BackRoads: Motorcycle Touring in Colorado

There is an old fable about three blind monks coming upon an elephant for the first time. When they returned to the monastery each monk was anxious to describe the beast to his fellow monks. The first, having grabbed the elephant’s leg said, “an elephant is like a tree.” The second, having found himself holding the animal’s trunk said “Oh no, an elephant is like a snake. The third spoke up and refuted both, for having held the tail he said, “An elephant is like a rope.”

So what do monks and elephants have to do with motorcycles, touring or Colorado? Simple, many people who visit Colorado only see one aspect of the state and take that impression away. But Colorado is a state of mountains, high plains and deserts, a state of modern, international cities and timeless river canyons. Nearly half of Colorado is high plains, the same grasslands that were home to millions of buffalo and the plains Indians. As you ride through the vast expanse of wheat fields and native grasses, the buffalo are long gone. You are only slightly aware of gaining altitude. About sixty miles from Denver the mountains start to fill your view, start to enter your consciousness. You’ve reached the Mile High City, filled with great restaurants, nightlife and cultural attractions. But unless your boss sent you on business, you’re not here to see the city. It’s west, the mountains with roads that soar high over alpine passes, that swoop low in the river valleys and lift you up again.

Aim your bike west from the city. I-70 will get you out of the city in a hurry, only 20 miles from downtown and you are riding through the cut in the Dakota Hogback and you’re climbing through steep walls of Mount Vernon Canyon. Get off the interstate now. Time for real mountain roads. Head south on Evergreen Parkway to Highway 103. Head west again and the fun begins. Squaw Pass is steep and twisty. The road opens up from time to time but don’t be fooled. More turns ahead as the road climbs away from the canyon floor. Turnouts afford a view south across Clear Creek Canyon to the Never Summer Range to the North. The pass is 9,807 feet high and you’ve gained 4,527 feet in altitude. But wait. Ride and hear the sound of your pipes reverberate off the granite walls of the road cut to your left. Look to your right at a wall of green treetops sloping away to the canyon below. You’re in the Arapahoe National Forest. Spruce and aspen line the road. You can smell the trees, you feel the cool as you look out at distant peaks framed by an impossibly clear sky the color of robin’s eggs. Ride past the slower pedal powered two wheelers, ride and up ahead is Echo Lake Lodge. Time to stop, get some coffee and wonder at the Chinese made rubber snakes displayed side by side with exquisite Native American art. Decision time; are you up for a ride to the top of the world? Just steps away from the lodge is the gatehouse to the Mt. Evans Wilderness Area. From the Lodge’s altitude of just over 10,000 feet, you can ride another 18 miles and reach the top of Mt. Evans at 14,264. This is Colorado Highway 5, the highest paved road in North America, second highest in the western hemisphere. It’s not for the faint of heart. This is the high alpine. Ride up through a forest of bristle cone pines. Some of the trees are 1,500 years old, some may be 2,000 years old or more. Stop and walk among them. Trunks twisted and polished by sand and snow over the centuries with a small thin band of...

We hope that you enjoyed reading this excerpt from "Motorcycle Touring in Colorado". If you would like to read the entire article and more, you can order a back issue of May / Jun 2006 where this article was originally published.

availabilty: sold out