Aspen and the Long Way Home

Tuesday we left Glenwood Springs around 8 and in less than one mile we found ourselves on a gentle 40 mile long climb on the Rio Grande Trail all the way to Aspen. 

Lots of long views and few people were found as we steadily climbed up the Roaring Fork Valley. The sun was warm so we decided to pedal in our hats on the trail rather than our helmets and enjoy the naughty freedom we felt. 

Within about 5 miles of Aspen we started to see the “beautiful people” and the Texans on their rental e-Bikes. We also saw lots of fisherman like these guys trying their hand at fly fishing for trout.  After checking in to the Aspen Mountain Lodge on Main St. we washed the stink of sweat and smoke out of our bike clothes in the bathtub and treated ourselves to a great meal at the White House Restaurant. We would sleep now and in the morning see what news of the fire brings to us. 

We had hoped we had dodged the bullet on Monday by being able to maneuver past the Grizzly Fire in the canyon on our way to Glenwood Springs. I thought worse case, if Interstate 70 and the Glenwood Canyon Trail were going to stay closed I had talked Angela into hitching a ride with our bikes over Independence Pass to Leadville, about a 62 mile trip over a 12,000 ft. pass, far to long, challenging and way too much traffic to ride our bikes. Because 70 was closed almost everyone having to bypass 70, including illegal semi-trucks, had the same idea and within a few hours of day break the state had shut the pass down due to miles long traffic jams in Aspen and two semi-trucks stuck in the “Narrows” just east of Aspen. As for the fire in the canyon, rather than dying down as we had hoped, it had doubled in size in the last 24 hours. We needed a Plan C. 

Angela suggested we rent a car at the Aspen Airport and drive home which was a great idea and pretty much our only real option. By 11 we had left our hotel and started what we thought would be a short and easy 5 mile ride to the airport.  Then we found Google Maps had struck a blow against Good Artificial Intelligence by turning our “bike” ride into a 30 degree hike-a-bike climb out of the Roaring Fork Canyon. 

 

By noon we had our bikes stuffed into the back of our Mitsubishi SUV and were on our way back to our car at the Eagle County Regional Airport where we had left it. 

Having a car was only part of the solution. In normal times it should have been a 70 mile trip. But with the I-70 closure we had to route west to Rifle, then north to Craig, followed by east to Steamboat Springs  and then south and west back to Eagle. After dropping the rental car off we headed back east for the last 70 miles to home. And of course the rest of America: the cars, SUV’s and RV’s from Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nevada, California, Arizona and the cross county semi-trucks all were traveling these same two lane roads with us. 


After about 300 miles and 6 hours of two lane highway, seeing some of the beautiful Colorado scenery, we found ourselves under a bloody red sky at the Eagle Airport as the sun set over Glenwood Canyon 15 miles behind us. Plan C had worked!

I asked Angela to take the wheel of our van on the way back to Frisco over Vail Pass while I relaxed, hydrated and thought back over the last few days. Our bike trips together almost always run the full spectrum of emotions and states of mind: happy, sad, pleasant, unpleasant,  hungry, stuffed, simpatico or at each other’s throats, rested or beat, alone or fully socialized. And things rarely go as planned. But the challenges we face are part of the satisfaction we get when we persevere, work together and solve the puzzle. We never really know what lies ahead and that’s what makes it so great.