Day 4 - Ride out of and back to Colorado Springs, CO
255 Miles
Today made up for yesterday. Perfect riding temps (fluctuating in a range of 64-74), beautiful scenery and great company. Dean, his buddy Tom and I rode out of Colorado Springs this morning and went up into the mountains. For those who don't know the Colorado Springs area, in an hour you've traveled from the front of Pike's Peak all the way around to the back. We rode up through Woodland Park and out to Guffey, CO; pretty much out in the middle of nowhere and that's exactly where we wanted to be.
From Guffey we shot over to Hartsel and out to Buena Vista (pronounced Byuny Vista) for lunch. After that, we rode almost to Fairplay, back down to Hartsel and back to The Springs. It didn't seem like much mapping it out, but it was a great day of riding. Of note, my original plan was to stay on 24 all the way out to Buena Vista, but with the amount of traffic we were seeing, I shot us toward Cripple Creek just to get off the main drag. From there it was simply stitching together the rest of the ride from past memory.
The mix of aspen groves, high country pines, rolling out into the open vistas and through the valleys was simply awesome. I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story below.
Bottom line: A Goldwing and two Harleys had an great time in the mountains.
Dean and Tom, thanks for sharing the day.
Tomorrow, Denise and I head west.
