After getting through the snowstorm, Virgile, Marion, and I are working our way through Colorado, though the threat of another storm coming led us to take a break in Fraser,CO for a few days to wait it out.

After the first storm, we left Steamboat Lake for the much bigger town of Steamboat Springs, where we were wonderfully put up for a few days by Hugh, Jim, and Joan. This town has everything I imagine about a Colorado town; bikes everywhere, active people, and mountains in and around town for biking, hiking, skiing. Our first order of business when we arrived was finding a good burger place. The Double Z didn’t disappoint! My first time eating out about a month!

Steamboat Springs is a town of titanium. Moots, a company known worldwide for its titanium bikes, has its factory here, with tours on Mon/Wed/Fri at 10am. Our hosts were friends with Kent Erikson, the founder of Moots, who sold the company some years ago and now has his own custom frame-building business in town. He and his workers are super chill and showed us around his shop. Gorgeous bikes.

With Kent and the workers. Super chill, making awesome bikes.

After a few days’ rest and catching up on our digital work, it was back on the road. Right away we’re back to climbing, though luckily our rest had given the roads some time to dry after the snow.

At the top of Lynx Pass. A decent climb to get here, though I had gotten confused by one of the signs earlier and thought we still had 10km to go to the top. Luckily Virgile and Marion corrected me, leading to smiles all around.

Our campsite for the night.

The next day we had a little farther to go through the forests, featuring steep climbs that we weren’t at all expecting. But we had promise of reaching the Colorado River to lure us on.

Biking, through trees and under warm sun.

Our map for today kept talking about the long dive to the Colorado. Here we’re finally at the start of the dive, after many false expectations that we’d already started the descent. Here at the top of the canyon though, we had great views of the valley where we’re headed.

Marion on the descent. Despite getting closer to the Colorado, the landscape is dusty and dry. A huge old tree right by the river gave us shade for lunch.

River valley in the background.

After climbing back out of the valley and down the other side to Kremmling, we took a tiny detour off the Great Divide to head to Fraser, as word was there was another storm coming Thursday night. Some relatives offered us use of their condo in Fraser, which turned out to be the perfect place and timing to stay warm while the snow fell.

We took advantage of having an actual kitchen to use, cooking food from home instead of the pasta and rice and instant mashed potatoes dishes that have become our staples.

Bread, salads, chicken and potatoes, pizza. We ate well.

Thanks Uncle John and Aunt Mary Beth for the place to stay! It’s time to head south again, since supposedly our next destination is Colorado’s “banana belt”, with at least slightly warmer temperatures than here.