Gunnison mountain biking has many excellent, but underrated mountain bike trails snaking through the surrounding terrain, mainly in the Elk and West Elk Mountains to the north.

This little-known hide-away area of Colorado lives quietly in the shadow of its more famous neighbor, Crested Butte.

Though only 30 minutes from Crested Butte, the Gunnison mountain biking season lasts much longer due to its lower elevation. Often biking will continue deep into October.

The best variety of Gunnison mountain biking rides are to be found at Hartman’s Rocks, located just south of Gunnison airport. Bikers will find themselves amused and challenged for hours on end, tackling the more than 25 trails in the area.

This area with its variety of short to mid-length trails, is a great place to adjust your body to the altitude before heading into the mountain trails!

Another trail in the Gunnison mountain biking area, is the Deadman Gulch Trail. This advanced 20 mile loop is a challenging trail with many steep segments. It makes for excellent high altitude riding, with a lot of variety in terrain flashing by!

For more advanced Gunnison mountain biking, you can try the Deer Creek Trail. This 29 mile loop, taking 3 to 5 hours to complete, offers some fantastic views of the Elk and West Elk Mountains. You will encounter some really difficult ascents, but to balance things out you, will enjoy miles of easy riding through impressive aspen groves.

An intermediate Gunnison mountain biking ride is the Wager Gulch Mountain Biking Trail, a round trip of just under 10 miles. This trail consists of a rough four-wheel drive route leading to Carson, a well preserved ghost town in the San Juans.

After Carson, the trail continues up to the Continental Divide, where you can do further mountain biking in just about any direction!

The Strand Hill Trail is a short 8 mile loop ride. It consists of a few steep sections through some stunning Gunnison mountain biking terrain and groves of aspen.

An intermediate trail, the Lost Canyon Mountain Biking Trail of 24 miles, takes 3 to 4 hours to complete. Climbing from Gunnison town along a spur of the Colorado Trail, it offers a variety of riding options. Steep rocky climbs will test your technique, followed by mesa-top riding through aspen groves.

The McIntosh Loop Mountain Biking Trail includes advanced Gunnison mountain biking along its 35 miles. This is a beautiful trail, through a variety of terrain types. It follows old jeep roads, and offers great views of the Gunnison Valley and the West Elk Wilderness.

Once you get to Gunnison, be sure to get a good map at a local bike shop, to help you make the most of Gunnison mountain biking!

For more information visit Best-Mountain-Biking.com

Rika Susan of Article-Alert.com researches, writes, and publishes full-time on the Web.

Copyright of this article: 2006 Rika Susan. This article may be reprinted if the resource box and hyperlinks are left intact.

Initially I was blind sided by Alpine daisies and Digitalis (foxglove) passing themselves off as wildflowers, much less the other fabulous scenery on the North Cascades Highway, and then they showed up again. I turned the tables on them though and made a pass. I don’t commonly make passes at bikers, but in this case, it was a must. I went around them. Bikers. The non-motorized kind.

I hit the brake often for resting bicyclers and continued searching, as I drove, for the perfect shot of wildflowers. My “kill two birds with one stone” mentality needed Ross Lake as a backdrop.

I ducked out of traffic last spring when I got off the ferry and dipped onto South Chuckanut Drive. For approximately twenty-five miles I was in another world with narrow, winding roads under a canopy of trees and there I wanted to stay. I passed under Highway 5 near exit 231, hung a right onto Burlington Boulevard and left on Avon Avenue (Highway 20), headed east, back to Colorado. No traffic, feeling a bit lost even with a map, another sixty miles and I slowed down even more. I was in the Cascades.

My mind filled with a flash of Concretia from the Flintstones movie along the way, when I passed through the town of Concrete. There is not much to it but history, folklore and a garish cement stack with bold lettering no one can miss. Concrete sits below Baker Dam and the base of Lake Shannon. The bikers were beginning to add up as I passed more and drove another twenty-six miles, through Marblemount, climbing, climbing. Gorge Dam and its long, narrow Gorge Lake, then Diablo Dam created more than fifty-years ago, and Diablo Lake, and further on and above, Ross Lake, all a sparkle of deep blue.

A labor of love goes into building our roadways so travelers like me can see the grandeur of our country. North Cascades Highway was completed in1972 after twelve years. Down one particularly steep grade around a switchback the view of Ross Lake takes your breath away. It spans into Canada for a mile and a half. Access is only available on the U.S. side.

Six passes on and around this route reach elevations between 4,000 to 5,500 feet. Sherman Pass is the highest, followed by North Cascade, Loup Loup, Wauconda, Rainy, and Washington. Passes are monitored for weather changes, but expect Loup Loup Pass to remain open year round. Like Ross Lake, Loup Loup Pass goes into Canada. From Marblemount to the end of the Cascades on this highway fifty-six more miles awaited as I continued to dodge bikers.

I recommend springtime travel, more tourists and travelers flock here in the summer. Mid-April through late June is the time to reduce distractions, catch craggy peaks, and glimpses of passing wildflowers, but watch the road, too. Bicycling is a springtime fancy that brings hoards of them into the mountains. They do what they do for more than exercise and health. Funding good causes comes into play.

Covered with Douglas fir, many of the surrounding peaks, such as Liberty Bell Mountain, Ruby Mountain, and Early Winters Spires tower in the high 7,000 elevation range. My first time in northwestern Washington and writings stating European images came to light. It is truly awesome. Bicyclists benefit from unobstructed views and find safety quickly even from wild drivers like myself.

The humid side of Washington was about to end when Dry Falls appeared. The eastern leg of northern Washington is dry, flat, agricultural land stirred up by high winds that creates “dust devils”. They are ultra-mini tornadoes that whip the land into some sort of shape. The foreboding look of three or more can be seen at any given time throwing a fit on the horizon blending yellow, brown dust with cerulean blue sky.

According to Washington State Parks, Dry Falls is one of North America’s geological wonders. Dry Falls is a cliff over three miles long and 400 foot high and was once ten times larger than Niagara. The Colombia River used to rush through here.

On one free-fall, in neutral down a steep, winding grade on the North Cascades Highway, there they were. And again, when I rounded a corner at Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park, and once again before I crossed into Idaho. Still headed eastbound on Highway 20 just leaving Coulee City headed to Spokane, on the flat, dry plains, faces of the bikers were becoming recognizable. I filled up every two hundred miles or so from Washington to Colorado and began to think my speedometer was broken because the same bikers were everywhere I was. Were they following me? My curiosity was piqued, because I just couldn’t shake them all the way through Washington.

I began to hallucinate seeing bikers in Montana, thinking, they were still following me. So, here it was ten o’clock at night, I pulled off at a state campground, plopped ten dollars in an envelope, pitched my tent, and dreamed of bikers.

This link covers a bike tour that lasted 71 days and 4,224 miles starting at Anacortes, Washington and ending in Bar Harbor, Maine.
http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com/articles/2004/06/10/recreation/rec01.prt

True account of one of the bikers who took the Washington route.
http://www.phred.org/~josh/bike/ncascade.html

Interested in biking across the entire United States contact:
http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/bikeaid/welcome.html
http://www.bikingbis.com/blog/_WebPages/statebicycletoursRW.html

Washington State only:
http://www.cascade.org/EandR/raw/index.cfm

http://www.redspoke.org/day1.htm

One to Mt. St. Helens?:
http://www.tourdeblast.com/

Linda’s writing appears in From Eulogy to Joy, Beischel, Xlibris Press, 2000, http://www.Bootsnall.com, http://www.scribequill.com, and http://www.ezinearticles.com She loves to travel, write, design, decorate, and paint. Linda studied writing through Long Ridge Writers Group in Connecticut, journalism at MSCD, Denver, and painting at the Art Academy in Loveland, Colorado, USA.

We’re often nagged by the need to “work out” more but so many things get in the way. We see people packed into gyms doing workouts, and think : I have to drive to the gym, pay for my member’s costs, then workout. It just seems like a lot of effort, isn’t there something I can do that’s not going to blow a lot of my time - even something pragmatic?

You might consider purchasing a bike, as biking around is a great way to improve one’s health . You can cycle to work or to the shops, so it’s very practical. It’s also very cheap - there’s no petrol involved and the running costs are negligable. It’s also eco-friendly. Oh, and it gets you fit too!

But many people are unwilling to get a bicycle because it’s just TOO much exercise. As odd as that may sound, consider that they may be aged, suffer from particular ailments, be elderly, or live in a hilly location that make bicycling too “hardcore” for their capabilities. And for a few individuals, it’s not pragmatic pedaling to their work since they will sweat too much through the efforts of pedaling.

This is where e-bikes, or electric bikes come in. E-bikes give you a breather on the difficult slopes simply by twisting your hand on the handlebar and letting the electric motor take the strain - you don’t need to do any peddling then. Then when you feel up to it, just let your legs take over. So you get your modest exercise and fresh air without over-doing it. Electric bikes are also cost-effective to run needing only a daily battery recharge if you do about 15 to 22 miles per day, although most people need just a couple of re-charges per week as they’re not doing this kind of mileage. If you need to carry your bike around, consider a folding frame e-bike.

Nowadays the real cost of buying an e-bike have dropped in price, so you can save yourself a considerable amount of money on gym memberships, fuel, bus fares etc. by buying and regularly using an e-bike.

If you want a different experience while camping France, rent a car! When most people think of camping they imagine roughing it out in the woods with nothing more than a tent and a camp fire. However, if you rent a car in France you can camp anywhere in the country for very little cost. But just because the cost is low doesn’t mean you have to suffer through roughing it. France has been updating the travel stops along it’s major highways. There are plenty of travel plazas that offer cafes, frequent police patrols and even big screen movies. One location in particular is located near the Pyrennes Mountains. It offers a free movie with breath taking views of the nearby mountain ranges.

The costs of car camping France are relatively low compared to other ways of travel. You can stop at many travel plazas and rest stop and relax in your car for very little money. Most of the roads do have tolls and you will want to plan on paying as you drive through the country. If you do decide to camp in France, don’t miss the wine country of Burgundy. There are all kinds of restaurants, shops and even a wine museum. All these delights of France are available to those who want to do some car camping.