Well we thought today would be an easy day. Wrong. We rode from St Elmo ghost town up to Pomeroy Lake at 12,035 feet.
This ride starts on a nice wide gravel road for the first few miles and then turns off onto a steep jeep road. The 2300 of climbing is mostly in the last 3 miles on a fairly steep and rocky eroded road. I was in my easiest gear for the last 2.6 miles and barely moving!
After a few miles we stopped at the Mary Murphy Mine and aerial tramway to catch our breath and explore. The history of mining fascinates us. It was sooooo labor intensive! This tramway was a single cable nearly a mile long with 96 buckets attached. Each bucket held 200 pounds of ore and the mine transported nearly 128 tons of ore in a 24 hour period.
Back on the bike we continued up. The road got even more narrow and rocky as we climbed. Streams of snowmelt trickled down the middle of the “road” and the view got better. At the top we were treated to 360 views of 14ers and Pomeroy Lake. We walked right up to the edge and soaked up the beauty. Upper Pomeroy Lake was under too much snow so we weren’t able to get to it.
It’s amazing to be up at this high of elevation and to see the wild mountains around us. It was a lot of work to get up there, but worth it. We blasted back down the 6 or so miles and grinned as we thought about the cool things we’ve done and seen so far.
For dinner we met up with some other full-time RVers for a potluck style BBQ. It was great to sit outside under the big Colorado skies and chat with new people. Life is good.
another group of awesome pictures.