Met up with durielk at the 2012 RMAR in Silverton. We even moved on to camp and ride in two other locations after that. We rode KLX's and had a great time. End of story.



Or not...

 

Ah, c'mon TNC. You can do a better report than this!

Nice to hear you all had a good time.

How are the saddle bags holding up?

 

Those little bags worked great. They didn't budge, didn't get in the way when scooting back on the saddle, and still look like new. It was nice to get some of the weight out of my pack.

 

As usual, I didn't take that many pics. I've gotten to where I enjoy the ride more than trying to document the scenery. It was almost funny seeing durielk's and my vehicle setups. We both had minivans with big V-6's, but he had a nice Haulmark utility trailer that he's still shaking out as his travel/camping rig. It was a nice setup, and his van pulled it fairly well. I had my usual home built motorcycle trailer with attached diamondplate truck boxes attached. I think because I've done this setup longer I had the cooking and food storage/selection options down a little more efficiently. I was surprised that Darren wasn't a "cooler" guy as far as food options were concerned. I'd be cooking eggs, sausage, and other delicacies in the morning and having similarly good meals at supper, along with salad and other perishables. I think Darren was eating dry rice cakes and tofu in his Haulmark. Well, probably not, but we constantly razzed each other along those lines.

I'll tell you one thing...Darren can ride better than he can walk. I'll let him fill in the details on that one...LOL! It seemed like we were a good match in riding style and time taken. I think he was more willing to try some of the heinous routes we'd studied from the ADV site, as I'm not as much into rides approaching death marches anymore. We scoped out a couple of the nasty rides like the Miner's Creek/Snow Mesa route we'd read about, but it did really look like a major challenge. One of the forest personnel at the Creede Ranger station was familiar with this route on foot and was skeptical that few could ride that entire route, even though it is allowed motorized.

As it was, we rode some decently rough singletrack and 2-track over the many days and had a blast. I rode a lot of new stuff on this trip, and I think it was all new to Darren. I think he got some pics and maybe even video during the trip that he might post up when he gets back. He was staying in the area to cover a big roadbicycle race that was going to happen in the state.

 

We want to hear more...

Where did you stay? Did you have a favorite ride?


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One of the things I need to comment on is the RMAR event in Silverton. About 215 riders were involved, and most of us were camped or lodged at the event main site right on the edge of Silverton. I've been to ADV's Westfest event before, but I think "Big John" who heads up the RMAR events has gotten a better handle on what works. Let's face it, most of these events are just excuses to go somewhere to get together and ride, and RMAR takes care of that just fine. But RMAR seems to have a more inclusive fellowship to some degree with more focus on ride organization and onsite event activity. You still have the option to do your own thing, but you may have a better opportunity at an RMAR event to get to know more people than some other events.

RMAR was great. The event site was very good for camping, RV'ing, and moteling. It's location to town was about ideal. The cost for the whole event was very reasonable too. I'll look seriously at future events, as I liked the experience.

 

The best ride in the Silverton area IMO is Imogene Pass. The overall scenery and ride challenge is a great balance. It's no dirt road trip by any means, but it won't try to stomp on you and kill you either. The big Saturday ride that durielk and I did with other riders was out Stoney Pass road and up a singletrack/ATV track to the north that joins the Cinnamon Pass road. Forest trail 821 goes by the Carson Ghost Town and has some very fun, somewhat challenging terrain in places. It was new to me, and we had some good riding. The side trip on this route out to Kite Lake off the Stoney Pass road was great too. It got pretty rocky and decently challenging as we neared the Lake.

 

durielk and I stayed over a day after RMAR in Silverton and, I took him on some old mine ruins tours. The whole area has some of the best examples of the pioneer efforts to mine silver and gold in the area. It's amazing how long some of these structures last. Also some of the historical groups are trying save and preserve many of these crumbling buildings.

 

On Monday Darren and I headed over closer to Creede, CO and camped in some outstanding open, free forest camping area close to the Clear Creek area just off of highway 149. We had stocked up on groceries and supplies in Montrose on the drive by Blue Mesa Reservoir...a beautiful Lake and great drive.

We covered a fair amount of area over the 2 days we were camped here. Bristol Head mountain has a trail going up it, and it was one of the most dramatic views in Colorado. We also made a couple of big loops over rough 2-track and ATV trails in this area that provided a bunch of fun riding.

 

The next place we moved camp to was just south of Creede at the Rio Grande campsites right on the banks of the Rio Grande River. This is a free, forest camping area also. If you're equipped properly, you can do trips like this without great expense or great inconvenience. This was a beautiful camping area with great scenery. It also had very aggressive chipmunks who would try to sneak into your vehicle when you weren't looking...little buggers!

The view from the north end of Creede as it goes into the canyon where all the old pioneer mining occurred is right out of a western movie. Large, old, mining structures hug the walls of the narrow canyon. Called the Bachelor Loop road, you could drive this in most 2WD cars. However, there are some awesome trips off this main road. Darren and I did Rat Creek which doesn't sound that appealing. It was one of the best rides we did. The scenery at the far end and all along the way was spectacular. We also did a side trip on a very rough trail to a waterfall. A really great ride in this area was also the Wheeler Geologic Area ride into the La Garita Wilderness area. We just scratched the surface of some of this area around Creede.