Engine Creek

#followcamfriday dashing though the flowers on Coal Bank Pass with Chris Boice. 

There is just something magical about the San Juan Mountains in the Southwest corner of Colorado. Silverton is technically the nearest "town" to the area, with Durango being a solid 45 minute commute. Getting here from Denver is a bit of an endeavor, to say the least, so the trails stay reasonably uncrowded. There are plenty of riding destinations closer to Denver fortunately, and this place will always have that going for it.  The sheer amount of riding in Durango is absolutely endless. 

The monsoonal flow is your friend if you like to ride mountain bikes. As long as you get an early start and are out of the alpine before 1 or 2, you reap the benefits of tacky dirt and absolutely perfect trails. The flowers are so tall that you can't always see the trail, but that is all part of the fun I suppose. When the flowers hit you in the face when you are turning and try to grab your brakes for you, you are doing it right. Hand guards have never been appealing to me but this is one of those places that they would make a world of difference. 

Chris and I have been riding bikes for many years and as a byproduct of this conditioning, we rarely get arm-pump. You know the descent is proper if we are having a hard time hanging onto the bars. The bottom of Engine Creek, right before you get the the river is one of the finest sections of trail anywhere. Trust me. 

There are a few different ways to access this one but we chose to climb Engineer Mountain Trail and then descend Engine Creek back to the car. This is a reasonable 3 hour loop with a few thousand feet of climbing. The top probably reaches 12K. While it is more efficient to shuttle, Chris is into fitness so we did it as a loop. 

When in Colorado.

Chris Boice owns RallyVan. He has been custom building vans for clients for a few years now, and all I can say is that his van is way nicer than your house. If you are in the market for a home on wheels that you can actually drive off-road, Chris is your guy. Rally Van 

A friend we rode with the other day said that these cabbages only bloom once every ten years. Also, the height of the bloom is the height of the snowpack of the coming winter. If these blooms are any indication, the snowpack next year will be amazing. I bet your weather app can't tell you that.  

When in doubt, foot out. The old inside foot plant to nosepick is a proper maneuver indeed. If you blow this turn, you basically fall off of a cliff into the woods. This was "first run" for Chris. He stuck the turn and lived to drive his van another day. Be like Chris, stick the turn.