Here’s a quick pic from a location up on Smith Hill above Crested Butte taken near where the lupine insanity shot from the prior post was taken. That’s Long Lake to the left, CB in the background on the right.

Click on any image in this post to enlarge…

The reason for the trip was the 30th annual Pearl Pass Tour, a scenic bike ride from Crested Butte to Aspen. I first did it in 1980, 26 years ago (!!). I met Joe Breeze and Charlie Cunningham among others on this first trip, and ended up apprenticing with both of them the following winter. This is the trip that got me started in the mountain bike industry. Joe showed up for this 30th version too.

The day before it was a bit chilly, here’s a picture from the start, it was spitting snow at this time.

A bit up the road it got chilly, we were 1000 feet shy of our camp elevation here.

Thanks to Jim Haagen-Smit for these last two photos.

We had to abandon our plan to camp at 11,000 feet. It was 14 degrees and still snowing. We were soaking wet. Thanks to our wonderful and tireless hosts on the ride Don and Kay from the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame for organizing everything, only to have this freakish weather. They made the tough but smart decision to abandon about half way up. During the Friday night pre-party, we saw movies from prior years and a bunch of us were in shorts and no shirts on this same ride, same weekend in September. A bunch of us went to camp anyway, lit a fire and warmed up a bit. Here’s what it looked like up there

Don and Kay managed to salvage the weekend with a couple of other STELLAR rides on Sunday and Monday, beautiful Silver Dollar or Bluebird days. Whatever you want to call it.

Here are a few assorted shots, click on any to enlarge…

Not so bad…

Ciao,

Chuckie I.

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