Our experience Adventure Riding in Wyoming and Colorado in 2011 …

Leaving Idaho we joined the Continental Divide trail in Wyoming and made our way out into the remote desert/prairies that were full of antelope, superbly camouflaged and waiting to jump out in front of you.

The tracks were amazing, as was the scenery and when my bike started to cough and splutter (I thought it was the altitude initially) and we could see the far off shadow of rain approaching, I was more than happy to set up camp out in the middle of nowhere and enjoy the views, rather than push on to a town.

Not that we had much choice… what started as a splutter quickly progressed to a cold and straight to pneumonia. Confident it was something playing havoc in my carby I set to work and by dark had found a whole heap of gunk in my main jet and float. No idea where it had come from as I have two inline filters and have pretty much always had the same fuel as Jock but that how it goes.

Rising early to put the bike back together, we ad a big day ahead of us pushing on south through the desert and quirky little mining towns before abruptly hitting the forest again. Not far back into the wooded mountains of northern Colorado we came across a massive washout on the first bitumen road we’d seen in a fair while. The road crew were working on it but there was no way we were getting through today. Not deterred, it was still early in the day and we started looking on our GPS for some tracks that would get us around the closure and back on our way. After both of us searching pretty hard we found a route that followed a stock track and hunting trails.

Excited about getting even further into the bush we rode on and on as the tracks became narrower and narrower. they really were stock tracks. I think the area is used for droving cattle and sheep over the summer months and the tracks were used primarily by horses ad ATVs. Not perturbed we kept pushing on, enjoying the more technical riding but conscious that we weren’t really set up for the mud, logs and rocks that would have been great fun on an unloaded bike. All was going well until a log that had been cut across the track bit my right hand pannier and spun me around, skillfully removing both panniers and myself from the bike.

Making use of some of the hammers that were laying around I easily worked the panniers back into shape and reinstalled them and myself on the bike. We weren’t to get far though because Jock had already stopped up ahead for the biggest mud patch of the day. It took two of us to get each bike through and we were really glad that we found the proper road again soon after that. Rolling into Steamboat Springs we would’ve been some sight amongst all the holiday makers.