The last time Kyle and I took off work was for a hut trip back in February. A vacation was long overdue! With a trip planned out to California mid-July, we decided to take the week before 4th of July off. Since we were taking a week off, we decided to go explore South/Southwest Colorado.
We headed out early Friday morning towards Pagosa Springs. With little to no traffic, we made it to Wolf Creek Pass in 4.5 hours. The ride we both wanted to do, Treasure Mountain Trail #565, started at the top of the pass. Since Kyle’s legs were still sore from the day before and I was feeling okay, I started off from the pass.
The climb from the pass was a little steep, but wasn’t bad at all in terms of its technicality. I took breaks when I needed to, which was frequent, but I enjoyed the climb. Once I started the downhill, that’s where the trail got pretty technical. It was loose and steep, requiring constant focus and control. I throughly enjoyed it until I was about halfway down. I was going down a non-technical section and I was resting my very fatigued hands. I hit a rock wrong and my left hand was so tired that it actually popped off the handlebars completely. I wasn’t going fast, but the crash still hurt. I actually don’t remember crying on this crash as it just hurt really bad and I knew that I had to still bike out of there. Once I realigned my handlebars, cleaned my wounds with water from my pack, and the initial shock of the injury wore off, I headed back down the trail. I made it to the bottom of the trail where I hit the forest service road and headed towards camp.
While I was riding, Kyle picked an amazing campsite! It was nestled in right next to the stream and down into a semi-private area. With little to no service, we spent the evening enjoying our books, talking, and fishing. We did have some neighbors join us super late the first night we were there, but fortunately, they didn’t camp RIGHT next to us.
The next day it was time for Kyle to take on Treasure Mountain. From our campsite, it took about 45-50 minutes to get back to the pass. With Kyle all suited up and off to the races, I headed back down towards camp. I spent the morning reading books in the creek and it was awesome. Kyle made it back to camp around noon and we fished, talked, and read books. We also had some cool birds in the area and finally got to use our Birds of Colorado book. It was a really fun camp activity – thanks for the book, Sarah!
The next day we were ready to move on, so we packed everything up and headed towards Durango. We passed through Pagosa Springs on our way to Durango. It is such a cute town, plus they have a Walmart. We definitely want to go back and explore more around there. We made it to Durango just in time for lunch, so we grabbed a pizza to-go before we started up 550 towards the mountains where we hoped we’d be able to camp at Little Molas Lake.
We made it to Little Molas Lake, but none of the campsites were open. Since we struck out, we headed back down the road to the turn off for Lime Creek Road. Once we turned off the highway, the road was okay for about two seconds before getting pretty rough but we were committed by then! We stumbled across a small, secluded turn off with an open camping site. We setup for the night and couldn’t believe that we actually had full service! We also were pretty close to a stream. That afternoon I worked a little bit and Kyle did some fishing. Once Kyle came back up, he was so excited by how great the fishing was down at the stream! I headed back down to the stream with him and caught one fish. I then tried to cross the stream, but stepped on a rock wrong and ended up twisting my ankle. With my ankle bleeding and feeling quite tender, I limped back up to the van with Moz. Kyle kept fishing and clearly did quite well!
The next day we weren’t sure what we wanted to do. We finally decided to try to hike the Crater Lake Trail above Andrews Lake. Once we got to the trailhead and I looked at my ankle closely, I realized that that hiking was not a good idea for me. Kyle and Moz set off on the hike, while I spent the afternoon working.
With them back from the hike, we decided to check and see if a campsite at Little Molas Lake was open. We struck gold and got the best campsite in the house! With a great campsite close to a view like below and a plethora of trails nearby, we were ready to hang out for a few days.
Link to mountain bike ride on the CT from Little Molas Lake.
Link to 13ers post – Spencer Peak, Grand Turk and Sultan Mountain.
-Andrea