» Day 33) Kremmling to Frisco at Bikepacking - …Like backpacking, only on bikes. A blog about a cycle tour from Bend, Oregon to Durango, Colorado

Jul

Day 33) Kremmling to Frisco

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The morning weather was still dull and threatening rain, so we decided there was no hurry to get away. When we finally left the room at 11am the skies looked like they were beginning to clear. The roads in Colorado are so much busier than we have been used to and the mountains scattered with Condo’s. This is obviously a very touristy area and we came across a huge reservoir with campgrounds dotted along it’s edge. Again we opted for the shorter route along the main road rather than the quieter backroad on the otherside of the lake. Stopping at one of the campgrounds, we got away from the traffic for our lunch and a rest in the sun. The campground was pretty full of families with motor boats and rubber tubes to tow behind them.

As we rolled into Silverthorne we were amazed by the beautiful new houses on the several golf estates on the way into town. This place looks expensive. The weather turned again and we decided to take shelter in Dairy Queen and get some food so that we wouldn’t have to cook tonight in the rain. Silverthorne didn’t really seem to have a downtown, it just had loads of chain stores like fast food chains, Wallmart, Target etc. It wasn’t somewhere I would want to stay, but I guess there is lots to do in the local area.

We carried on towards the Dillon Dam, where there was a cycle path towards the next town of Frisco. Not really the weather for swimming now though. We had been earlier informed that the Dam road was closed to cars due to a terrorist threat. Apparently the security services had received intelligence that the dam, which provides the water supply for Denver, was going to be bombed and had closed the road as a result. Thankfully we could still ride our bikes along (I guess terrorists don’t ride bikes). It was very beautiful and the cycle path was great; in between the trees and well design so that we flowed along, often not needing to pedal, even on the little uphill sections. We found the huge National Forest campground before we got to Frisco and after checking the notice board at the entrance, cycled around for 40 minutes unsuccessfully looking for a pitch. We eventually stopped at the camp host and asked if they were full. The very unhelpful host informed us that they were full and that we should have made a reservation. Also to make matters worse all the other campsites in the vicinity were closed due to beetle infestations. He advised us that he hadn’t bothered putting a notice at the entrance as no one took any notice of them. What?! We wouldn’t have wasted 40 minutes of our night if there had been a notice! Very angry we cycled off to try and find ourselves a motel in the exclusive resort of Frisco. As is often the case, we ended up at the first place we tried, but only after wasting more time cycling around and trying to find a better deal. Oh well, we like staying in hotels and the Summit Inn was very nice, with a hot tub, WiFi and a continental breakfast and Frisco looked like it had a really cute downtown area. After checking our emails we found at that Alan was in Breckenridge, but there was no way we would have made it 11 miles up hill tonight. Looks like we won’t catch Alan up now.