Headin' South in Search of Dirt

Looks like some of our members just couldn't take it anymore and headed south in search of some dry dirt. Thanks to Steve Lacey for submitting. Read on:

Saturday a few of us had enough of the snow and went searching for some terra firma (dirt) in Pueblo. Not only did we find a bit more dirt than we were expecting we found some of the best overall riding we've had in months.

The day started off at 6:00AM Saturday; Doug, Kurt Ireland and myself headed south on 25 heading for the Pueblo Reservoir. A little over 2.5 hours later we pulled into the park and mooched a parking spot in the Bureau of Land Management parking lot. Little did we know a mile or so further down the road there was parking at one of the trailheads. It was a bit chilly to start, 20 degrees, but quickly warmed up as Kurt was eager to put some miles on and we were quickly shedding layers at the Duke trail. We didn't have a decent hardcopy map but pulling up the singletrack.com trail map on Doug's Iphone and zooming in did the trick. The map is colorcoded with the trails' difficulty so naturally we were headed for the black lines. With trail names like Broken Hip, Hooters Alley and Skull Canyon (must have been where Doug picked up his friend in his pack) we had a feeling we may be in for some fun.


Like kids in a candy store we couldn't decide which trail to go down or up so we decided our plan of attack would be to go down each one and turn around and go right back up. Each of the advanced trails are short....but sweet with technical sections to keep them interesting without too much worry of killing yourself. With the right set of lungs all were pretty much ridable in the upward direction as well, except Hooters Alley; I don't think any size lungs could get up that one.....maybe that had something to do with its namesake.


Outer Limits trail is similar in difficulty to our Blue Sky trail binging you close to the cliffs overlooking the reservoir. Tight little turns and small elevation changes makes this trail a screamer and lung burner (if your trying to keep on Kurt's wheel). From the outer most point you return via a dirt road that again is as hard as you want to make it.


To get back to the truck we came back on the South Shore Trail with detours down Keyhole and Stonehenge trails both aptly named but we weren't quite done yet......Watertower and Steep Tech caught our eyes and we just had to try them. Again their names say it all but "Steep Tech"? more like Steep Stairs. Finally we arrived back to the truck and were happy to see it without a ticket....4:00 right on time. A quick change, a quick stop at Arbee's and we were back to the snow by 7:30.


Photos from our day

Hope you enjoy!

Steve



After what seemed to be hours of checking our course on the map at each intersection it was now time to get some miles in and we headed out towards the Vodoo trail. On our way we took a look at the log drop trail but a thick bit of ice kept us from riding the whole thing but we were able to try the logs and can't wait to come back for a try for a full assent. Failing to heed the detour sign on the Vodoo trail we quickly found ourselves having to cross a small frozen finger of the lake (hey a couple locals were with us at the time) and I'm sure glad I wasn't the heaviest one; there was evidence of a previous failure. If we knew these locals didn't really know the trails we may not have listened to their advice but we did and never made it to the Vodoo loop and opted for the Outer Limits trail instead.