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Met up with Alan, a friend from Bozeman at Winter Park this weekend.  The weather was excellent, cold nights but no rain or anything during the day..  The leaves were turning too.  This ain't no New England, but pretty impressive anyways..  Two albums here and here  . Rode up to one of the summits of Winter Park Resort/Mary Jane mountain. May Jane is  named after a "lady of the night" who was given the mountain in return for "services".   There's a giant mountain biking competition with some serious jumps.. Like this thing, it  was scary just standing at the top of it. Some of the other things were a bit less scary and quite a bit of fun.. a nd there was a lot of nice trail in between. Took a quick ride up an access road from Berthoud Pass this morning, nice views.. still a bit cold.

We were originally planning a ride around Copper Mountain but the weather was iffy.  So someone had the idea to just drive the rest of the way to Fruita and ride there for the day.   Friends David, Hillary, and Shana Can't beat the views around here: Good trails too. Notice the Knickers.. I wasn't planning on 80 degree desert riding when I dressed that morning. The Horsthief "drop in" is scary. This little guy just about blew off the rock with a particularly stron g gus t.. Got back really late last night, woke up at 5:30 and put in my 8 hours. Wouldn't do it every weekend, but it was definitely worth it.

This was taking by Anthony Sloan, someone else who was in Durango. More pictures from the trip here .  I'm in the eighth photo down on that page and a few more after that as well.  The rest of his website is pretty cool too, i'd recommend poking around on it if you feel so inclined.. 

From the drive last weekend, mostly between Ouray and Silverton. There was a bunch of mining around there back in the day, lots of mineral deposits. The creek has so much iron in it everything is stained red, and the mountains are very colorful with greens and reds and whites from the snow.. I want to try and make it back here before the snow hits, maybe after the snow hits a few times too. Silverton has some pretty nice snowboarding I hear..  Leave a comment and let me know your out there..

Monarch Crest Trail, Monarch Pass The Colorado Trail between Molas Pass and Engineer Mountain  more here

Is what they call it around these parts. This is from the Monarch Crest, a popular ride near Poncha Springs.