I've also been eye-balling the South Park Trail that leads from near the Guanella Pass summit to Red Cone Jeep trail over by Webster Pass for several years. A few years ago I actually climbed over Webster and drug my bike up higher over Red Cone Peak to grab SPT's western end to see how far I could take it. Turned out not too far as I missed a turn and dumped myself down into Bruno Gulch just a few short miles into the trail; decided to loop Burning Bear and back over Webster at that point. But I knew I'd be back.
This time I would catch it from the eastern end at the top of Guanella Pass.
July 24 - Argentine Pass to Guanella Pass:
Thursday after work I packed my gear and started riding a little after 8pm under the lights. There was no moon out and it promised to be a very dark night. And believe it or not, 13,200' Argentine Pass seemed to be the best way to loop this thing. I planned to ride over Argentine and then climb up to Guanella's summit for a bivy so I could attempt to navigate the SFT early morning and get back over Webster before any storms hit.
Silverthorne to Argentine Pass went a little faster than I expected. I was just over an hour to Peru Creek Rd and 2hr05min to the Argentine Trail HAB. I had descended this side, but never climbed it before, and I think I like it better from this side. It was so dark out that I could see nothing outside of my light beam, so I just put my head down and hiked. If I looked off to my left I just saw scary cliff dropoff to oblivion. As I neared the top I couldn't even see shadows or anything giving away the pass, so I was a little surprised when I crested after 3hr40min from the house. My crappy Garmin GPS watch always screws up elevation and had me thinking I had another 300 vert.
Just after midnight... the lights of Denver looked pretty cool, but cold wind and late night weirdness made me want to get down to Waldorf Mine at least before breaking. I know this area well during the day, but in the pitch black night I missed the easy railroad grade down and took a sketch-ball mining road a good ways before finally linking back in to Leavenworth Road. Late night has a way of making you doubt your route choices so I kept on pushing until I was safely back to Guanella Pass Road a little after 1am.
Still had a paved 2000' climb so I put on the tunes for that and slowly made my way up. Ate a bit up top and climbed in the bivy about 2:30am.
Argentine Pass to Guanella Pass
Despite being tired, I didn't sleep very well at that 11,700' elevation. Wasn't very long, but I stayed in the bag until the sun crested directly over Mt. Bierdstadt and quickly warmed up the morning.
I took care of a couple morning chores and took off down the South Fork Trail at 7:15am. I knew the trail would be decent until after the split-off for Square Top Lakes. Beyond that my recon told me to expect some cairn-to-cairn riding and I would not be disappointed:
South Fork Trail a couple miles after Guanella Pass Trailhead:
Fun adventure cycling for sure, but it would be awhile before I got back on a consistently rideable trail. The steep descent off this ridge to treeline was a hike, and would truly suck to hike up, so taking this section from Guanella summit is the way to go. I would never come back to climb this section.
Once in the trees, it mixed between great trail that got you smiling and chunky fall line walky stuff. A lot I would normally ride with friends, but back in there alone I was more cautious. I made it to Geneva Creek Road and a few miles beyond before I screwed up again, took a left down some good trail that spit me out in Bruno Gulch again... same place I wound up last time on the SFT but from the other side.
I knew how to get back this time though so I climbed Bruno Gulch back to the South Fork Trail. I missed the middle Kirby Gulch section, but it may have to remain unexplored... not bummed though because the wrong trail I took down to Bruno Gulch was the best and most continuous riding of the day.
SFT would end at Red Cone Jeep Trail & 11,750'. Some riding and lots of hiking.
Red Cone broke my heart. My map has a survey marking of 12,400' near Red Cone, but I somehow forgot about its true evil even though I have experienced it before.
Red Cone Peak is actually 12,801' and then you get to hike down at least 75% of the 700' descent to Webster Pass.
Here's a shot of Red Cone from 12,100' Webster Pass:
To this point I had covered around 15 miles on the day in a hair under 6 hours. Be ready for something similar if you ever decide to get some South Park Trail.
Got home about 2:30pm with a total of 77 miles and around 11,500' climbing.
July 26 - Silverthorne to Fraser Roundtrip:
Pleased to say I did not hike my bike even once today. I took a backroad, semi-dirt route to Fraser that turned out great..... decent climb but spread out over a lot of miles so I ended up with 85.5 miles and 6000' vert on the day in a solid time of 7hr15min. Legs felt better and better as I went along so perhaps we are getting ready for the CTR.
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