WEEK 3: Collegiate Peaks and the Ark Valley

After a much needed rest day I headed south out of Summit County to explore the Collegiate Peaks and Arkansas River Valley. Spanning from Leadville to Salida, this area lies in the Sawatch Mountains and has a serious collection of 14ers, wilderness areas and beautiful rivers. Bare with me - I'm getting short on words and longer on pictures, but trying to add some insightful captions to tell the stories!

The Collegiate Peaks zone is 360 degrees of this.

Since it was Labor Day weekend I figured it wise to attempt a summit on a "lesser-known" 14er. Missouri Gulch holds three 14ers in one drainage and I was hoping their lack of collegiate name-fame might beat the crowds. Well, 2.5 hours away from Denver wasn't far enough. I couldn't find a legitimate dispersed camping site, so a gravel pull off sufficed. I set a 5 AM alarm. By the time I'd made coffee I'd heard 20 cars whizzing by me to the trailhead. The solitude seeker in me wanted to bail and go somewhere else, but I'm glad I didn't. Plus, it's nice to engage with people after living out of a truck for 3 weeks.

Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Belford, Oxford and Princeton Peaks...and a smattering of others that are just as cool but not Ivy.

I invested in some lightweight backpacking gear and wanted to make this an overnight test. I hiked halfway up to a meadow and dropped camp.

With a significantly lighter pack I headed off to snag Missouri.

It's about to get steep. Not so obvious Missouri peak in the background.

Ridge walking on the way, most of the work is done.

An Indiana boy goes to Colorado to climb Missouri Mountain - 14,075 ft

Round Trip the hike is 9.6 miles and 4,500 ft of vertical gain. This all-black German made it to the top. What a handsome boy.

The Rocky Mountain Apollo dwells in high elevation meadows.

Chatter from the rock-dwelling Pika was audible for most of the mission.

Back to camp at sunset. Camping real estate was tight in the meadow so I gained some neighbors.

My next stop was Buena Vista, nestled up against the Arkansas River. There's a small local trail system here and good access to the more of the Collegiate Peaks. If you look to the east the landscape is high elevation desert. Look to the west and you see 14,000 foot peaks. It's quite the dynamic. They actually call this area the "Banana Belt" of Colorado as the valley sees mild winter temps compared to other parts of the Rockies. I spent a few days riding and checking out the town. Like many Colorado river towns, the Arkansas River was used and abused for a century of mining and industry. It's since been rehabbed and is now the most commercially rafted section of river in the nation.

It was hot down in the "desert" so I drank a cold one here and let my legs recover.

Buena Vista and Salida have both engineered sections of the river into whitewater parks.

The businesses on main street BV all have incredible patios.

After a day of dinking around town it was time to hit the "Vitamin B" trail. This trail was formerly an underground or "bandit" trail built by some thrill seeking bikers not into the local cross country riding scene. It became so ingrained in the local riding culture that it was recently adopted by the forest service and Buena Vista as an official trail. Unfortunately, it rained hard the night before I rode it so I wasn't expecting great conditions.

The road to Vitamin B.

I'd rather be on singletrack but this was a seriously scenic access road to the trail.

Inspecting the damage to the road from the flash event.

It's coming!

The east side of the Ark Valley is a decomposed granite desert landscape. Looking to the West you can see the front range and high peaks of the Sawatch Range/Collegiate Peaks Wilderness.

Vitamin B has some technical and consequential moves on it. See the line?

Duck underneath the tree before the steep granite rollover.

Vitamin B was in generally good shape from the rain but punched a little above my pay grade. It wasn't for lack of trying! I broke a spoke and damaged my shifter. So, I visited the local shop, Boneshaker Cycles, for a doctor's appointment. Instead of moping around town for a day I decided to head for the hills for a "little hike". Big woops - I misread the hike description as 1 way vs. round trip and ended up on a 9 mile round trip trek to Kroenke Lake. Like I said, I'm bad at resting.

This trailhead also served a few 14ers. The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) is a non-profit cooperation amongst many groups to protect, restore and maintain access to the 14er country.

Complete solitude at Kroenke Lake.

I picked up my bike after the AM hike and boogied 30 minutes south to Salida. With it's easy access to Monarch Pass, Salida is well known as a mountain bike destination. There are no less than 5 ways down off the mountain which all encompass 15+ miles of riding. And this doesn't include the local townie trails. I had a premature crush on Salida before I got there and left with the same feeling.

Salida isn't close to any big name ski resorts, so there are actual legitimate locals and a community presence. One example of that community presence came from Eric and his wife whom I met at the local pizza joint. I overheard them talking about shuttling to Monarch Pass and they were more than happy to invite me out for a ride with their group of friends. Little did I know, this invite was an all day affair! We hung out after the ride for beers (Eric is the Sales Manager for Soulcraft Brewing in town) and a BBQ at their place. The morale booster of the week was the hot shower they let me take, which might have been in their own best interest to keep hanging around my truck campin', mountain bikin' stanky ass. Anyways, you can tell Salida is gaining popularity as a destination town. I won't write much more about it, don't wan't to blow out the spot!

Option #1 off of Monarch Pass, Fooses Creek.

Moody alpine weather is to be expected off of Monarch.

Rain makes the dirt grippy but the roots and rocks slicker than snot.

Green's Creek, Option #2 off of Monarch. A bit rowdier and technical. All the trails in this zone are accessed by dirtbikes too, so the trail is rugged.

After a few days of smashin' the pass some weather moved in, so I retreated back to the Salida local trails at lower elevation in the desert terrain. It was clear Salida had an even worse flash flooding event in the hills last week than BV did. Every trail I touched had damage, but the locals assured me that the town is so passionate about their trails they would be back up in no time.

There used to be a trail here.

The Cottonwood Trail, intentionally built down this wash, is a local treasure. The fact they built a trail in this wash speaks to how infrequent flash flood events are in these hills. I showed a local this picture. This tree WAS NOT there a week ago.

Found a clean section of trail and unbelievable sunset to close out my time in Salida.

Well guys - the Ark Valley sucks, tell your friends.