After some gas-station side discussions, we decided to head back towards the Needle Creek area to check out Right Hand and Barrett, and maybe even North Gulch. I’d ridden these trails years ago, but I certainly couldn’t remember the exact route that I took, so it was going to be exploration for all of us.
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We heard that some of the worst sections have been cleaned up a bit by local dirtbikers, but the trail remains steep, loose, and rutted no matter what so expect to walk. Perhaps once the Baxter Gulch trail is finished, Carbon Creek will get some much needed attention so this area can play host to some nice large loops right from town.
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One route I knew would be a good one for both goals was to ride all of trail 424 from Taylor Park to the standard descent on Doctor’s (which is usually called Matchless to Doctor Park). I hadn’t done it in 20 years or more,
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So, since we’re on a mission to ride lots of obscure miles, we found ourselves down by Needle Creek reservoir, east of Gunnison in the Cochetopa Hills. It’s an area that I haven’t been to all that often, or all that recently. In fact, I couldn’t even remember how I accessed the Flying Dutchman downhill the last time I was there 15+ years ago. The area is steep, rugged, poorly marked, and mostly the home of ATV’s and dirt bikes.
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And that’s when the third world happened. We stopped. And we went nowhere for a long time. And people tried to drive forward in the wrong lane, and on the shoulder, and it was general chaos. And it was hot, so we kept idling with the A/C on, watching the needle drift towards “E”.
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Like other trails built with mountain biking in mind, the new trails purposefully seek out fun and interesting terrain features, weaving in and around rocky outcrops. The crushed granite and sparse trees riding reminded me mostly of Hartman Rocks in Gunnison,
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Since the mountains are still buried in snow, we were looking for somewhere a bit drier, but we also wanted to go somewhere we hadn’t been to a bunch of times already, like Fruita. So off we went to Cortez, mostly to check out Phil’s World. Phil’s World was a blast (especially Rib Cage), but we were able to ride basically everything in a day so we decided to go up to Dolores and ride the new McPhee Overlook trail, along with the other trails at Boggy Draw.
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The next line, which I’d skied before, looked wind affected. We kept moving down the ridge until we found a spot that looked perfect as far as the snow conditions. We weren’t sure if it would go, but we decided to give it a try.
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Finally, we went for a great hike over to Wizard beach. We were a little bit worried on this hike. An American woman had been killed while hiking from Wizard beach to Red Frog beach just a few months before, and the internet is full of stories of people being robbed
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