Tuesday in Salida, GORC takes an easy day. This means we go to Alpine Tunnel, which is about three miles from the highest place you can park, along steady uphill rail-to-trail. This is not KATY trail, but an old narrow-guage railway that’s been out of commission since 1910. The tunnel under the continental divide is closed so you have to hike or hike a bike to get to the other side. Narrow guage trains can climb much steeper than what we’re used to, at least 5%. SO, at the town of St. Elmo’s we’re leaving a truck for later. About eight of us decide (stupidly) to ride the six miles to the high parking place, then ride the rest with GORC. Then we get to the tunnel, then hike on up to the continental divide, and see why Bryan “The Crusher” Adams chose the truck ride up. After 20 minutes of hike-a-bike, then huddling behind a rock for 15 minutes taking picures and cowering from the wind, the last five dumbasses take what we called the “hell and back” trail, which was a beautiful piece of little-used singletrack, most of it above 12,000 feet. Anyway, since we’re on dialup out here, the pictures aren’t plentiful. Here’s a shot of Big Pun at the mouth of the Alpine Tunnel. Big Pun and Matt Hayes are not bound by earth’s laws of physics. Somehow those guys can dish out the punishment, take more of it, and keep coming back for more. Both killed it today. Here’s a rare shot of Greg taking a little breather at the mouth of the tunnel.
By the way, the first keg is long dead, so we got a bigger one for the second. It just might kill us.
No links today. I’m on vacation.