It was a cool morning when we loaded up from the motel and headed into town to eat at a local diner. Afterwards, we went to the bike rental to get a replacement for the GS that was wrecked yesterday. With a fresh new KTM 890 we headed out for Cottonwood Pass.

 

 

The ride up the pavement to Cottonwood Pass was awesome. We stopped at the overlook at the top, took some pictures, and I got to be a local celeb with some kids who thought motorcycle riders were really cool and wanted their picture taken with me.

 

 

Coming down from the overlook, we veered off the pavement into the woods on a fairly technical forest road. It took us out to an easier dirt road. We followed a while, then diverted off onto a couple o more difficult roads.  Easy / hard was the pattern for much of the morning.

 

 

We next climbed Cumberland Pass, a little over 12,000 ft in elevation. It was a fairly easy ride up and down which brought us into Pitkin for lunch. Pitkin is a small, isolated town in the middle of the mountains, home to many four-wheel vehicles of all sorts.

 

 

Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent crossing wide open country and rangeland on smooth fast gravel roads. We made one short diversion onto a very technical piece which produced a few minor problems, but afterwards, the rest of the day was on fairly easy, fast territory.

 

 

Ultimately we descended the paved road into Lake City and found our motel, The Texan. It's a series of somewhat dated cabins, but it will do for the night. Lake City was overrun with a festival and there were construction delays getting in and out of town. Tonight we dined on pizza brought to our cabins by our van driver Ben. We spent the rest of the night on the porch pondering the big challenge ahead, drinking until bedtime.

 

 

Tomorrow the Alpine Loop looms, the highest and most technical part of the route. The riders are deciding who is going to do it. It sounds like all of them are up for it, and will decide later who will go on to the even more technical Ophir Pass for the descent into Telluride. It was a good day with high expectations of what tomorrow holds.