I raced the Gunnison Growler on Sunday (the 28th), but that’s another post.

At the bike shop, I work 4 days (Sunday-Wednesday), then I have 3 days off. That leaves the 3 day weekend to do some big adventures and whatnot. On Saturday, roommate/co-worker Leah and I rode out to the south/west end of the Rainbow Trail.

It had snowed earlier in the week, so everything above 9ksomething feet in the shade was patchy snowy. It made for some sketchy wet rocks & roots in spots as well as some cool scenery.

As it dropped out of the woods, it turned beautiful and dry.

There’s a section of Rainbow Trail that, since I started visiting Salida, I’ve been told is no fun because it’s blown out, steep, and hike-a-bikey (the trail is open to motorcycles, so it definitely gets loose). Since I was there, and I didn’t have much else to do that day, I figured I’d try it out.

I was able to ride about the first half of the climb up. As the summer progresses and it gets drier & more moto-trafficked, there will be some spots I rode that won’t be as rideable. The second half is a lot steeper and rockier. I was getting really excited that the other side of “the hump” (the local name for that part of the trail) would be a fun, techy descent much like the stuff I was hiking.

The top of the hump is somewhere around 10k feet, so there was a good bit of slushy snow and water. I eventually made it to the spot where the trail seemed to drop straight off the mountain.

I was mildly disappointed when I found that the descent was nothing like the climb. It was all gravel & sand surfing. So, next time, I’ll definitely go the other direction and hike up the gravely side and descend the fun side.

I kept riding to county road 108 and descended back down to town. Here’s the Strava file for it:

https://www.strava.com/activities/997741104

It was about 6 hours, door-to-door, so I was stoked to eat a two-person-sized serving of tacos for dinner.

Adventure number one of many.