Every time I get lost, I find a “new” trail.
A new-to-me-trail that is…
Two weeks ago, I took Starship Nederland up at the usual weekend time—8am—only to be overwhelmed by the number of other passengers on the flight.  Each year this shuttle has become more and more popular as the word has spread of the nice trails of the Magnolia galaxy and surrounding areas.  I was meeting a few friends up at Annie’s bakery to ride in a compact 4-pilot formation.  The shuttle riders were in war formation of 17-person formation, which is widely known to stir up hiker and equestrian ill will towards pilots everywhere.
Therefore, my squad decided to ditch the peloton.  We rode first to the soon to be closed S-trail star and the trails that lead to it.  Ending up crossing a large creek by means of a 35 foot fallen log. This area is great cause nobody including you knows where the hell I’m talking about.  In completing this feat, we reboarded our single geared ships and proceeded to grunt up into higher terrain—the Sugarloaf galaxy.  Finding a few links that were very needed, we end up in enemy territory—NIMBY land.  We skirt out of there without being seen…more exploration needed to avoid that area.  We ride up the main road a little and take a break…we’ve been riding for 1.5 hours and covered a total of about 3 miles as the crow flies.  This is where our luck turned sour…we see the peloton approaching.  Too late to abandon our post, we suck it up and greet them in the nicest possible way.  It takes about 15 minutes for them all to regroup, the dust cloud settles behind them.  After talking about nothing, and us trying to avoid the ride invitation, they continue on.  We plan a counter attack…we will follow them from a discreet distance, shoot out to the highway as a shortcut, and then put the hammer down and get in front of them on the trail…”SwissMiss.”  We fail miserable and they see us—DK rides into the woods trying not to be seen…I really doubt that worked as they watch us fumble on the road for a alternative plan.  We take a right up to Switzerland trail to make it look like we’re doing a different ride than them.  Me, thinking that I know where I’m going (I swear I did), get us lost.  Hiking around looking for the correct trail, we end up on a trail that we’ve never seen before that leads down to the same point that SwissMiss does, except on the other side of the creek!  All psyched that we’ve ditched the peloton, we ride down to cross the creek only to be thwarted AGAIN with them taking yet another safety stop.  (It seems like they ride for 10 minutes and then rest for 20!).  Anyway, we hike back up the trail to see where it starts and end up finding the beginning an hour later and loop around to SwissMiss and ride down it.  Now we know we’re behind them and most likely won’t catch up….or will we?
We proceed to ride Aspen grove to X-Files and fuel up at the local store…still about 2,000 ft. high above homebase Boulder.  That’s basically the end. If you know Boulder, you have to drop most of the largest elevation on dirt road no matter where you are coming from…what a waste of gravity.
So my point?  Why ride in packs that large?  It only pisses off the other trail users and local landowners!  What do they then do? Well, they close the trails one way or another.  Another local trail has closed this week: “Santa Cruz”.  It was the best local trail in Boulder.  It was relatively hidden and we had a good relationship with the landowners and local property owners.  Why did it get shut down? Well, all I know is the last place we saw that pack of 17 riders was coming out of that trail on our way down…you make the call.  It was Saturday, and there were 17 riders on a quasi-legal social trail in between lots of private property…I think they broke the camel’s back.  The trail was closed a week later.  Now we have ONE trail within a half-hour ride from Boulder…Betasso, which is already overrun with people and not technical at all.  Where’s my pacifier!
Until next time,
Meriweather.