Super 8 in Leadville

So Copper Mountain is fairly dead during the summer. There was only one place to get food that was not a Chinese buffet. The jacuzzi in the hotel was under renovation. The only place to get any sort of breakfast before 7:30 AM was the Starbucks across the highway, which seemed odd considering that Copper has a golf course and I thought golf people got up early to do their thing.

[begin beer related ranting]
In the evening, I managed to irritate 2 groups of people with my innate beer snobbery. The first was a group hanging outside of a bar that did not serve food, who told us hungry bikers that we should come in anyways because they serve Guinness, and Guinness is practically a meal in a glass. I can assure you that Guinness is not a meal in a glass, and is in fact a pretty light beer. It's just that damn nitro head that makes it seem filling. Idiots. We proceeded to the only place that had food, where we did order a beer. I ordered an Odell's 90 Schilling, a delicious and fairly common Colorado beer. Isaac asked about the New Belgium Skinny Dip, which the waitress described as a "lighter version of Fat Tire". I immediately butted in saying "I don't agree with that assessment." Just because New Belgium makes a ton of Fat Tire doesn't mean that all of their other beers are some version of that. As far as I can tell, Skinny Dip is in fact distinct from Fat Tire; I find it to be much more of a light pale ale than a lighter version of Fat Tire. Anyways the waitress probably spit in my food for my remarks, but I didn't care because I was still pretty hungry.
[/end beer related ranting]

The trail getting out of Copper Mountain wasn't particularly well marked, one of few sections of trail we've encountered so far where things were not extremely obvious. We finally found trail around 8:20 AM. About an hour after that, Brian had some trouble with his rear shifter. He putzed around with it for an hour or so, trying to fix it since we were about to embark on a fairly stout climb. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get it to work, so he picked a single rear gear and figured he'd fix it here in Leadville. The trail climbed out of Copper towards Searle Pass, and was rather steep and very rocky in some sections. Towards the top of the pass, we stopped above Janet's Cabin, on of the 10th Mountain Division huts, for a snack. We exchanged some Jim stories, mainly involving his forays in Jamaica. We pressed on and hiked to the top of the pass. Afer making it to Searle, we had to hike up some more. The views from crossing the Continental Divide were absolutely spectacular. We topped out a little over 12,000 feet, and then started descending towards Kokomo Pass. There, we encountered a gigantic flock of domestic sheep, grazing on the mountainside. Probably was a few hundred of them, out there baa-ing and eating. At the pass, we bumped into the grad student who surveyed us the day before. She was out biking with a friend. We chatted a bit and then descended down the pass towards the tree line. The trail was relatively fast and buff for a while before turning steep, loose, and rocky. I took a nice ride over the handlebars into a soft patch of grass and flowers. There was one particular steep and rocky section that I rode through that scared the shit out of me. I was way out of control, only clipped in with one foot, and riding way too fast. Fortunately, I remembered not to touch my front brake at all and was able to ride through. The downhill sections after that got a little steeper so I hopped off my bike and hiked down. At the bottom of the descent, Brian had some tire trouble that further set us back.

The next section was much more manageable, but we needed to push to get to Leadville for Brian's shifter. We wrapped up the section at about 4:45 PM, and crossed US-24 for the first time. Brian split off with hopes of making it to a bike shop in Leadville while Isaac and I rode the next section of trail. We saw a fox sprint and jump across the trail right after Brian split off. Otherwise it was a nice section of trail but nothing too amazing. We were still glad to ride it. The trail went a bit past Tennessee Pass, and then hit the road into Leadville. There, we met up with Brian, who was unable to get to the bike shop before it closed. We determined that we'd stay in Leadville for the night and that Brian would fix his bike in Buena Vista. So here we are in the motel, full of pizza, breadsticks, and salad. Tomorrow, we make it to Buena Vista, fix up Brian's bike, and load up for 3 days in the middle of nowhere.

Isaac and Brian on the Continental Divide at Searle Pass

A few of the many sheep of Kokomo Pass

Location: Super 8 in Leadville
Distance covered: 205 miles
Elevation: 10,000 feet