While in Ohio, I wasn't able to ride my bike, so I decided to do a little running instead. On Monday, I did a run with my sister-in-law. She's been doing the Couch-to-5k program, and the timing worked out perfectly that she was ready for her first 5k when I was visiting. So, we ran a 5k together, and she did great! After looping back to her house, I decided to keep going, and ran about another 4 miles. On Tuesday, I did another morning run near my parents' house.
After a couple days back in Ohio, I flew back home on Tuesday evening, and packed up to go. We left home on Wednesday morning, and drove to Crested Butte. The weather wasn't exactly what we were planning on. It rained most of the drive there, and it was really cold. Way colder than it should have been at the beginning of August, even in the mountains. The rain stopped as we arrived in town, but it was still pretty chilly.
We checked into the hotel, and locked our bikes in the hotel's bike storage room, then headed down into town for dinner. We were staying up on Mt. Crested Butte, a couple miles from the town. Fortunately, there is a great shuttle service in the area. There is a shuttle loop from town to the mountain, and it departs every 20 minutes. And there are bike racks on the buses, which is really convenient. Wednesday night's dinner was at the Brick Oven, a pretty good pizza joint with a great beer selection.
Thursday morning, I got up early for a bike ride. One of the people at the front desk of the hotel recommended a few local trails. I decided to try the Snodgrass Trail, which started and ended a short distance from our hotel.
I am typically a road rider, and my mountain bike usually has some road-type tires on it. I haven't done any actual mountain biking for years, so this was definitely a new experience for me. I like to think I have pretty good legs and lungs right now, but I'm really lacking in the bike-handling skills. The Snodgrass Trail seemed to fit my skill level pretty well. The trail finished up on Washington Gulch Road, and rather than heading back to the hotel, I stretched the ride a bit by riding up Washington Gulch for a while. Then, back to the hotel. A nice way to start the day.
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| Snodgrass Trail |
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| Self-portrait. Mt. Crested Butte in the background. |
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| Singletrack through the aspens. |
After cleaning up, we headed down into town for lunch. There is a nice recreational trail that heads from the mountain down into down, so we decided to ride bikes to lunch. Lunch was more pizza - this time at The Secret Stash. Oh man, it was good. I think we got one called The Hampton or something. Prosciutto, arugula and shaved parmesan on a lemon-pepper crust. Holy cow, it was fantastic. After that, we walked around town a bit before throwing our bikes on the bus for a ride back up the mountain to the hotel. We relaxed a bit before grabbing a bus back to town for dinner at The Last Steep.
On Friday, I got up for another bike ride. This time, I opted for a pretty easy ride called the Lupine Trail. It sounds like this is a fairly new trail, and I really liked it. Definitely matched my ability level. After riding the trail, I headed back downtown and caught the rec path for the climb back up the mountain.
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| Lupine Trail wildflowers. |
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| Lupine Trail |
After my ride, we headed over to the ski area to take a lift up to the top. A free lift ride was included with our hotel reservation. The view was great from the top, but unfortunately, Lisa was feeling pretty miserable all week, and this morning was no exception. We started a hike to the summit, but she felt terrible, so we turned around and head back down. After getting back to the hotel, I showered up and we hopped on the bikes for the ride to town for lunch. We both got gyros at Pitas in Paradise, then wandered around town again before catching a bus back to the hotel. After relaxing a bit, I decided to go for a little run around the ski area. For dinner, we went to town and got some Mexican food at a place called Donita's Cantina. We heard a lot of people talking about how crowded it was, and hard to get a table, but we had no problems.
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| Lisa is not thrilled we're on a ski lift. |
On Saturday, I decided to try one of the signature mountain bike rides in Crested Butte, Trail 401. This involved driving a couple miles up Gothic Road to a trailhead, and parking the car. From there, it was a long climb up Gothic Road to Schofield Pass. At Schofield Pass, you take a right onto Trail 401, then keep on climbing up through the forest. Once you break out of the forest, you are treated to some really spectacular 360-degree views. It is seriously impressive. I don't do a lot of mountain biking, so this isn't saying much, but it was definitely the most stunning bike trail I'd ever ridden. After some easy riding through fields of wildflowers, the trail descended back into the forest. From here, the trail got pretty difficult. As I've said, I have pretty limited bike-handling skills. I'm not gonna lie - it was a little rough going. I managed to get a good gash in my leg from my chainring, and a flat tire. There were some sketchy uphills, and some sketchy downhills. Overall, I'm glad I did it. The views were worth it. But I was in a little over my head.
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| At Schofield Pass. |
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| The spectacular view from the 401. |
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| Another self-portrait. |
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| Wildflowers along the 401. |
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| Ouch. |
After getting cleaned up after my ride, it was back to town for lunch again. We decided to go to the Brick Oven again for some more pizza. Dinner was at the Wooden Nickel.
Now, we're back at the hotel, thinking about trying to find something to watch on Netflix. Getting up in the morning and packing up to head home. Looking forward to hitting the road. This has been a good vacation. It was nice to get out of town for a bit.
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