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What Kind of Crazy Would Ride Mountain Passes?

Well … me.

When I first moved to Colorado, I was amazed to witness the things cyclists can make their bodies do here. Coming from a sea level community of rolling hills just outside New York City, I was not prepared for the concept of riding on big, steep mountains. They just looked impossible.

I lived in Denver for a couple months, where the riding is relatively high but flat, and really enjoyed it. When my family arrived, we lived for a few months in a cottage on the back side of Lookout Mountain, where we’d see these seeming gods whiz by on their bikes day after day. They would climb up the steep, daunting mountain from Golden, push through miles of relentless uphill, switchback after switchback, and make it to the top with what looked like little effort, then speed down the other side.

I thought their hearts must be the size of basketballs, their veins huge, their determination incredible, and their pain thresholds incredibly low. I could barely get my heavy aluminum Cannondale to the top from the relatively easy other side without succumbing to an asthma attack.

 Then I learned about mountain passes. Colorado is full of them, paved roads to the top of high mountains. And many Colorado cyclists spend their free hours riding up them – on purpose. I couldn’t understand how it was physically possible! Independence Pass — 12,103 feet. Fremont Pass — 11,318 feet. Kenosha Pass — 10,001 feet. Vail Pass — 10,666 feet. Up. On two wheels. Pedaling. What were they, crazy? Superhuman?

Then my husband Bob, a rabid cyclist, caught the bug, upgraded the gears on his bike, and started spending spring and summer weekends attacking passes. My daughters and I were with him for his first, at the end of a Fraser vacation. We dropped him off in Tabernash, went out for lunch, then drove to the top of Berthoud Pass (11,315 feet), where he arrived a few minutes later, sweaty but triumphant. (He made a major miscalculation, though. In his desire to get up, he failed to realize that the best part of climbing a pass is then getting to whiz DOWN! He never made that mistake again.

For me, just getting three-quarter miles up the hill to our house in Kittredge was impossible. A trip to Velo Swap (veloswap.competitor.com/ ) a year and a half changed that, when I emerged with a used-but-awesome carbon fiber Specialized Ruby Elite with a triple chain ring and upgrades galore. A week later, I made it up the hill home by pedaling instead of pushing. Triumph!

First Pass

Last summer, we went camping at the top of Kenosha Pass, south of Bailey, and I tried to ride it – up and back from Como. Holy mother of God, despite 65-mile-an-hour traffic whizzing by and brisk headwinds, I made it to the top. Ecstasy! I had ridden to the top of a mountain pass!

Over Labor Day, we went camping at Turquoise Lake, outside of Leadville, where I tried to ride around the lake but found its steep hills still daunting. I did ride up most of Tennessee Pass, but the lure of the lake pulled me back to the campsite.

New Attitude

This year, however, something has changed in me and Bob’s encouragement has had a lot to do with it. I have attacked more and more difficult hills here in Evergreen – Witter Gulch, the loop from Alderfer/3 Sisters to Brook Forest Road. My confidence is increasing. Bob took me up Lookout Mountain a couple weeks back – and it wasn’t difficult On the 4th of July I rode to the top of Loveland Pass. Now, instead of surviving the final hill up to my house, I am attacking it.

This past Saturday, I spent the morning volunteering with the Evergreen Chorale group assisting riders on the Triple Bypass bike ride (www.teamevergreen.org/triple/). They were riding 120 miles, from Buchanan Park in Evergreen, over Squaw and Juniper Passes, then Loveland Pass, then Vail Pass, into Avon – and some were spending the night and riding back the next day. I helped last year and thought it was an unattainable goal for me. This year, something has shifted. As I watched riders go by – some of them lean and chiseled, but others flabby and big and heavy and, well, normal looking —  a new thought crossed my mind: “Hey, maybe I could do this.

Uh oh

When my shift ended I rode halfway up the mountain from which they came toward Echo Lake, and it wasn’t difficult at all. I do believe I am acquiring Colorado cycling legs. Who knew it was possible?

Looking for a Pass?

If you’re looking for a pass, there are a couple of excellent websites that can help you out.

See you on the roads!

 

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Fire in the Back Yard

Yesterday I got an urgent text message in my cellphone through Reverse 911 that 100 homes were being evacuated near Pleasant Park Road in Conifer because of a wildfire.

Fire plume
View of the plume from a Kittredge hilltop

A fire? In CONIFER?? This is the sort of story I’m supposed to watch on 9News, riveted by the orange flames licking the edges of some distant canyon, not a few miles down Rte. 73 near the homes of a number of my friends. My husband and I ran outside and watched, openmouthed, as a giant plume of smoke billowed across the sparkling blue sky.

A few minutes later I discovered there was a second fire along Grapevine Road in Idledale, perhaps two miles away as the crow flies from our Kittredge house. I had driven right past that spot just two days earlier. Suddenly I felt incredibly vulnerable.

Natural Disasters

Everywhere that I have ever lived, there has been some sort of natural disaster to be wary of. Back east, where I lived two blocks from the Long Island Sound, we worried about floods, windstorms, and the torrential downpours that edged hurricanes. When I lived in Puerto Rico, a block from the ocean, we were also afraid of hurricanes, and a volcano erupted on the island of Montserrat. My husband lived in Tornado Alley for a while. I have felt the earth shake under my feet during an earthquake.

When we moved to Colorado, we thought we had found a home that didn’t seem to be a victim of Mother Nature’s irrational outbursts. No tornadoes, no earthquakes, certainly no hurricanes. But how wrong we were. Mother Nature is so erratic here – flooding us one season, parching us the next. (And of course, last year we did have a deviant earthquake.) We are at the mercy of the rain, the snow, the mercury – seesawing between abundance and famine. Those 330 days of sunshine a year that attracted us are also a curse!

As the fire rages in Conifer, a number of my friends have fled their homes, and many others live in the fire’s path. Friends and family from back east, who have seen our fire on the national news, call and email asking if we are OK.

A Fire Plan

Our family spent dinnertime tonight creating a fire plan. We prioritized what needed to be done if the Reverse 911 call came in about a fire in OUR neighborhood. Get US out safely, of course. Also the cats, important papers, hard drives, Grandpa’s violin, Great-Grandfather’s Revolutionary war epaulets, family photos, what else?

Our lovely cedar-and-stone house sits at the edge of 40 acres of beautiful ponderosa pines. There’s some comfort in the fire hydrant that sits at the edge of the front yard, but less comfort in the pine boughs you can reach from the back deck. Forget about “defensible space” — we chose this house because of the woods. We love the smell of the pine in the air, especially on windy days. But today, as I look at those pine trees, I see a threat.

So I’ll call my insurance company tomorrow, make sure I’m covered in case of fire, post the Family Fire Plan on the bulletin board — and pray I never need to use it. And then I’ll go help make sandwiches to help feed the firefighters in Conifer, and pray they get those flames stamped out soon.

Stay safe.

— The Hammster

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Cracks

I drove by Evergreen Lake this morning and saw it: the first crack. A big long crack along the lake, running from the mouth of the creek almost to the dam. The first omen of approaching spring.

Walk on the lake
A February walk on the lake with my friend, Linda Kirkpatrick

Just a week and a half ago I was walking all over the lake with my daughter after ice skating at the Lake House. We saw several clusters of fisherman huddling together in the cold over a tiny hole in the ice, hoping for a catch. A few were inside little tents.

We examined a big snow fish sculpture and a castle. We pretended we were on the North Pole, far from anyone. We listened to the distant laughter of skaters. We reveled in the whiteness that surrounded us.

But today, the lake was deserted. No fishermen. The sculptures melting into shapeless blobs. The skating rink empty.

A blue jay couple flitted around the trees near my car, alerting me to what the future has in store.

Hello, spring.

–The Hammster