Cruise Colorado 2012

[DonC]

Well, another Mile Hi Cobra Club super cruise is in the books. Once again Al and Deana Bockman produced a fantastic event and the memories will stay with me for a long, long time. I’ve been fortunate enough to have made several of the events and, believe me, it’s worth the commute from Portland to Denver and back for the six days spent in Coloradao.
For anyone who hasn’t made this cruise yet PUT IT ON YOUR BUCKET LIST. This year us “foreigners” came from Illinois, Texas and Oregon. In years past they’ve come from as far away as Ohio and New Jersey.
This year’s Cruise Colorado went from Golden (read Denver) to Steamboat Springs to Grand Junction to Salida and back to Denver. On the way we wandered from 4 to over 12,000 feet and drove through scenery you could make postcards of. About 1300 miles for the entire cruise. Only one significant mechanical problem (a blown throw out bearing) but it was repaired in a day. I think the high count for cars was 16 with one or two hooking up and then dropping out as the cruise progressed. Not a drop of rain for the entire six days (we didn’t even see a cloud until day 5) with daytime temperatures for the most part in the low to mid 80’s.
My co-tographer (Carolyn) couldn’t make it this year so I didn’t get as many photos as I have in past cruises. Both of my cameras were mounted on the car so almost all of what you’ll see here is through the windshield. A true shame because about 90% of the scenery is missed by fixed forward mounts. The other thing that’s missed by photographs is the tremendous “scale” of what you’re seeing. That’s something that no photograph can truly impart. You’ve just got to be there to appreciate it.
I’ll make my standard disclaimer and caveats about the photography here. IT WASN’T MY FAULT. I only had my standard lens to use on the stills and my dashboard mount for the video wasn’t rigid enough so there’s a lot of vibration in the video. I apologize in advance.
That being said, here we go with Day 1.
Since we were heading northwest from the Denver area we got a head start by kicking off in Golden, CO. For those who aren’t familiar with it Golden is the home of Coors Beer which most readers of these forums will probably recognize.

The view from the hotel created a nice preview of what we’d be seeing during the cruise.


The cruise kicked off at a local 7-11 where we provided a mini car show for the locals and picked up anything we’d forgotten.

The usual suspects.


And the lineup for the start.


From Golden we traveled up to Estes and then on to the north entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park.
The road in RNMP starts off in a reasonably flat valley but you quickly start climbing. Once the climb starts it just keeps going and going. The climb from the valley floor (around 6000 ft.) to the crest (about 12,200 ft.) goes on for about 27 miles.
Starting off on the valley floor (call it a running start for the climb ahead)


Starting the climb. Always with the mountains around and in front of you.


And continuing to climb.


And still climbing.


Did I mention that it was a long climb? Summer came a bit early this year since we were above 10,000 ft. before we finally started picking up some snow.


As we neared the top we kind of leveled out. We were still climbing but not as pronounced as it had been up to that point.


As we neared the top the wind had picked up significantly and there were a couple of times I had to keep a hand on my hat to keep it from blowing off sideways. My best guess was about 40 to 50 mph.
At one point we had a couple on a motorcycle about 10 cars ahead that were down to about 20 mph trying to keep it upright in the cross winds


Finally the top. The motorcycle finally pulled off and from here on it was clear sailing down (32 miles) what we had just climbed.


Here’s a very compressed video of the climb up to the top. I’ve tried to keep the segments down to no more than 30 seconds to keep away from the “summer vacation” video syndrome.
Some of the most “interesting” scenery is off to the right as we climbed higher. In several cases with nothing between you and the “long step” down the side.
At 2:29 in the video we pass a bicyclist on his way up to the crest. Keep in mind that this guy is peddling uphill at 10,000 ft. plus. I figure he’d be a good candidate for the Iron Man.
CC 2012 Day 1a - YouTube

Again, my apologies for the shaky mount. It has since been corrected for next year’s cruise.

The trip down the mountain was pretty much the reverse of the trip up. Every time you come around a curve or over a hump you’re presented with another spectacular view.



Go a little farther and you get more.


We start to pick up more trees as we descend and the views just keep coming.


And finally back onto the valley floor for the rest of the run into Steamboat Springs.


Here’s the video of the descent back down to the valley.
CC 2012 b - YouTube

The day ended with a well earned drink in the bar and finding out which bits you missed with the sun screen when you jumped into the shower.
All in all a great first day.