyed this as much as I did.



That is until the mountain goats started showing themselves.







Looking West towards Guanella Pass

Just as we were getting ready to leave I saw a familar face, Eddie Odea ride up on his bike being led by his teammate, Yuki Saito. Eddie is an old friend from the east coast and he still lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife, Namrita. Both of us were blown away by the chance encouter and quickly made plans to meet at a local Microbrew near Denver to catch up.



After leaving Mt Evans I made the drive over to the base of Jones Pass to do some scouting for the big ride next weekend. The view of the top of the pass did not look very promising with what appeared to be 10 ft snow cornices hanging from the ridge but seems JJonas was up there the day before doing a scouting mission of his own and says it should be good to go.


Photo by Jim Jonas...Top of Jones Pass. Jim rode to the top of Jones Pass, Made his way down Herman Gulch and tried to Summit Grey's Peak only to be turned around by a no bikes sign...Good thing my route takes us away from Grey's onto the legal Bard's Creek.