All the Way to the Water - Day 8

DAY 8: From Pikes Peak to Canyon Carving.

Today is the day we chose for our summit on Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak is one of the more well-known mountains in Colorado, with a history of racing events held each year up the winding, open sided road that includes a 4 miles stretch of dirt and gravel. With a summit elevation of over 14,000 feet, it is one of Colorado’s “fourteeners” and an often-visited National Historic Landmark. The thin air contains only 60% of the oxygen available at sea level. Snow is a possibility any time year-round, and thunderstorms are common in the summer, bringing hail and wind gusts occasionally of over 100 mi/hr. Lightning is especially dangerous above the treeline.

The road to the summit is paved much of the 19 miles to the top with only a 4-mile section still gravel. By 2012 the entire road to the top will be finished in response to environmental concerns about dirt and gravel being washed into the surrounding woodland by rain and melt water.  

The trip from our lodge a Copper Mountain near Frisco to Pikes Peak is about 130 miles if we elect to avoid the Interstate. This is always a good choice in Colorado as many of the state and county highways travel through the most scenic parts of the Rockies and the small towns along the way. Today’s road trip will follow highway 9 south to the town of Fairplay; which sits at the northern end of the South Park basin. South Park is a high grassland basin, approximately 10,000 ft in elevation. It encompasses approximately 1,000 square miles (640,000 acres). Highway 9 continues through South Park and finds Highway 24 near Hartsell; the road we travel to Pikes Peak. Much of the trip is within the confines of South Park and the area is high country prairie, with scrub brush and low trees for miles. Cattle freely graze across the area and the homesteads are widely scattered.

Pikes Peak is near Colorado Springs and the area is generally full of tourists all looking to drive, or hike up to the top. Today was different however as the weather had gotten generally warm. As we approached the entrance to the park there is a gate with a ranger station. It is here that one can learn about the conditions at the top (temperature, weather, etc.) and you have to pay an entrance fee. Once we idled up to the booth, we learned that the road to the top was NOT open today. We were informed that we could go up as far as mile 9 now, and later in the day to mile 12 but not to the summit today.  After inquiring further, we learned that the Audi automotive group was filming a commercial and the helicopter used to film the driving sequences from the air had crashed and blocked the road entirely. It would be at least 24 hours before they could get it off the mountain. Luckily, no one was killed, but some were injured, and our plan had just been dramatically altered. We decided that we would come back tomorrow and attempt to summit, even though the weather is always a gamble, however it made no sense to pay the entrance fee only to be turned back 2/3rds of the way to the top.



Just before the canyon carving started I took this one last
picture. While we were running up & down the canyons
I did not take may photos....



With our days plan completely wiped out we stopped at a local diner for a coffee; and some time to re-group and create a new plan. As we were close to 150 miles from our lodging, we knew we had to start making our way back toward the resort, but it seemed like a waste to take the most direct route back, a path we had traveled this morning coming to the Peak. After a little map reading via gps, and thanks to the rally organizers who had provided smaller side trips via gps data files, we soon had a new plan to go “canyon carving” all the way back to the hotel.  The canyons we chose to run all seemed to connect to 1 main county roadway that lead in the general direction of our hotel. They also formed a loop that leads down one canyon and over to another for the ride back up to the main road. The plan was to ride a road to the canyon bottom and then follow the loop back up, ride to the next loop and repeat. The appeal of this idea was that each canyon offered several miles of twists and turns to hone our motorcycle riding skills.  So off we went to scrape some pegs, and test our traction as we meandered back to the resort for the night.  

This was real grown-up playtime! Finding the right gear and leaning over in the corners is a motorcycle enthusiast’s joy.  Most the time was spent in 3^rd gear as we revved up and down the RPM scale, each canyon was a repeat of the last, with hard lefts and hard rights ranging from 15 to 35 MPH (posted) speeds.  Often we ran a bit over those speeds as we searched for the correct line, and the correct lean to carve around the corners as quickly and efficiently as possible. I am sure we pushed the envelope toward the limits, but I know my bike can do more than I am capable of doing. Following Bill around these many corners, I learned there are many ways to get around a curve. Bill seems to carry more speed into the corner than I do, but I accelerate harder coming out so we end up doing an accordion act with our spacing. I do not often scrape any hard parts as the bike leans hard over but he will on occasion leave a little chrome on the road surface. 

We pushed hard down one canyon road and hard up the next and our bikes continued to deliver power and thrust.  At the top of each run, we would check our time against the time we needed to be back at the lodge for a rally activity. We then simply motored to the next canyon and did it again. I lost track of the number of times we cut our way down and up again and the entire focus was on the road, and turns, and conditions as we got quite rowdy, giggling and laughing like little kids at a birthday party.  

After several of these rubber-heating roundtrips, we realized it was time to make our way back to the lodge. The quickest way to do this was through the Eisenhower Tunnel, which is a tunnel that carries Interstate 70 under the continental divide just west of Denver. This Interstate would take us quickly to our exit for the Copper Mountain Resort and back to our scheduled rally gathering on time. The tunnel crests the hill at just over 11,000 feet elevation and at regular highway speeds can prove a daunting task for underpowered vehicles climbing the steep 7% grade to the tunnel. The Goldwing has close to 100 HP and is not underpowered for almost any task but whenever we run these normally aspirated carbureted engines at altitude, they do suffer from a loss of power. Coming up the hill toward the tunnel, I started to feel my bike loose the ability to accelerate. As I climbed, it became worse until, nearing the tunnel entrance, the bikes engine quit completely. Fearing I had lost the fuel pump (a notorious known trouble item for these models) from overheating I pulled over and coasted to a stop. I radioed Bill that I had trouble and he pulled off just before the tunnel. As I sat there for a few seconds, I tried to re-start the engine and it sprang to life once again. I easily got back to speed and merged into the traffic flowing through the tunnel. All was well again and I thought I had experienced a momentary incident, until I came out the far side of the tunnel and the bike lost power again, and quit running. I decided to coast to the bottom where there was an exit and get off the freeway and to a safe place to diagnose the problem.

Coasting down a 7% grade would seem to be an easy task, however when the traffic is free flowing past you at 75 MPH it is no fun at all.  I stayed on the shoulder as I could only maintain about 45 MPH and finally, after what seemed an eternity, reached the exit. Once safely pulled off I waited a minute or two as Bill and I discussed our options. It was curious that his bike did not have the trouble, as our models are almost identical. However, there were 4 years and many miles separating our bikes and I hoped this was not a major problem. Noting to Bill that the bike had re-fired before I tried it and it came back to life! We got off the exit ramp and into a filling station where we both re-filled our tanks.  Both bikes were running hot and after a few minutes, I remembered a conversation I had with a friend who lived here in the mountains with the same model as I had. He told me that about 2 or 3 times per year he experiences a “vapor lock” of sorts. Common discussion on this details that the carburetors sit above the engine and heats the fuel in the bowl. This expands the fuel and at altitude with a very hot bike, you actually over heat the fuel and boil the bowls dry causing a no fuel situation. This does not occur with fuel-injected vehicles. Adding a fresh fill of cool fuel from the underground tanks cured the problem and we were off again after some tense moments.

The entire purpose of this trip was a reprise of the Rockies Gold Rally from a few years previous. The organizers agreed to have one last rally and then they would not do it again. Seizing this opportunity to find camaraderie in the mountains Bill and I made plans to be there for this event. Over 300 riders gathered at the Copper Mountain Resort that weekend and this was one of the evening’s activities. They organized a “bike show” held around the burning rocks in the center of the resort village.  Almost everyone had spent a few minutes earlier in the day to wash their bikes and pull them up to the bike show. There was a band and a group picture taken and the bikes all looked nice in the large circle.

After the bike show and a few beverages with dinner, we retied to our room completely exhausted. The day of canyon carving pushed the machines to the limit as well as pushing us physically. The combination of thin air, the ride induced exercise, and the few beers were enough to put us in a melancholy mood as we wound down for the day. I had taken a few moments to review the miscellaneous pictures I had snapped that day while riding in and out of the canyons and found a few that illustrated the glorious colors of the mountains in fall.  The vibrant yellows mingled with the green of the leaves, the blue sky painted each picture with its own brush, and I was in awe of nature’s artwork.