Earlier this summer, while I was waiting for Brittany to finish running shuttle for the Monarch Crest, I started talking to some other mountain bikers on Monarch Pass. They were heading north of the pass to ride the Boss Lake Trail, which is part of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. Hmmn, something new, I thought? The more I looked at it on the map, the more I wanted to add another Monarch Pass area ride to the list. Asking around a bit, the few riders who knew about it said that it was steep, rugged, and technical. Perfect.

After a great downhill to the Tincup Pass road, I had a good sized climb ahead of me back to the continental divide. Mountain biking in this area is always a trip compared to Crested Butte. In Crested Butte, everyone expects mountain bikers. Around here, people are mostly on their ATV’s, and they look at me like I just successfully landed on the moon. I had never been down the other side of Tincup pass- and it’s much harder than the East side.

The Alpine Tunnel is something we definitely here about in these parts. And, rightly so! It’s a huge engineering feat, especially for being built in the late 1800’s. Years after closure of the tunnel, the tracks were largely removed and a road was formed in its place. Today it’s a AWD road, but with its moderate railroad grade, this road is also great for biking – perhaps even more-so this year than in previous years as the upper part of the road has been closed to cars due to road damage from a recent landslide.