“Uh, do you ride around here much?”
“Well, I come here about 3 weeks every year to go riding”, I replied. The questioner, bespectacled in a blue T shirt, was holding (and occasionally chewing on) some paper wrapped breakfast or lunch concoction apparently consisting of lettuce, a tortilla, mayonnaise, and a dearth of any actual useful food. He had a shifty glance, though not a devious one. He seemed more to be looking from side to side out of deference. I’ve seen this before in Aspen. When the service personnel are dealing with strangers, especially one with a white beard and a ludicrously exotic and expensive bike, they don’t know how many millions or billions of dollars are standing in front of them. Or what political persuasion or nationality they might be dealing with. So they go to extremes to appear to avoid offense, either in word, deed, or body posture.
“Do you like to ride with other people?”
This is getting ridiculous. I’m thinking. Get to the point. “Sure, sometimes I like to ride with other people.”
He goes on for a couple of minutes about the pluses and minuses of riding with a group, eventually letting on that rides leave here many mornings at 11 AM, informal, open to everyone. “Of course, you don’t have to ride together. If you’re going faster, just keep going, wait for them to catch up, whatever.
“Like yourself, people who like to ride”, clearly implying that he meant serious riders for whom 2-3 hours in the saddle might just be a warm-up or recovery.
“Where do you go?” I asked.
“Well, it’s loose. Whatever the group wants to do. Today, I just sent out two guys with aerobars up Castle Creek road. You might be able to catch them, if you see them out there.”
“Ok, I’ll keep that in mind”.
I’d been folding my jacket to stuff into my CamelBak, there on the bench on Hyman, across from the Opera House, in front of the Wild Fig and The Hub. I’d stopped into The Hub to buy some bike gloves, after I couldn’t find mine before starting out on my planned ride up to Maroon Bells. I guess in the bike shop, the manager (whom I finally recalled from my last visit there 3 years ago for a quick fix to the front derailleur on my mountain bike) had seen my get-up – I’d brought my time trial bike into the shop, to see if they could tighten the rear hub – and wanted to let me in on the local scene for hard core roadies.
I looked around me, and had a searing flash of Aspen essence. Here, in this spot, all in one sweeping glance were: the Wheeler Opera House, a solid three story sandstone monolith from Aspen’s silver mining glory days, the tallest building in town and locus for Comedy and film festivals, cultural talks, and intimate music performances which separate this ski and mountain town from all others; the Wild Fig, a casual and oh-so-elegant restaurant typifying Aspen’s myriad collection of gourmet and tasty eateries; the Hyman St. Mall, which foresightful city fathers had decades ago closed off to traffic, creating the model for all the rest of the ersatz towns trying to imitate the Queen (think Whitsler/Blackcomb); a store catering to the upper crust’s penchant for bruising yet environmentally acceptable rigorous sporting activities; and, rising above it all, Ajax herself, Aspen Mountain, perennially plundered first by loggers and miners, then by skiers, but still an awesome sight as it rises brutally upwards from the edge of town, just three blocks south.
All this on the first day this week I’ve actually seen blue sky. Not the cloudless variety, like in the Sierra, but the puffy cumulus filled azure and white curvature arching high over the continental divide. I’m tricked out to go riding up into those mountains, on a hill climber’s dream road. But, nudged by the bike shop guy, when I leave Marolt Park, instead of going one more valley over, to Maroon Creek, I turn left up Castle Creek. It doesn’t matter, I’ll do the Bells the next time.
Castle Creek road is the neglected step-child among the drainages feeding into the Roaring Fork at Aspen. First, of course, is the valley of the Upper Roaring Fork itself, fending its way down from Independence Pass, at 12,000 feet on the Divide, through narrow Grottos and along sheer cliffs, where the road is unchanged (save for paving) from the 1890’s when it was first blasted into the rock for horse-drawn carts to bring supplies from Denver before the railroad hit town. Then, there’s Hunter Creek, which flows by Smuggler Mountain, home to the $40,000,000/45,000 sq foot third (or fourth, or fifth, or …) homes of the unconscionably wealthy, and leads to the verdant, nearly flat uplands hidden just outside of town. Maroon Creek comes down from the Bells, whose dual polygonal granite walls rise 4000 feet straight up, and are more photographed (usually anonymously) than even my home town Mt. Rainier. Half way up Maroon Creek Road is the eponymously named Pyramid Peak, just as imposing in size as the Bells, but lacking their gulp-inducing double barreled aspect. And, maybe they have a better PR guy. Whatever. Once you make the right turn, and see those Bells head on, you instantly forget poor little (14,025’) Pyramid.
No, Castle Creek lacks all this. It has always been a working road, not one meant for recreation or sightseeing. Ashcroft, still a ghostly town site with salvaged but decaying structures laid out above the beaver-dammed upper valley, was founded to rival Aspen, but the winters proved too long and harsh for even hardscrabble miners. In the 1950s, Toklat lodge appeared across the road, raising sled dogs for Hollywood. At the downstream end of the beaver dams, a rancher struggled to raise horses. At the end of the road, gravel ruts lead to Pearl Pass, and on to Crested Butte. And, the Montezuma Basin mine opened in the 30s, and again in the 80s, necessitating a strong and smooth asphalt surface for all the double dump trucks hauling tons of ore downhill.
Hidden amongst all this, though, was a vacation paradise. The end of the road ran smack into Elk Mountain, for which our local range is named. Cathedral Lake, set in a glorious 360 degree bowl as beautiful as Notre Dame, perches on the northern shoulder of the valley. Toklat Lodge has morphed into a winter cross country ski site, complete with rustic Pine Mountain Cookery for lunch. The struggling ranch is now Elk Mountain Lodge, with a drop dead view of the whole upper valley, and a multistory log cabin for Texans and Arab sheiks to lounge in while waiting for their hunting guide. The mine has shut down, leaving the road, and all these views, free for the riding.
I don’t know which is better, the climb up or the schuss down. Going uphill, my speed is slow enough that I can enjoy the rushing creek right next to the road. At slow speeds, the sound of wind rushing by my ears is muted, replaced by the tumbling waters, and occasional river rock overturned within a cascade. Downhill, dressed against the mountain chill, the slope is gentle enough that I can coast or pedal, with mild corners just tight enough to require some angling, but without any tongue-biting fear.
I think the climax of the ride, though, lies at the turn around. The paved road ends at the creek, a mile past the beaver dams, just at the base of Elk Mountain. The meandering waters have carved out a flat, broad sloping valley, mostly free of trees and brush. But a few isolated pines angle across the stream’s track, providing perfect frames for the alpine scenery. I’m all alone. I got here, 15 miles and 2000 vertical feet up from town all my own two legs (and my ridiculously expensive, totally inappropriate for the mountains time trial bike), and I couldn’t be more pleased. Enjoying the receding effects of the grind up hill, anticipating the freedom of the trip back down, and eying the bursting simultaneous Winter/Spring/Summer day up here at the end of May.