Red Arrow Road
Red Arrow Road is a beast. Really, it’s just too rough for gravel bikes comfortably. We toughed it out for 27 miles and 3117′ of climbing.
We saw one truck the whole day. It’s nice to be out in the woods and fresh air every day. It isn’t lost on me that not everyone gets to do that. We turned around after 13 miles of climbing because the road was getting even worse. Everything is still so green around here. Meadows are full of green grass, skunk cabbage, and flowers.
Taylor Creek Road
Up the highway between Dolores and Rico are some singletracks that we’ve been eyeing. It’s too muddy in the trees for them since they are up at higher elevation, but the gravel road that leads to some of them is primo. Today we road 27 miles and climbed 3427′! Our ride topped out around 10800′ and was beautiful.
The gravel road climbs steadily for 13 miles along Taylor Creek. After a few switchbacks through endless aspens, the fir trees start to take over. Despite warm temperatures, it was chilly up at the higher elevations. Eventually the views opened up and we were treated to wide sweeping views of what I think was Nipple Mtn and Bald Mtn. Our turn around spot and Priest Gulch Trail signified time to split our Clif Bar and head back down. Yeehaw, that’s a lot of fast descending!
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