Cripple Creek and Rampart Range - Colorado Springs Area

[RyanSBCA]

Well, I'm going to throw in some pics from two different mountain drives up here in CO.... I love it here in CO... I still say it's better than CA. And this is coming from a Santa Barbara native...

Drive from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek (old mining town). This was all highway, no dirt... just some cool pics.

Near Pikes Peak:
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/044.jpg[/img]

Random horses on someones property:
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/047.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/050.jpg[/img]

Cripple Creek:
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/054.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/055.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/056.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/058.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/060.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/064.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/067.jpg[/img]

Rampart Range Rd (from Garden of the Gods to north of Castle Rock)
Wouldn't really call this a 'trail run' more like a relaxing saturday drive on a graded dirt road in the mtns.

I only got to do about 1/4 of the road bc I got a really late start and it started to get dark and is supposed to snow 2-4" tonight... didn't want to get into anything unsafe, so I turned off at sunset.

Garden of the God's:
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/068.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/070.jpg[/img]

Rampart Range Road:
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/071.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/073.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/075.jpg[/img]

Anyways, came across a kid taking the chains off his Ford Taurus... while I was talking to him I thought I saw a wolf running up... realized it was a husky and had something that looked like a stuff animal in his mouth... ended up being a Deer head... It was the kids dog, he had no idea where his dog got the head from... I now wonder if a deer is down the hill or if hunters left the head for some reason. And this being the world of the internetz and "show me" era... YES I HAVE PICTURES!

[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/081.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/082.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d26/rkpalmer/083.jpg[/img]

[Bert338]

Nice pictures, sometime a relaxing drive in the country is the best.

[RyanSBCA]

Exactly, especially when I'm solo in the mtns... I don't want to be stuck 50 miles from a town in the winter...

The Cripple Creek pics are from Christmas Day... which worked perfect, bc a friend on FB mentioned how her son asked her brother to tell Santa "Thank you for all my presents" so when I remembered "Santa's Workshop" was near Pikes Peak... I stopped, snapped the pic, sent it to her saying "Tell your son I made a personal trip to the North Pole to thank Santa for him... Santa was extremely tired, but said it was worth it, bc he was such a good boy this year". He was thrilled! So, that made it all worth it. :D

[K-Rich]

that deer head is random!

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

[Dirty LJ]

Looks beautiful out there!!!

[Desert Dog]

Awesome pics, thanks for sharing. Looks like CO is having a pretty weak winter like we are. Snow should be 5 times that high this time of year.

re: deerhead

That is "Poaching left-overs". Being that the head was cleanly cut off indicates the work of humans. The fact that it was on the side of the road indicates that the deer was spotted from a vehicle and taken down near the road (which is illegal). Being that the doe was shot outside of season means it was the victim of poachers.

The Kern County mountains just outside of Bakersfield are full of poachers. They almost always hunt from a roads at night with spotlights.

[RyanSBCA]

GJ- It is awesome out here... I wish there was more snow... snowboarding would be 100% better (although it is 100% better than CA Snowboarding already).

DD- We kind of figured that it was hunters/poachers...

All from Infectious... anyone interested in coming out this summer and hitting up some CO trails? I got a couple books and there are tons of amazingly beautiful places to go and camp/wheel!!!! Hit me up if we want to plan an IOR CO Trip :D

*Btw, I went out again on Sunday... another graded dirt road, but was tons of fun, I'll post another set of pictures soon!

[Desert Dog]

[quote="RyanSBCA"]All from Infectious... anyone interested in coming out this summer and hitting up some CO trails? [/quote]

You should meet some of us in Moab for EJS. JKO will be having a few good runs and after-parties during that time. Its a pretty short drive for you (but 13 hours for me).

[RyanSBCA]

[quote="desert dog"]You should meet some of us in Moab for EJS. JKO will be having a few good runs and after-parties during that time. Its a pretty short drive for you (but 13 hours for me).[/quote]

I'm actually thinking about that... it's like 5hrs for me (what I used to drive for Vegas)...
As long as work isn't insane around then, I'll most likely be there!