August 03, 1999

BERTHOUD PASS

I had a pretty good night at the Y.M.C.A. Snow Mountain Ranch outside of Tabernash, CO. The only problem was the paper thin walls. I got on the road around 7:20 a.m. for the ride into Tabernash. There was a good bike path to follow between Fraser and White Park. The fourteen miles after White Park were pretty good because the climb was gradual.

It got a bit tricky because the road started to take switchbacks and there wasn't any shoulder. I thought that it would be best for me to walk some. After walking about five and a half miles, I was able to get back on the bike to ride the remaining miles up to the top of Berthoud Pass.

It was around 12:30 p.m. when I got to the top of the Pass. The sign read 11,315 feet (over 2.14 miles above sea level). This was the highest I had ever cycled. It was great that there was a tour group around so that somebody could take a picture of me and the bike next to the elevation sign. I didn't stay long because the temp. was only in the forties.

Berthould Pass had been discovered by Capt. B.L. Berthoud on May 12, 1861. It was surveyed by Berthoud and Jim Bridger in July 1861. A toll road was opened over the Pass in 1874 and the present highway was completed in 1923.

It was a tricky ride down the other side of the pass to Empire. There were a lot of switchbacks and some portions of the highway were under construction. There were several times when I had to slow down to almost a crawl because of dirt across the road and even flowing water. During the first six miles, I must have lost about three thousand feet of elevation.

When I got into Empire, I had a big rush of excitement. I had to call some friends in Americus, Georgia that I had made it across the Contintal Divide at one of it's highest points. It would be downhill from now on pretty well through the rest of Colorado. My biggest challenge had been overcome.