09-16-2006 Golden Aspen Ride

It was sunny in Morrison. The weather radar, which I have a touching faith in, said that is was clear west to about Vail. We decided to wait a little in Morrison, assuming the rain, which was supposed to end early, would indeed end and we would have a nice dry ride. Five of us left Morrison, heading for our first goal, Loveland pass. Along I-70 there were many stands of aspen, which were a glowing yellow, especially near Silver Plume. We exited I-70 onto US 6 and headed up Loveland Pass. It had been getting steadily colder as we went west, but the sun was out so it was not too bad.

At the summit of the pass Gary Messick’s thermometer said it was 30 degrees. Then the wind picked up and passers-by were treated to the sight of us hopping about putting on warmer gear with very cold fingers. Wrapped in as many layers as we could muster, we headed down toward Dillon. On the way down we saw more bright yellow aspen amongst the dark green pines. We also saw some ominous walls of gray cloud.

In Dillon we ran into snow.

It was the consensus of the group that continuing on to even higher elevations was a risky proposition and being wet and cold the rest of the day would not add to our enjoyment of the fall colors. We headed back to I-70, through the Eisenhower Tunnel and back to town. To paraphrase Blues Traveler, the mountains won again. As we came down in elevation we did see more stands of aspens at their peak color, so it was a good albeit short ride.

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