Weekend ride from Denver to Telluride Bluegrass Festival

[kwells]

Last weekend my girlfriend and I did a little weekend trip down to Telluride for the 35th Anual Bluegrass festival.  We took the Sprint for this trip and loaded it with about 100lbs of gear plus the 2 of us.  I took off a bit early from work to get the bike loaded and we left around 5pm for our 1st stop in Paonia State Park campground.  We got there right around dusk so I am thinking it was around 9:00pm or so.  After getting the tent set up we broke out the stove and boiled some water for our dehydrated Beef Stew.  Good eats.  Temps dropped to around 38 degrees that night and we were pretty cold until we got into the bags.  6am breakfast and coffee and then off to Telluride.  We arrived to the Telluride campground(lawson baseball field) at around 11am and got set up and had some lunch.  We were pretty tired and sat around until about 4pm and then went to the Festival grounds. 
The festival was an odd mix of hippies and yuppies so it made for interesting people watching.  The bands were pretty cool even though I hadn't heard of any of them before.  The sun was relentlessly hot during the day and after it went down there was about 20 mins of good temps and then it got unbelievably cold.  AH, CO weather.  We stayed until the last band played(The Frames) and then squeezed onto the shuttle bus back to the campground and stuffed ourselves into our bags once again to escape the cold.  We were woken up at 8am by the desert like sun that jacked them temps inside the tent to around 90 degrees.  After some breakfast and coffee we broke down the setup and started the cryptic puzzle of getting it all on the bike.
For the trip home we decided to go 50East instead taking the faster I-70 route.  We visited the Black Canyon Nat. Park at Gunnison for a couple hours and then got back on our way.  Of course some clouds had mounted and we were now following the black clouds.  Escaping the brunt of the storm, we stopped at the Windmill in Salida for some 12.95 prime rib and GIANT mushrooms.  MMM....then back to the road. 
For the record, the stretch of road between Buena Vista and Fairplay is truly HELL on Earth.  The freezing cold cross winds were so bad that I almost went off the raised roadway half a dozen times.  The temps dropped by at least 25 degrees within 4 mins and I was unable to even zip my vents for fear of flying off the road.  On several occasions I entered right hand sweepers while leaning heavily to the left.  Truly bizarre.
Anyway we made it back to Denver without incident around 9pm and unloaded.  700 miles from Friday night to Sunday night. 
Good times.
We took some pics that I'll get posted up later this evening.  I highly recommend the ride, but caution you to stay away from Fairplay.

[h2olawyer]

The Bluegrass Festival can definitely be "interesting".  I've never been, but have heard reports & would like to go someday.  So, you only did one day (Saturday)?  Too bad you were resting up until 4, as the Jerry Douglas Band was on from 2:15 - 3:30.  He's an amazing dobro (resonator guitar) player.  At least you got to see Sam Bush.  He can really wail on the mandolin.  If I'd have gone, Thursday and / or Friday would have been my preferred days.  Cadillac Sky, Arlo Guthrie & The Del McCoury band on Thursday, then Bela Fleck, Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby with Kentucky Thunder and Leftover Salmon on Friday.  (There were other bands, but those were the highlights).  Not all bluegrass, but good stuff - they mix in some acoustic rockers, folk and some music that defies categorization to break up all the banjo & fiddle bands.  I see Hot Rize (with Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers) reunited for the Sunday session.  Those guys are a riot.  They 'retired' a few years ago, but I think that just meant they weren't going to tour all year anymore & just do special events as they felt like it.

Colorado mountain air, being so dry, heats up quickly in the morning & cools just as quickly at night.  How did you get to Paonia?  Did you take McClure Pass South from Glenwood Springs to Hotchkiss?  That's a great ride, but you really have to watch for rocks & boulders in the road.  It gets closed every few years when parts of the road slide away, too.  Not exactly built on stable soils.

As for the road between Buena Vista & Fairplay - those types of winds can happen anyplace you are getting the outflow from thunderstorms.  Often, that outflow will be a long ways away from the actual storm.  However, South Park (yes, Fairplay is the inspiration for the show) can be fairly windy on its own.  I've had similar experiences of leaning left to turn right (actually going from a strong left lean to stay straight to less left lean for the right turn) but only in Wyoming.  Sure glad I didn't have to make a left turn in those conditions.  Makes for some fairly high pucker factor when the wind gusts or lulls, though.

Looking forward to the pics.

H₂O

[kwells]

Yup H, we did McClure pass.


Here's the bike loaded up after our first night camping in Paonia State Park.  Great camp spot...can register your spot on the internet. 16.00/night.


A quick view of the festival and the mountains at sunset.

[kwells]

Black Canyon National Park at Gunnison, CO

[h2olawyer]

Great pix!  That whole area of Colorado is beautiful.  I gave some serious thought to having last year's rally in Gunnison or Hotchkiss.

I forget - have you ridden the highway on the north side of the canyon?  Supposed to be about the best motorcycle road in the state.  It's Colorado Hwy. 92 from west of Gunnison, through Crawford (home of Joe Cocker) to Hotchkiss.  From Hotchkiss you can either go north over McClure Pass or southwest over Grand Mesa - both fantastic rides.  I hope to do those roads this summer, but it's a long way from my house.  Combined with some of the roads farther south, like the Million Dollar Highway (Ouray to Durango) and Wolf Creek Pass to South Fork, north over Slumgullion Pass, back to Gunnison, it would make for a real fun 2 or 3 day ride.  Stretch it into 4 days by adding Independence pass (from Carbondale to Leadville via Aspen), Tennessee Pass (US 24) to Minturn, I-70 to Wolcott, CO 131 to Toponas, Gore Pass to Kremmling & then either Willow Creek Pass to Walden & Cameron Pass to Ft Collins or Trail Ridge Road to Loveland.

H₂O

[kwells]

No, I went the western route on 92 from 133 but 92 east from that point on to where it drops out at the Carencanti Rec area would be a fantastic route.

[h2olawyer]

I've been over that "eastern" section of 92 in my pickup & it is an amazing piece of asphalt.  It is most definitely a must ride road!  Even the turns have turns.   ;D

H₂O

[don_vanecek]

Wow, can't believe how you had that bike loaded.  Need to teach that lady to ride the V and then you follow on the Sprint. 

Thanks for sharing this with us!

The picture of you in the JVMC magazine is the one of you, I and the McCoys at the rock ledge on the Mt. Evan's ride.