Sunday, October 19, 2008

Durango, Colorado Trip

The top of Animas City Mountain Trail
Animas City Mountain Trail
View of Durango after just a mile of brutal steep climbing.
The trail is very rocky.
View looking north towards Silverton and Durango Mountain Resort from the trail.
Ponderosa Pine trees covered most of the trail.

Mountain bike legend Ned Overend's autographed bike jersey in Olde Tymer's Cafe where we ate in downtown Durango.
Olde Tymer's Cafe
The only and last telegraph pole in world. It is at the train station museum, the tour guy said if any of the workers at the train station bumps into it, should not come back to work the next day.
Durango was very fun, especially the bike ride. When we got there we ate at Steamworks Restaurant, I had a good steak there. The next day we took a tour at the Train Station Musuem with a lot of working steam engines, it was really neat. Josh and Andrew really liked it. While I was on my bike ride, everybody else saw the train coming back from Silverton and watched them put it away and everything. Go to barlowbuzz.blogspot.com to check out more about it.
After we went to museum, we went to Olde Tymer's Cafe and I had a really good burger, that was my favorite place to eat. Then I went on my mountain bike ride on the Animas City Mountain Trail right outside of town. The first three miles was a very steep and rocky climb then there is a fun downhill with a lot of jumps back to the trailhead. This is the third time I have ridden the trail in my life, the first time when I was thirteen or fourteen. I did the climb to the top in 50 minutes from the trailhead which is a whole lot slower than Ned Overend, mountain bike racer legend that lives in Durango. He does it in 25 minutes(from the "Mountain Bike Like A Champion" book by Ned Overend). Now he is fast and that trail is really rocky and especially steep, no wonder why he's good. If I was 30 pounds lighter, I would probably shave off maybe 10 minutes of my time and that would really help. There is another popular trail just right outside of town but at the other side of the town from the Animas Mountain Trail is called Horse Gulch. I will have to try that next time I go to Durango. It is a lot easier and not as rocky or steep. There's also the Colorado Trail and some more trails in Durango Mountain Resort. After my ride, we ate at Mama's Boy with good Italian food but it's not my kind of Italian food, I like mom's better. Then went to bed and went to Mesa Verde the next morning.


6 comments:

Putz said...

why didn't you have fun in messey verdi??????

Anonymous said...

I am so glad you had a great time. I love all the restraunts you went to! Ole' Tymers was one of my favorites. I didn't realize I sent you to a place where there was a jersey of a biker you knew! COOL!!! I am glad you got to do the trail again. I loved the pictures!

YZGuy said...

Sounds like you had a great time! I remember Ned Overend from when I use to ride mountain bikes.

Daniel said...

Ya, he was a good racer.

Putz said...

You surely did get to see some beautiful scenery on your bike ride. We did eat at some fantastic restaurants didn't we? Fun, fun, fun. mom

Daniel said...

Yeah, the restaurants were good but I am a little surprised that I got the most expensive meal out of the whole family every time I went. Dang! What is wrong with me? What did I just do?!!!!?!?!!???