Bike Tour of Colorado on a Very Bad Day

It is definitely Neversummer here, which is the fitting name for the mountains on the west side of the park. Two days before the start of summer, June 19, the park started getting wintery weather. Trail Ridge Road was closed at 9:00 PM that night as snow came, fiercely in the alpine region. The Tour of Colorado, a 7 day bike tour of north central Colorado was scheduled to come through the park the next day. This would involve an almost 5000 foot climb from Estes Park to the top of the park, over 12,000 feet elevation. About 1500 bikers were expected to participate. On June 20, a decision on whether to attempt the ride was delayed for 3 hours until the go ahead was made at 8:00 AM. A majority of the bikers, we believe, started the ride and made it up to Rainbow Point, high in the alpine zone. They faced an hour and a half wait until the road was cleared so they could continue. There was only room for a minority of the riders in a vehicle to keep warm, the rest huddled on the leeward side out of the wind, fighting hypothermia and trying to stay warm. After the road was cleared, later in the morning they ascended further to the top but were met with stiff winds and a wintery mix of snow and drizzle. The road was wet and conditions were absolutely miserable.
Several hundred made it to the Alpine Visitor Center where they sought relief from the elements. Many suffered from hypothermia, and two or three needed hospitalization, they were taken by ambulance to the medical center at Granby, almost 40 miles away. The tour group and the park were overwhelmed with handling the situation. Although the bad weather had been forecasted correctly for two days, the tour still went on through the park. Riders were given the option to skip the day, but most seemed to decide on riding. Most were also dressed inadequately for the conditions - they were the ones most susceptible to hypothermia. Amazingly though, no one wiped out on the slick road conditions and as far as we know, no one has died.
We were assigned to “rove” at the upper points of the west side that day, just a few miles below the Alpine V.C. Since the road was closed when we started our day, we had to stay lower and went to the North Inlet trailhead, where there was little activity save for a group of 4 backpackers who were going up the trail to higher elevation. I talked with them and found out they had been out for a few days already, under miserable conditions, but were all in good spirits and ready to continue their week-long backpack. “Keep smiling guys,” I said and wished them well. They were going to be far better off than the bikers, as I would learn later.
Later in the morning we heard on the park radio that Trail Ridge Road was open and the bike tour was coming through. We grabbed some lunch at the Kawuneeche Visitor Center on the west side and headed up the road to assist in whatever way we could. About a mile up the road in the park, we passed a staging area where the bike tour was trying to assemble an aid station for the bikers. A few more miles up, we saw the first of the bikers heading down. It was a steady rain at this point, but all the riders were handling the wet surface well. We made it to the Colorado River trailhead, where we connected with Chief Ranger Mark McCutcheon, informing him that we had a warm vehicle with bike rack and could help in whatever way we could. He directed us to go up to the Alpine V.C, as there were many riders up there who may need assistance. We never made it up that far as when we got up about 3 more miles to Farview Curve, we saw a few other volunteers stationed there lending assistance to riders. No sooner did we pull over than several riders pulled in and we quickly immersed ourselves into checking on them. The first rider I encountered was a woman who was in obvious distress. She was shaking from hypothermia and I asked her if she needed to get into our warm vehicle. She did without hesitation. Another vehicle, one of the volunteers, was housing 6 riders trying to warm up. Immediately several more riders arrived, stopping to take a break from the tortuous downhill ride. I looked at each of them to see if they were shaking, and offered two more of them a seat in our warm car. Others were ok and just needed a rest, before they decided to continue. Ranger Mark was there, and other volunteers, he told us to take who we could down to the aid station, so we put 2 bikes onto our bike carrier and started taking the two riders down. The woman was transferred to another vehicle to stay warm, allowing her time to decide whether she could get back on her bike. We later met up with her when we returned, she decided not to continue and was grateful for our assistance and the eventual ride she obtained in a bus that was dispatched to pick up riders. As we descended from the higher region with 2 of the riders, who were still trying to recover from their ordeal, we came upon another rider who hit a falling rock right in front of us. He almost lost it but was able to stay upright, but his water bottle fell off his bike. I stopped so Kathy could retrieve it for him, but we were right on a major curve and it was not a good place to be stopped.
I was hoping this would be quick, but the guy announced that his tire was flat and I knew we couldn’t leave him there. Suddenly, there was a pack of bikers and vehicles coming around the curve and somehow they all managed to steer clear of us, as we were stopped right in the road. Yikes. I had to move away from that spot, so pulled further into the curve and a bit more out of the way. We managed to get his bike on our carrier, the first time we realized that we could carry 3 bikes, and we got the heck out of there with our new passenger. We made it down to the aid station, about 14 miles, where we deposited our riders and their bikes. They were pulling over all the riders as they still had about another 17 miles to go before they finished the day and they needed to be checked for their ability to continue. The 3 guys we transported were very grateful for our help, and we immediately turned back to go see if we were needed in any other way further up. We made it back to Farview Curve where we found even more volunteers assembled as well as Ranger Mark. That’s when we learned that the ride was closed for all the other riders left on top on and that they would be transported down by a fleet of buses. There were some riders hanging out in the volunteers’ vehicles and eventually they were transferred to a bus after it arrived.
Within time, since there were no more bike riders coming down, we were thanked by Ranger Mark, and released to head back. Instead, Kathy and I went up to the Alpine V.C. just to check out the scene there. We were amazed at the hundreds of bikes that were left outside the V.C. Several buses had transported riders to their destination for the day, and a couple more were about to embark. All the riders were taken care of, but their bikes were being loaded into numerous UHaul trucks, as they attempted to load them all in. I could imagine all the scratches that these bikes were receiving, but oh well. I walked into the V.C. and saw four park staff assembled at the desk. One of them turned out to be Vaughan Baker, the park superintendent who came up from the east side to assist. He and I talked affably, he asked me about what had happened further down on the west side and I described the scene at Farview Curve. He was amazed when I told him it seemed like hundreds had continued the ride, although many of them stopped due to hypothermia. He and some of the others shared how most of the riders were comforted by being in the V.C. When they said that many of them needed to get out of their wet clothes, I remarked that there must have been a lot of naked people there. They laughed, but I guessed that it didn’t get to that point. I sensed from talking with both Vaughan and Ranger Mark that the park was not keen on the idea of doing the ride under such brutal conditions. That had been a decision made by the tour. And it’s too bad the riders never got a good view from the top. Nothing but clouds, bitter winds and low visibility, the timing for the ride through the park was a little off. Better weather is expected the next day, and these riders missed seeing some spectacular views. On a good day, the alpine portion of the park is beyond description, as we were fortune to as we came over on June 10.
The earlier portion of our week was interesting, as we went through four days of training, a good bike ride one evening in the park, and a climb up Shadow Mountain on our one day off, followed by a picnic and campfire on two successive evenings where park staff got to mingle. But it pales in comparison to the day the Tour of Colorado decided to come through the park. We could not imagine biking in the conditions these riders faced. When we reached the top at the V.C. that day, the wind was still fierce and there was still mixed precipitation falling. No conditions for a bike ride by our book. Nevertheless, this is a day the riders and the park staff will remember; it wasn’t for the faint of heart and it just might force a hard look at what conditions this tour should subject its riders to. Mountain weather any time of year needs to be held in awe and wonder, and again this time nature won.

Arrived in Colorado to Lots of Snow, Amazing

It is good to be finally at our destination, Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). We left NY on June 1 and drove through the midsection of the country; many days were in the nineties. The temps here are 60’s and 70’s, dropping into the 30’s at night. It feels refreshing. The trip was fairly uneventful, a good thing. We visited with friends and family on the way and met up with friends from back home, Larry and Susan in McCook, Ne. We had to travel a little north and they had to travel a little south to make the connection. They had been on a 3 week trip, visiting family in Texas, their two kids in Ft Collins, Co and seeing many parks in Colorado and Utah. They were heading east to get back home and their jobs and we were heading west to start our volunteer assignment at RMNP for the summer.

We arrived in Colorado on June 5 to a strange mix of flood warnings and high fire danger. The snow pack in the Rockies is tremendous, over 250% of normal in some places. With warmer temperatures, the snow is quickly melting and filling rivers and streams. At this point, the National Weather Service is calling the flooding only minor, but we have been told by a ranger in RMNP that the Colorado River is higher than it’s ever been in the park. The bridge going into Holzwarth Historic Site (HHS) where we plan to stay is closed and temporary housing has been arranged for us and the other couple, Lee and Sally, who were scheduled to stay at HHS. They arrived a week earlier and said that the area in the campground where our temporary housing is still had lots of snow when they got here. It’s all gone now. We were able to walk into HHS, the bridge is open to foot traffic. We noticed that lots of Lodgepole Pine trees had been cut along the road approaching the site due to the pine beetle infestation. But HHS still has magnificent trees standing as the park sprays them annually to keep the trees safe from the beetle. We just hope the bridge holds and the waters start to recede, but it looks like it will take a long time for the snow to melt in the mountains.

We had been staying on the east side of the park in Denver and Boulder. There it is normally drier than the west side of the Front Range, and the fire danger there has become high. Smoke that could be seen in the air was actually from the huge Arizona fire. We went to hear a talk by a Boulder County Fire Management Officer at REI and learned about issues facing the area and the residents. A lot was said about the Four Mile Canyon Fire that happened here last year right at the end of our assignment at RMNP. We almost cancelled a trip to Boulder then because of it, the city had been put on standby to evacuate, but fortunately we got here ok and no evacuation of the city was needed. The fire left a lasting effect on the community however, and we talked with a few people who had residences in the burn area. Their homes and some others were spared but many homes were lost, fortunately no human lives were lost. We toured the area of the fire with our friend Judy who lives in Boulder. She took us up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, a short climb, where we had great views of the burn area. It was a massive area, about ten square miles and 169 homes had burned. Some residents have started rebuilding, and the interesting thing is that since the surrounding forest has burned the fire danger is basically non existent there now.

After Boulder, we spent a few days camping on the east side of RMNP, acclimating to the higher altitude. The weather was nice except the first night when a thunderstorm hit us. We were in our tents but it was in an open spot and we were not really safe, fortunately we didn’t get hit. The number of dead trees from the pine beetle epidemic was noticeably higher than what we saw last year when we visited the east side, and it will get worse. The west side has had the epidemic for ten years and most of the lodgepole pine trees there are dead. We did some light hiking for two days, sometimes in snow but we stayed lower to avoid the deeper snow pack. This past Friday we drove over Trail Ridge Road to the west side, the road had only been opened Monday of this past week. Before that we climbed Deer Mountain, and even though it is about 10,000 feet it was free of snow on top and offered great views of the mountain ranges within the park. We spent an hour up there, and it was a popular spot. We talked with other people, including two younger women and their toddlers that they hauled up on their backs. They helped us identify the peaks in the Mummy Range and then we found that one of them, Lisa, had written the guide book “Rocky Mountain National Park, the Complete Hiking Guide”. We’re going to check it out because the hiking guide we have has some deficiencies and Lisa said that is why she wrote her guide. It was the description of hiking Mt. Meeker that particularly annoyed her and spurred her to write her guide. She was gracious to the writers of the other guide though, acknowledging that it was the first effort to write a guide to hiking in RMNP and because of that deserved credit. She did 15 years of research, exploring and hiking, and two years of writing and editing of her book. She said though that it wasn’t worth the tremendous effort it took. I thanked her anyway for writing the guide, fully expecting it to be an improvement.

The top of Trail Ridge Road had very high banks of snow in some spots. We heard that they had to plow through 17 feet of snow, and we estimated it was only a few feet less than that when we saw it. The pack is melting with the 50 and 60 degree temps they are getting up there now. On the west side of the park, the Neversummer Range looks to have even more snow. The hiking is limited here right now if you don’t have snow shoes, and we didn’t bring ours, not expecting to need them. Andrew, a backcountry ranger who was here last year for his first stint, told us he had been out in his snow shoes checking out the trails and said it was hard work. He even post holed while breaking trail with his snow shoes, that means the snow is getting rotten and not holding up. They presently have only four backcountry camp sites open out of more than fifty so there is not a lot of backcountry camping right now. On our first hike here this summer we went up the Colorado River Trail to Lulu City, using snow shoes for much of the way. But we didn’t have to break trail as it was basically hard packed from foot traffic.

We are thrilled to see old friends from last year and to meet new ones as well. Our neighbors Lee and Sally are from Texas and we found out that we have mutual friends in the NPS. Jim and Jan worked with us at Bryce and they worked with Lee and Sally at Chaco Canyon. Lee and Sally also worked at Capitol Reef in Utah and I remember when they came to visit Jim and Jan at Bryce. Small world in the NPS. We have already been recipients of Lee and Sally’s generosity, borrowing laundry detergent and receiving some Texas style tortilla soup, yummy.

We just started our assignment with a week of training. We will get a review of safety, the 10 essentials and park interpretation to name a few. We will also get updates on the trails, resource protection, wildlife, water issues and fire ecology to name a few. Today we learned that RMNP has the fifth highest numbers of search and rescues (SARs) in the national park system. The mountains and weather here make for challenging conditions and keep the park staff busy. With the huge amount of snow, several projects are running behind schedule, including the clearing of trees and trails and the opening of some areas. It was jokingly said that we have two seasons here, winter and July. The chief ranger had been sent temporarily to Glacier N.P. as the chief ranger there had to take a leave of absence and Glacier has had 400% of the snow fall they usually get, so they have even bigger issues up there. I don’t want to give the wrong impression though, the weather so far has been great as far as I’m concerned. This is a place where you can be very active, even right now, whether it’s hiking (snow shoeing), biking, horseback riding or paddling to name a few. One more thing that I got a kick out was hearing about how we (employees and volunteers) are here to serve the public and the protect the park, but sometimes a visitor “fails the attitude test”. We can be polite to a visitor but they all may not be polite in return. Smile and sigh gently under your breath.