Sunday, September 14, 2008

11950



Brian and I rode an amazing ride yesterday. It was of course longer or harder than either of us had remembered. Topping out at 11950 we rode for ages longer above 11500. I suffered rather well on the climbs, which was fine, and got my intervals in easily. As high mountain rides often do... it got more technical, ridiculously steep and loose toward the saddle causing me to mess up alot and feel very head poundy and woozy! I saw a Marmot laughing at me.... maybe it was my imagination.

We had been riding for about 2 hours when we came across a huge metal gate with a posted/trespass sign. So we debated what to do. Turn around... ? ( so sad as we'd grovelled up a climb for basically 2 hours and were about to hit the downhill single track). It was nearly 6 oclock so we decided if we got caught we'd plead 'impending darkness and safety'. 100m later we passed the sign for the other side of the private property... Phew!

We've since found out more.. the owner bought this property specifically as it bordered national forest and had a trail. He apparently made allot of money in Telluride selling land in a similar situation back to the government. In this case he was turned down so he trucked in several thousand dollars in metal gates and signage to the middle of nowhere and closed the trail! C'mon... you buy a piece of scree above treeline purely to make money then close it! I have a very strong opinion about this. If a trail is marked, mapped, exists is 99.9 % forest service land .... it should be regulated to stay open if the .01 % land is sold.

Anyway the descent was amazing.

Afterward we took Donny to the wine bar for Sushi. Donny is a client of Brian's and hadn't ever eaten Sushi before. It was really fun. We were really hungry. Our waitress even came over to see that all the items checked where for us ( and not mistakes/from a previous order etc...) Of course we ate everything and the bill was a bit on the scary side.

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