Summit Co Brewery Bikery 2024 ~ A Hoot & A Half 20Jul24

While the day started sketchy, the 46mi/2600ft quasi-annual Brewery Bikery was excellent for 5 friends and me around Summit. A fire in Clear Ck Co closed I70 through the tunnel and routed the front range attendees over Loveland Pass for starters, making them late. Then Bob's car fob crapped out on our move to the starting point; we ultimately got the right battery and were down at AJs almost on time, while Bro Brown waited for us all. The Brewery Bikery is a bike ride among all of the breweries in Summit County with enjoyment of a 1/2 pint at each brewery. We start @ 10:30am at Angry James and head clockwise first to Outer Range in Frisco (with an 11 clock opening). We were a little late in starting but completed the ride before dark. I even added team event jerseys this year. The weather and energy was great. Yep, Scott's ebike is a station wagon in disguise and Jason is riding my Magic Carpet Ride.

After attacking the serpentine climb up the dam (we didn't lose anyone) we reassembled. Our 1st stop was at ORB. The founder/owner (of my fav of the Summit breweries) was pleased with the effort and "advertising" and comped us all snifters of their triple IPA... so that started things quickly as we also had the 1/2 pint pours we bought.

We wrestled back onto the bikes and out for the quick jaunt to Highside and then onward all the way up to south Breck for the original Breckenridge brewery. We actually had a quick lunch there too and took a pic with patron Shannon, who was in an eerily similar shirt.

We rode back through Breck on the main road rather than on the heavily trafficked (walkers & bikers) bike path ~ much easier. We hit the excellent Broken Compass brewery next, in north Breck.

The next section is the toughest as we complete the ride from Breck to Keystone by riding Swan Mtn and then wending to the far end of Keystone at the bottom of the Keystone ski resort. Challenging. I caught a sign advertising our bike event! Not really, the Copper Triangle is also be raced this weekend on some of the roads & paths we were riding. Kize was KOM up Swan, using significant battery power on the assent. The unaided bikers rode strong and Kize ushered in our friend Jason like on Le Tour. On the Keystone side of Swan we used the windy downhill bike path and I caught the team individually cross a bridge. Damn it, Jim wouldn't wave.

We'd been lingering a bit at some stops and made our visit to Steep a smidge more brief.

The next section was again long but taking us to the last four breweries fairly closely clustered in Dillon and Silverthorne back on the other side of the lake. On to Pug Ryans (no pic), Dillon Dam, and, the newest brewer in the county, Syndicate.

It may not look it from my pose but despite the consumption we are buoyed by the riding and none too buzzed. The final stop is at Angry James, our starting spot and where the cars stand ready with racks.

My moving time was 3:45 so my 4 hour estimate initially to the team was pretty close... except our longer stops made the whole ride more like 7hrs. We bid farewell to Jim who headed back to Denver and lit out in cars up to the Nest for some tasty nosh, nightcaps, jokes, and tunes. A fine capper on a great day with friends; thanks everybody for coming out!

It's notable that prior to the Bikery Bob, Steve, and I took a sail in great then very rough weather. We just made it to dock in very high winds before the skies unleashed with water. Good effort all around but too short.

Septugenarians Scale Mohawk Lks' Ramparts & More ~ Cool Colorado Cuts On A GR8 Day In The 10 Mile Range 18Jul24

My big bro Brown and I 1st hit Angry James for some pops and live tunes on Wed after his arrival to the Lodge and my 'freedom' from not receiving the camper replacement faucet via FedEx. Hey, who else notices that FedEx info systems now often mis-predict ~ weird at one point they were the best and now, for me, they are the worst. Whatever. We met a local artist that night, he sang a ton of covers, capably, and one original while we were there... AJ's beer was good. Bro Brown's music training continued that eve on The NestMT, after separate dinner plans. A strong start to the WE.

We rested decently and headed out to tackle the climb to (effectively) the Pacific Crest in the 10 Mile Range ~ ok, the base of that. Yeah... the uppermost Mohawk Lks via Spruce Ck trail; this is just over the ridgeline from another fav hike, Mayflower Gulch hike. Anyway... I drove the Crusher Too up the gnarly 4WD road from Blue River to a spot 300 yds below prior capable scaling... the forest service has now blocked the road for the final climb, which is likely a favored stop for Kala, who didn't like that last part "at all."

We donned our fishing and hiking gear and set out ~ literally just 300 yds from the TH we used to set out on prior. One other car was there but just two others as well on return. It is still not easy and bro Brown was pleased the Crusher Too was on point this day. Completely GR8 8mi/1600ft hike today in fab weather. I gave some meager instruction to less aware fishermen today (Steve asked 'why' but I say 'why not' ~ they heeded despite their lame plan and caught up to us on the way back pre-storm: "go deep I said." Steve & I passed snowfields and awesome waterfalls quickly and often: "do you wanna glissade?;" "he might be dead (DD/GL circa some yrs prior)."

There were a decent # of folks on the climb, but not past Mohawk #3, except finally "my guys" on instruction to 'go deep.' Steve saw them. It is not easy but it is gorgeous. The flowers are out right now... lower down we even saw some columbine, rare on this approach to alpine.

The eastern slope of the 10 Mile Range holds Breck skiing, which we love, especially in spring, and is otherwise gorgeous. We were right in it and we knew it. Here's a "super-pan" coming upon Mohawk #6...

We skipped the randy spawning cuts in the outlet sections of 6 & 7 as we leave them to replicate for future generations. The nature show was completely cool though. Steve nabbed some nice Colorado cuttys from the steep (non-spawning) side of the inlet to #6 and I scored plenty in the same area as well as from lake #7 above. The completely weird CO Fish & Game question is, "why is everything now CO cutty and not greenback" as several years prior? At this elevation, it might be winterkill... size is suspicious. Yet, arrival was very cool, as some mouth-breathing 70yr olds kicked everybody's asses up the trail and on the lakes. This was a very cool hike ~ we needed to eat on occasion to keep strength but mine still waned... snow was still everywhere. Our fishing was never suspect. I used the Rodfather PowerPack 6pc 9ft 5wt built for casting beyond the littoral plane on the alpine lakes... tiny parachute Adam's or Griffith's gnats were the ticket.

Once back down the trail and the rugged 4WD "road" we stopped at Broken Compass for a celebratory ColoRADbro. The vibe there was cool.

Roaring Fk Fail 14Jul24 & Fix 19Jul24 And Recon Gore Ck 17Jul24

I pulled into the Gateway RV Park in Carbondale on Sun without issue. I filled the BC20X with their water and turned on the pump; I finally noticed that the inside faucet had failed and was leaking all over everything in that cabinet... grrr. After turning off the pump and cleaning everything up I set out to fix the faucet. Unfortunately it's a cheapy and could not be repaired effectively in the field, and really needed to be replaced. I decided to blow the whole thing off and drag the camper back to the Nest to buy, receive, and make repairs. No sticking the Pan pigs on this outing. Camping without water was not gonna be good. The RV park was fine but right on CO 83, so loud. It was almost right on the Roaring Fk too though. Still prefer higher near Aspen at Difficult CG when in this river drainage.

I was bummed and basically am waiting for an upgraded replacement faucet to arrive. That did allow me to binge Stitchers, a decent sci-fi show.

The new faucet did not arrive today via FedEx as expected. I got a folding faucet as needed but went all metal vs the plastic original one. Hopefully tomorrow for receipt and install. Next week is Conejos camping & fishing so I need it fixed.

FedEx delivered faucet the next day and I spent Fri morning installing and testing. Is it bad I had parts leftover? It's all good - in plenty of time for Mogote CG.

Gore Ck is still running pretty high at 127cfs today. I jumped Vail Pass to Eagle Co to recon Gore Ck for possibly fishing it later with Bob. Hmmm... I did catch fish in each of my three standard sections there: the mouth, the west Vail, and the dawg park but the fish weren't big. The main issue is that the creek is still running fast, making wading a bit dicey. I didn't see other fishermen. I caught mostly 12" Scottish browns but did get one 14" rainbow and one German brown. I rigged with a summer Chubby up top, green wired up ice caddis and black DCEZWD40. Subsurface did most of the work with the caddis the main bug though all flies scored. The fish are not spread across the creek yet ~ most of my catches were closer to the edges, with the flows still high & fast. I wielded the Rodfather Brookie 9ft 3wt which was sporting a new trimmed down fighting butt I recently made; it's cool but the length makes it just a bit heavier in the hand than my other 3wts. The RFT3 is awaiting a new warranty section rebuild.