Biking & hiking around Dillon Reservoir

After postponing the two day excursion a week to Sept 20 due to such not nice looking weather, it turned out that Tuesday was about the same as that but Wednesday was perfect.  Also the fall color was bound to be a little further along.  Since I wanted to bike as much as possible along the lake, warmer weather was more of a consideration than the peak of the leaves.  This year it looks like a week later will be the so-called peak, when all the aspen are golden.  Actually I like the leaves better when not all of them are turned, although along I-70 golden show up so much more strikingly in the pine covered hills.  Evidently the soil in the Dillon area contributes to more red color than usual, so there was lots of contrast.  Most aspen were still green, some just turned and a few with red hues.

Instead of staying on I-70 through the tunnel, I took US 6 over Loveland Pass.  It must have been in the mid-60s that I was first and last (?) until now on that road with my former roommate at U of IL, Phyllis Mikita.  She was on her way to Aspen, where our mutual friend John Schmidt had a second home.  Phyllis stopped in Nauvoo that summer to ask me to help her drive out there.  As I recall, I ended up doing almost all the driving that night through a long detour in Iowa on little two-lane roads and later in Nebraska.  I-70 through Colorado was not much more than plan then.  I stopped at the top of the pass and hiked a trail to a higher point across the road.

After arriving in Dillon, I parked above a marina and took off on a bike path on the south end of the lake.  It was a bit blustery, so after arriving where the path would go on to Keystone turned back to explore other parts of the area.  It looked like it could rain any time, so I drove a new road, Swan Mountain Drive.  This road connects the south edge of Dillon with CO 9 south of Frisco.  It seems that this road also serves as the bike route along that side of the lake.  I couldn't find any other way, as a one-lane road to a nature center on the shore of the lake prohibited bikes.  Also there was a sign along the highway warning that bikes had the right of way to the entire road.  Since it was still threatening rain, I decided to drive on up to Breckenridge and through there to view aspen up on Hoosier Pass.  A picture of Mt. Quandry, which Andrea and I summited in 2001, follows.  This is not really a climb but a really steep and rocky trail.  All the same, it was my first and last 14er.

I biked around Breckenridge for awhile but decided the touristy, mountain town thing was not for me.  At Frisco I found the most promising bike path along the lake and over the dam on the road between Frisco and Dillon and decided to do that Wednesday.  The bike path along the Frisco end of the lake which I had found before was the last ride of the day.  It never did rain.

One convenience about being in a motel is having a safe place for the bike while hiking.  So by 8 am I was on the Buffalo Mountain trail above Dillon.  The first part is a mild climb with several mostly level areas.  About 1/3 of the way, a wilderness sign appears, and the climb is  a little steeper from there along an old rocky road to the remains of a cabin.  After the trail is much steeper and narrower.  Once I was high on the mountain with a great view of the lake and towns on either end, it was time to head back before check out time.

Retrieved the bike and headed for a parking area just past the dam for the best bike ride.  The day was perfect, and as time went on more and more bikers appeared. This is definitely worth many repeat rides.

Just a few summer flowers are hanging on, as temperatures in this area are in the 30s at night now.  On the way back, a stop in Silver Plume for a scone and tea at a run down 1900's building in an almost deserted old mining town was a great final treat.