Day Four - Tuesday
With our normal routine under our belt we were preparing for the day’s ride, but we realized Ralph had a boot malfunction after riding through the rain the day before. His riding boots somehow jumped into the fire when we weren’t looking and his replacements were not really suitable either. So Mike and Ralph made a quick run up to Montrose to pick up a pair; two as it turned out as Mike decided to take the plunge. So, we got a little later start than normal but we were off. We were going to ride Corkscrew and hit Placer and Picayne Gulches. We were all riding pretty good at this point. Shane and Zach had really picked up their game and even the road experience was greatly improved. We were also down to five riders which made things easier as well. We rode down US 550 to the entrance to Corkscrew. We blasted up the mountain not stopping until we reached the top. Next was Hurricane Pass followed shortly by California Pass. We stopped on California before heading down to Animas Forks. We started up Picayne Gulch but took a little detour before backtracking and continuing on Picayne. We followed Picayne Gulch around and came down Placer Gulch before backtracking all the way out. At the bottom of Corkscrew we went up the little dead end gulch there known as Gray Copper Gulch. We hadn’t been this way before and it was really nice riding. We continued a good way up the mountain before we thought we had seen enough and called it a day as the rain was beginning to roll in. We stopped in town to pick up some groceries and had a nice campfire dinner.
