Day 11 - Steamboat Springs Loop

Hello snow! The storms that came through yesterday brought rain to the lower elevations and snow to the higher elevations (above 9000 feet). Steamboat Springs sits at about 6,700 feet so we had a cold rain with gusty winds. We decided to take the opportunity to explore downtown Steamboat springs and let the weather pass for the day.

Rob kept an eye on the CDOT site that reports on road conditions across the state and good thing—many of the passes he hoped we could ride today across were either snow covered or iffy. Parts of I-70 through the Vail pass had chain requirements for commercial vehicles.

With the higher passes snow covered, he planned a relatively short ride today, about 260 miles, across the relatively lower mountain passes (below 10,000 feet). While some had a little snow, the road conditions reported by CDOT were just wet so we headed on out around 10am (giving the roads a bit more time to warm up and melt off any remaining snow).

The weather today was quite chilly with broken cloud cover. Our route took us east on highway 40 to the Rabbit Ears pass. We ascended up the mountain with an amazing view of the Steamboat Valley below.

As we got closer to the top plateau, we saw snow dusted evergreens and heavy clouds at the top ridge. The grassy areas on the side of the road had snow, and as we went further up, the snow lined the sides of the road. Luckily the temperatures did not go below 34 degrees so the roads were mostly dry (sigh of relief!). This pass was at 9600 feet.

On the other side of Rabbit Ears pass, we turned north on Highway 14. This stretch of road was along the foothills where we could see blue sky in the distance and variations in color in the grassy plains.

We enjoyed seeing a lot of horses today, bracing themselves against the wind. It was coming from the West, so we were blasted from the left for a while, then as we turned south on Highway 125, it got us from the right.

We headed towards Hot Sulphur Springs, but decided to detour a few miles to the larger town of Granby for lunch. We ate at Maverick’s Grill, which had tons of cars outside (a good sign). We sat with a nice view of the mountains, the town being at 8,000 feet in elevation. Rob ordered their award-winning green chili, apparently it came in third place at the national chili cook-off in West Virginia.

After Granby, we turned west toward Hot Sulphur Springs. Past the town, the scenery continued to impress us, as we rode along multiple creeks towards the Colorado River.

We drove thru a small town just outside of Steamboat and saw this huge bucket. It was large enough to drive a car into.

As we got closer to Steamboat, it was still early before 4pm, so Michele suggested we go over the Rabbit Ears pass again. It was 42 degrees, so a tad warmer than this morning. We found the rock formations that we believe are the namesake of the pass. Excuse the blurriness, Michele had to turn around for this shot and her hands were cold!

Once over the pass, Rob turned us around and we went back again toward Steamboat so he could see the amazing views in front of him without having to turn to look (safety first!).

We are sad to have to leave Steamboat tomorrow as this is a lovely town. It has amazing views, amenities and the people are friendly.

Due to the snows last night, we'll likely skip trying to ride Trail Ridge Road (closed since early yesterday due to weather), Berthoud pass, and Loveland pass. With temps expected to be in the mid twenties at those elevations, any snow melt from today will be ice tomorrow morning when we ride through. I-70 through the Vail pass looks clear and dry so that's the route we'll take to get into the Denver area. We'll have to catch those passes (and all the other roads we didn't have time to ride) the next time we visit Colorado.

Tomorrow we are thrilled to be able to see our friends Lynn and Ron near Denver.