Crosier Mountain Monday!

I was fortunate enough to escape to Crosier Mountain today.  I haven't ridden Crosier in a couple of years.  It did not dissapoint (never does)

I started at the private ex-youth hostel known as H bar G.  It's private and marked private everywhere but they are ok with bike and hike traffic as long as you follow the rules.  Keep the gate closed and be on your way to some of the best, most scenic, and toughest singletracks around.  Crosier Mountain.

Before too long, you cross Piper Meadows.  Today was pretty hazy.

 Looking back towards Estes.

 The trail has some steep loose climbing.

 From here down, it's 4 miles of some of the toughest natural terrain on the front range.  To say Crosier has steep and chunky trail would be an understatement.  If you make it out without breaking yourself or your bike, you've done well.  I couldn't think of a better bike than the Intense Carbine for this voyage.

 The trail starts out seemingly enough.

 But jumps you into the gnar core pretty quick.  Here's a shot of some of the flat part to give an idea of the terrain.

 Still some meadows on the way down with buff singletrack.

 Back to the chunk!

 Steep troughs, too.

 Finally made it to the Garden Gate trailhead after about a half hour of descending.

 Then some roadie time.

 20 minutes later and back on dirt, this time the Gravel Pit lot.

 The Crosier Mountain singletrack is harder for some than for others.

 more climbing.

 more climbing

 more climbing

 more climbing

 Finally.  One last descent, one more climb and back to the H_G Ranch.

 Little bit of steep and chunky left.

 And a little beautiful aspen grove singletrack right at the end.

This route took me about 4 hours door to door including breaks.  Now that the kids are back in school, I might have to make this more of a regular occurrence!