Related post:
7/11/2010: https://blog.jasonsherry.net/2010/07/11/900-miles-around-co-for-2800k/
7/7/2010: https://blog.jasonsherry.net/2010/07/07/heading-out-on-my-co-dual-sport-adventure/

Spoke to my buddy from Atlanta, who is riding with his brother and two other friends from MS to AK, then one friend is turning back in AK, and the other three are continuing to Trinidad, CO (SE corner of CO).  I’m meeting them in Trinidad and one of them is taking my truck and his bike back to my house then flying home the next day.  The other three of us are then continuing our dual sport (80% dirt road) ride from the SE corner of CO to the NE corner, then heading east back to my house in Longmont.  I’m meeting them on July 7th and we leave the next morning and hope to be at my house by the evening of July 11th.  We will be doing roughly 900 miles, mostly dirt\4×4 roads and cross multiple passes in CO.  I had planned on riding my WR450 until I realized it was now going to be four days and ~900 miles.  So I’m not renting a BMW F650GS for $140/day, which comes out to being a couple of hundred more expense then putting saddle & tank bags on my WR450 but a lot more comfortable!  My buddy is still working on finalizing the last few details in CO.  They leave MS on July 1st, so getting close to go time.  Looking forward to this trip some, but not as much as the five day trip I’m doing with my riding group the end of July.  We will be covering 500+ miles but 70% of these will be nice tight and technical single track.  Hope my shoulder is up for this, it’s still sore and very weak…

Saturday I headed up near Pikes Peak to go camping and to be closer to the mountain the next day.  The initial spot I planned to camp is now private land with some odd name on it. I ended up going up to Rampart Range and going down a dead end 4×4 road until I found a nice sport.  I then setup camp and had a couple beers while I cooked dinner.  I also started a camp fire, didn’t really need it but I brought the wood so better to burn it and enjoy a fire then hauling in back.  When I go camping I try to make sure I’m not near anyone else so I can let my dogs run wild (which they prefer to do).  This trip was no exception.  I had just finished cooking my steak and Jake & Elwood (my dogs) came up and Jake had a (dead) rabbit in his mouth.  I guess he wanted meat for dinner too.  I took away the rabbit from him and finished eating.  The next morning I got up about 4:45AM and drove to Pikes Peak.

I got to Devil’s Playground around 6:30AM, made breakfast, and then took the dogs for some rock climbing and hiking at ~12,600’.  Dogs had a lot of fun running and climbing, they both love to climb stuff. As for me – I love these best budget climbing helmets they started to sell just few days ago in my local store, really saving a lot.  So we, came across a small glacier and hiked to where we could get on top of it and got them chasing each other and playing on it.  By now it was 8 something so headed back to the Playground area and tied the dogs up to a cable nearby and started watching the race.  I enjoyed the race and took lots of pictures, but this was the 1st year I went solo and it was pretty lonely and a bit depressing seeing everyone else chatting and having fun with their friends.  I had pinged multiple friends, include several who live nearby, but everyone was busy.  I guess I need to make meeting more people and making new friends a higher priority.

Killer video of “Monster” doing the hill climb this year