Day 97, October 11th, 40.54km and 591m climb, Horseshoe campsite (closed) to Luxury Inn and Suites Silverthorne
It was a funny night last night, neither of us could settle, worried about bears or something. It's certainly not the first time we've slept in the middle of nowhere with no one around (in fact we probably do it 2 or 3 times per week) so not sure why last night was odd. Maybe we were just uncomfortable sleeping somewhere with a closed sign, who knows!
Another frosty start so we headed out happily into the sunshine and finished off the climb up Ute Pass. We passed a big dirt dam being worked on at the bottom of the climb and about half way up a massive molybdenum mine. It looked like the molybdenum mine used the reservoir as a sludge pond. Not really the usual back country vistas we are used to!
Once at the top (still not quite at 3000m) it was a quick downhill to the main road and through to Silverthorne finishing with some nice cycle trails into town. We are staying at the Luxury Inn and Suites which was quite possibly luxury when I was here last in 1995 but probably doesn't quite cut it these days. Still, it is cheap and clean.
We arrived just after lunch and this afternoon we hopped on the free Summit County bus to head out to Keystone Ski Resort where I worked back in 1994/95ish and have not been back to since. We hopped off the bus for about 10minutes and wandered around for a bit. Everything had changed and not much had changed is all I can say! It was fun to go back and have a look. Maybe I'll come back to ski sometime.
Just a quick ride again tomorrow through to Breckenridge. This will set us up better for the following three days through to Salida. Weather is looking good after today's blustery and thundery afternoon which we were glad not to be riding in.
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