The summit of Guanella Pass lies at 11,669′ above sea level, making it the 8th highest pass in Colorado. Until recently, it was a gravel road. There are a couple of parking lots at the summit that serve as trailheads. On the east side of the road is the trail that goes to the top of Mount Bierstadt. On the west side is the South Park trail, which takes hikers to the two Square Top Lakes, the summit of Square Top Mountain, and points west and south.
I first drove over the pass only in the last few years. On my first crossing, I spotted the Bierstadt trailhead and decided it looked like a fairly easy hike. Many others evidently feel the same, as Bierstadt is the most popular 14er with hikers, with an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 hikers each year.
I didn’t realize that Bierstadt was that popular, but I was aware that there’s not a huge amount of parking available. Because the hike to Square Top Lakes is fairly short at just over two miles each way, I wasn’t concerned with hitting the trail first thing in the morning. But I did have a little heartburn over whether we’d be able to find parking.
Other than my almost obsessive desire to hike to alpine lakes I’ve never been to before, why these lakes? The hike is short and easy: it’s only a bit more than a four-mile round trip, climbing only about 600′. The trailhead is on a paved road, which is a logistical issue for me. And, finally, the lakes are high. The lower lake is 12,065′ and the upper lake is at 12,284′. These would be the highest-elevation lakes I’ve yet hiked to.
Sunday, July 16
Chad kindly volunteered to drive, and he had a forty-minute drive to collect me. I suggested he pick me up at 7 and I hoped that there would be enough people who did get on the trail early enough to be returning to their cars, freeing up some parking.
We arrived at the summit of the pass at about 8. To be fair, we arrived about a quarter of a mile below the summit at about 8. By then, cars were already parked on both sides of the road. We parked there and walked to the parking lot. Spotting several empty spots, Chad went back to the car to move it into the lot. We weren’t concerned about getting ticketed for parking on the road, but if there were a bunch of empty spots, why not park in one? The lesson here is, even if many cars are parked on the road, there may be empty spots in the lot.
Given the number of cars here, and the relatively small number of hikers on the trail to Square Top Lakes, I’m guessing the vast majority of people were heading up Bierstadt. That was fine by me: we would not find solitude on the trail today, but at least it wasn’t a “conga line hike”.
The hike itself is straightforward. It sees a lot of traffic and is entirely above treeline (and plainly visible on aerial/satellite photos) so there is no concern about route-finding. It’s not very steep, averaging about 300′ per mile. It took us about an hour to reach the upper lake from the trailhead, and that included a number of stops to enjoy the view.
There were a few folks there fishing. I don’t fish, so I don’t know, but I suspect these lakes are too high for fish and doubt they’re stocked. The lower lake looks shallow enough that it might freeze solid in the depths of winter. The upper lake, I think, is a little deeper.
I always carry a picnic lunch with me, but given our early start and short hike, we didn’t eat. We did relax for a while on the shore of the upper lake, though. It was a beautiful, cloudless day, not terribly breezy, and the sun warmed us even though the temperature was a bit on the cool side.
After our short break, we decided to circumnavigate the lake. The slopes of the mountain are not steep around these lakes, so they’re in direct sunshine all day and almost all the snow has melted. The shores are grassy rather than rocky, and there isn’t much willow or marsh, so it was an easy stroll around the lake.
Lower Square Top Lake and Sqare Top Mountain
Mount Bierstadt and Mount Evans
Upper Square Top Lake
Lower Square Top Lake, seen from the upper lake
Upper Square Top Lake and Mount Bierstadt
Colorful wildflowers
Lower Square Top Lake
We were back to the car by 12:30.
For the return trip home, we could either go back the way we came (up I-70 to Georgetown) or continue over Guanella Pass to US 285. Chad hadn’t been over the pass in quite a while, so we chose the “road less traveled”. This turned out to be a sound choice. I don’t drive I-70 on weekends very often. Michael drove home from Glenwood Springs a couple of hours later and reported that it was stop-and-go traffic from Silverthorne to Idaho Springs.
It looks like there are a number of other lakes in the area that deserve visits, so I’ll undoubtedly be back for more.
Imagine your left hand, palm up. The hikes in the James Peak Wilderness correspond roughly to your fingers: Rogers Pass Lake and Heart Lake would be on your thumb and Lower and Upper Forest Lakes your pinky. Clayton Lake, then, as well as the two Iceberg Lakes, would correspond to your index finger.
Back before James Peak Wilderness became part of the National Wilderness Preservation System in 2002, there were trails serving the lakes on each of your fingers. The trail to Clayton Lake, though, was “abandoned” about thirty years ago. (The trail to Arapaho Lakes was similarly abandoned a bit more recently.) According to various online resources, though, the trail still gets quite a bit of use. All these sources say the same thing: just follow the creek straight up the hill. Descriptions of this former trail are all very similar: “The creek and trail funnel through a rock-bound gulch with little room to maneuver.” “That last part was pretty hard but really cool.” “There is a section that is a bit of a steep scramble. Used my hands quite a bit through that section.” And there’s this one: “I read all the comments and they said ‘It’s hard to see the trail as it’s not maintained.’ No, the trail just completely doesn’t exist at all. I attempted and got completely lost. It was quite scary and will never do it again.”
A couple of summers ago, I ran into a volunteer and quizzed him about reaching Clayton Lake. He suggested that it’s easier to get there by going up the Crater Lakes trail to about 9400′ or 9500′ elevation, then striking cross-country from there. On my hike to Crater Lakes a bit after that discussion had me thinking I knew where I should leave the trail. But it’s an inexact science. Satellite photos aren’t much help, as the area is fairly thick forest. But it does seem that this route avoids climbing straight up a steep slope. I was willing to give it a shot.
Ideally, I’d like to reach the two Iceberg Lakes as well, but I’m not confident I can do all three on a day hike. If I can’t collect the Icebergs in a day hike, I’ll need to backpack in and spend a night. I’m not confident that the “straight up the stream” route, including “steep scrambles” is something I want to try with a full pack. Perhaps the volunteer’s route is better suited. Well, there’s one way to find out.
Monday, July 10
I arrived at the trailhead parking lot at about 8 am. The road is in good shape right now and is set to improve as it is currently being graded. It’s about eleven miles of dirt road to reach the parking lot, but anything short of a low-slung sports car should have no trouble navigating it. I was a bit surprised to see only about a dozen cars in the lot, maybe half of which belong to backpackers not yet back from their destinations.
At the trailhead, there used to be a sign-in sheet where all hikers were expected to list the date, number in the group, their destination, and how long they’d be on the trail. This logbook is no longer there; at least it wasn’t there today.
It took me an hour and ten minutes to reach the trail to Crater Lakes. I hiked up this trail for about forty-five minutes, periodically checking the elevation with my phone. I was at more or less the correct elevation, I figured, so off the trail I went. Going was fairly easy at first, not too much deadfall and the terrain I was crossing was fairly level.
My plan was to avoid making any steep climbs, heading west or southwest and climbing as I went. Before long, I came across a small stream. I wasn’t expecting to reach water until I got to the stream that is the outlet from Clayton Lake, but it didn’t seem like this stream (actually three or four small streams braiding their way down the slope) carried enough water to be Clayton’s outlet. Nonetheless, I headed uphill following the stream.
The forest here was getting more difficult to traverse, getting steeper and having more fallen trees. I crossed the stream half a dozen times as I climbed, always searching for the easiest route. At one point, I climbed a bit where I knew I’d have difficulty going down. I try to avoid going up slopes I think will cause me difficulty when going down, but I figured (if I managed to retrace my steps) that I could make a small detour if need be.
After following the stream for a while, I found the source of my little stream. I was standing at the edge of a marshy meadow. Rather than slog my way across it, risking wet feet, I skirted the meadow. On the other side of the meadow, I found a grassy ramp, somewhat steep, that climbed alongside giant granite slabs. Above me looked to be the low spot of a saddle. Perhaps I was getting close to the lake.
Topping this slope I found myself back in the woods. With the ground much more level, the walking was easy again. I kept climbing, always looking to find the low spot on the saddle. Continuing west or southwest, I expected to come across the outlet stream eventually. Passing through a small band of trees, I found myself on another grassy slope, walking slightly downhill, and could now see the lake. I had arrived on the northern shore of Clayton Lake.
The lake is mostly surrounded by forest. I’m a big fan of finding a nice rock to sit on for my picnic. Ideally, said rock would be in the sun, out of the wind, and close to the water. In search of such a rock, I worked my way around to the outlet. There’s still quite a bit of snow here and I easily crossed a snowdrift that hid the outlet. I saw no sign of the old trail, but there was a social trail that edged the north shore. Finding mostly snow on the south shore, I abandoned my search in this direction and doubled back.
From the time I left the Crater Lakes trail until I returned to the trail about three hours later, the only sign I saw of any other person was a boot print in the mud on the little social trail that skirted the north shore.
I wandered the north shore for about fifteen minutes before I found my picnic rock, considerably farther from the water than I wanted to be, but so it goes. Just before I got off the Crater Lakes trail, I met a couple of backpackers on their way back to the trailhead. I asked if they’d seen any game. “Just mosquitoes!” Mosquitoes aren’t big game, but even on my picnic rock, out of the trees and in a light breeze, mosquitoes buzzed me constantly. I’d sprayed some mosquito repellent on me back at the car, so I was happy that it seemed to still be working. They buzzed, but they never landed.
After relaxing for a bit more than half an hour, I started to retrace my steps back down the mountain. I’ve found that route finding is easier on the way down than on the way up: the value of the high ground. I quickly found a game trail. A few yards down the trail, I felt that I should have been heading more to my left, but I stayed on this game trail for a bit longer. It seemed to be well-traveled, punctuated as it was with pellets. Before long, I decided to backtrack, forgoing the trail for the untracked ramp I climbed earlier.
Back at the marshy meadow that was the source of the small stream I followed uphill for a while this morning, I managed to find another game trail. At no time on my climb to Clayton Lake did I find a game trail, but from this trail I found just below my marshy meadow all the way back to the Crater Lakes trail, I managed to go from one game trail to another.
My experience with game trails is that they’re nice when they’re nice, but they often stop being nice in the most inconvenient places. Today, every time deadfall blocked the trail, I was able to find its continuance a few yards later. Game trails generally aren’t singular things: they’re all part of a network. From the marshy meadow back to the trail, whenever there was a choice of direction, I kept to the left and downhill. I figured I couldn’t go too far left – I’d eventually reach the Crater Lakes trail. My only concern was not finding myself at the top of some rock outcrop that I couldn’t get down.
These game trails kept me out of trouble: I’m pretty sure the deer and elk aren’t interested in getting stuck on some random outcrop and they don’t want to go up or down anything too steep. As I said, this game trail took me right to the Crater Lakes trail. I made a note of where it is. On the hike up the Crater Lakes trail, there’s a large coil of cable just off the trail. I have no idea why it’s there, but it’s been there for years. I figure my game trail is something like three hundred yards past the cable, very near a large sawn tree trunk.
My Route, Roughly
View to the Southeast
View to the Southwest
From the inlet
Near my Picnic spot
Notice the game trail heading left
Given that my route back from Clayton Lake was so easy, I think I’ll return on a backpacking trip. Even having found this easy route, I think Iceberg Lakes are too far for me to reach on a day hike. Hiking cross-country with no trail is a lot more time-consuming and more strenuous. But I’m confident I can backpack up this route and by spending one night at Clayton Lake, I should be able to collect both Iceberg Lakes.
When I’m hiking on a trail, my mind often goes into auto-pilot mode. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other until I get to some navigation point. My feet stay on the trail, but my mind wanders. Bushwacking, though, is another story. My mind is intensely focused on the task at hand. Bushwacking is a bit like solving a maze that has more than one solution. At any given point, I’m looking for where I should go next. How do I get around this jumble of deadfall? I want to go there, but what’s the best way? Once I get there, where do I go next? My mind does not wander. I’m not thinking about some TV show, I don’t have some song earworming into my brain, I’m not bothered by what some idiot said on the internet, and I’m not worrying about rent, or debt, or thinking about what I might do tomorrow. I’m in the here and now, completely focused on the moment. It is glorious.
Mount Jasper rises to nearly thirteen thousand feet on the Continental Divide in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. One might think of it as being shaped somewhat like a starfish as it has five major ridges emanating from it. Two of these are situated on a nearly east-west axis. Between these two arms is a drainage that contains Diamond Lake, Upper Diamond Lake, and a couple of smaller unnamed ponds.
In addition to Mount Jasper, there is also Jasper Lake, an operating reservoir in the next drainage to the south of Diamond Lake.
There’s a well-traveled trail from the Fourth of July trailhead to Diamond Lake, a popular camping destination. There is no official trail from Diamond Lake to Upper Diamond Lake, but a little research yields at least two routes from Diamond Lake to Upper Diamond Lake. For maps, my go-to resource is Caltopo.com. They indicate a trail from the westernmost shore of Diamond Lake up an inlet, passing a pond before climbing to the north. ProTrails, on the other hand, suggests heading more or less due west from a meadow reached just prior to the trail actually reaching Diamond Lake.
Diamond Lake, like most of the other alpine lakes in Indian Peaks, sits fairly high up at a shade under 12,000′. Upper Diamond Lake is another 800′ or so higher. Because we have had such a wet spring, I expect the forest sections of trail below Diamond Lake might still be covered with snow. Certainly, no matter what route I might take to Upper Diamond Lake, I expect to find quite a bit of snow. At this time of year, even without higher-than-usual snowfall, microspikes would be required.
Monday, July 3
Both the Hessie trailhead and the Fourth of July trailhead are served by the same road, which becomes a dirt road just after passing through the town of Eldora. I’ve only been up this road a handful of times before today, and never on a weekend. Yes, today is a Monday, but with a holiday tomorrow, I expect it to be busier than a typical weekday. I was correct.
A sort of temporary entrance station was set up on the road at the entrance to Nederland High School. I arrived here at 7:45. They already had the shuttle bus for the Hessie trailhead operating. I was second in a line of four vehicles; we all were going to the Fourth of July trailhead at the end of the road. The fellow working the station got on the radio with a ranger at the trailhead to see how many of us could proceed. We were the last four cars allowed up the road. We had to wait a few minutes for the shuttle bus to return because the road is narrow.
It appears that sections of the road have been recently graded. Other sections are quite rough. Four-wheel drive isn’t required, but a fair amount of ground clearance is. Almost all the vehicles in the parking lot at the trailhead were SUVs and 4x4s, but there were a couple of compact cars.
When I arrived at the parking lot, I was afraid the ranger had miscounted. As I was approaching the lot, she was headed down the road in her truck. The spot I parked in was right up against a no-parking sign and I was concerned that overzealous enforcement might result in a ticket. One of the cars behind me took a similarly marginal spot across from me. I never did see where the fourth car parked.
The morning was beautiful, with clear deep blue skies, calm, with a temperature of just under 60 according to the car’s thermometer. Outstanding hiking weather.
The trail from the parking lot climbs about 600′ to the junction with the Diamond Lake trail. There is one pair of switchbacks in the middle of this climb, which traverses an increasingly steep slope. After the switchbacks, there are a few places where you get a nice view of the opposite side of the valley. Prominent in these views is the outlet stream from Diamond Lake, which cascades more than 400′. The sound of the falling water is constant accompaniment on this first mile or so of trail.
A bit more than a mile from the trailhead is a junction: to the left is Diamond Lake; to the right, the Fourth of July mine and trails to Arapaho Pass, Lake Dorothy, and South Arapaho Peak.
Heading left, the trail descends about three hundred feet before climbing the other side of the valley. There are a few stream crossings, with at least one of the bridges in need of some repair. As I expected, there is snow on the trail in places that don’t get much sunshine.
Just before reaching the lake, the trail levels off quite a bit and dumps the hiker on the east end of a large meadow. This early in the season, only the yellow flowers that flourish in marshy ground are in abundance. Perhaps as soon as a few days from now, flowers sporting all the colors in the rainbow will carpet the place.
Here, today, the trail is still covered in snow. A small rivulet is carving a little canyon through the snow. Snow melts from the bottom, and you can easily see that the trail crosses a snow bridge. It’s hard to judge just how thick the bridge is, but when I crossed it in the morning it was twelve or fifteen feet wide. Still, I was careful to not step where I thought it was thinnest. On the way back, a couple of hours later, the bridge was nearly gone, the snow is melting so quickly.
One possible route to Upper Diamond Lake heads across this meadow and up the slope that’s northwest of the lake. I didn’t see an obvious “easy” route – the meadow is more like a marsh right now, and the slope still held quite a bit of snow. It might be a good route in August or September, but I wasn’t going to head up that way.
When I got to the shore of Diamond Lake, I met a couple of hikers. I asked them if they had tried to get to the upper lake. I showed them my map while we discussed it. They weren’t familiar with the route suggested by ProTrails but did make an attempt to go the way that’s marked on the CalTopo map. They didn’t get too far: it was too snowy for them. Here, I decided to skip any attempt to reach the upper lake. The hike so far was a pleasant one, and there’s no reason not to come back when there’s less snow on the ground and the meadows aren’t marshes.
I walked along the northern shore of the lake. It’s grassy. Well, it’s grassy under the snow. I was a bit surprised at how much snow was still on the ground here, given that it’s in direct sunlight much of the day. It’s three, four, even five feet thick and stretches along the entire north shore of the lake. There are a few rocks along the shore that might make good picnic spots, but I preferred the somewhat larger rocks right along the trail.
Valley View
Failing Bridge
Marshy Meadow
Snow Carving
Snowberg!
Diamond Lake
Diamond Lake
A Little Friend
The summit of Mount Jasper isn’t visible from here, just one of its eastern ridges. Here, much closer to the Divide than the parking lot, it was naturally a bit breezier. No mirror-like lake surface, but not so windy as to make whitecaps.
I didn’t count the number of campsites. Diamond Lake isn’t quite as busy as Lost Lake, but it’s still quite popular. On the hike and at the lake, I never went more than a few minutes without encountering other hikers. That said, my picnic spot had the illusion of solitude. Other than the few people who passed my picnic spot on the trail, I only noticed a couple of hikers who were circumnavigating the lake.
On the hike out, I stopped for a break where a stream crosses the trail. There’s no bridge here, hikers just step from rock to rock. With the water running high this time of year, it can be a bit fraught. While I was eating my grapes, I watched two couples make the crossing. The first couple had an infant strapped to mom. They made it easily. The second was a bit more tentative. She went first, he stood by getting her crossing on video. She nearly tripped. I told her that if she had tripped, he’d have gotten it on video. “Good thing I didn’t trip!”
A bit later, I came across a group of five or six backpackers. They were headed up to Lake Dorothy. They’d never been there before. I described the lake and its environs and jokingly said I hoped none of them intended on sleeping in hammocks as the lake is surrounded by tundra.
It was a gorgeous day for a hike. The weather was outstanding. I was never bothered by mosquitoes. Although I didn’t reach my ultimate destination, I’m not disappointed. All in all, it was another beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A final note: I overcame one of last week‘s disappointments. It seemed odd (but not out of the ordinary) for a new version of a product to remove a feature of an older version. In this case, though, it was simply a change in the defaults. I can still take individual photos for my time-lapse, and edit them to my heart’s content.
Aside from a short walk one day on my Atlanta trip back in April, I haven’t been hiking yet this year. It’s past time to rectify this.
Back in the depths of winter, I did a bit of map study and came up with a list of ten day hikes I might possibly make this year. Most of the hikes on this list are in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. One of them is Skyscraper Reservoir, which is reached via the Woodland Lake trail from the Hessie Trailhead.
Much of the lower part of the route is along the South Fork of Middle Boulder Creek. To get to the Woodland Lake trail, one must head north from this stream. On the map, there appear to be two options. The first is the trail I took last summer to reach Jasper Lake and Devils Thumb Lake. This trail runs parallel to another trail that connects the King Lake trail and the Woodland Lake trail. The two trails run on opposite sides of what I assume is Jasper Creek. The trails are never more than about a thousand feet apart, but neither trail is visible from the other. As I’ve already hiked the eastern one of these, I elected to take the western one.
This turned out to be a sound choice. There’s a spur trail connecting the two about a mile from Middle Boulder Creek. I assumed there’d be a bridge here to cross the creek. It doesn’t look like there ever was a bridge here. Many of the trails began as wagon tracks, and this crossing is simply a ford. Given the amount of snowpack the Indian Peaks received this year and the continued wet weather, the North Fork of Boulder Creek is flowing high and mighty. I’d probably be okay wading across it in August or September, but not today.
Part of the mile of trail between Middle Boulder Creek and the Woodland Lake trail can be challenging to follow. The trail gets a bit braided. It’s surprisingly easy to get off what should be the main trail onto something more like a game trail. I managed to do this hiking in both directions. It was more obvious on the way out. At one point, I knew I was on a trail I hadn’t been on earlier. I backtracked a bit but never did find where I went wrong.
Only about a quarter of a mile after the ford where the spur from the Jasper Lake trail, there’s a bridge that crosses the stream the trail is now following. To be more correct, the trail crosses the stream but the bridge is gone. Well, not “gone” so much as broken into pieces and lying in the middle of a raging torrent. It looks to me like this bridge has been out for a while, but I could be mistaken.
Again, given the flow of water, I wasn’t about to attempt a crossing. Clearly, I wouldn’t be reaching either Woodland Lake or Skyscraper Reservoir today. When I set out, I figured I might have time on the hike out to make a side trip to Lost Lake. Instead of a side trip, Lost Lake got promoted to today’s destination.
It’s only about a quarter of a mile from the main trail, up the spur to Lost Lake. The last few yards are the steepest. By the time I reached this steeper part, I’d already hiked about two and a half miles farther than anybody else here. I was powering my way up, huffing and puffing and sweating, when a downhill hiker felt the need to encourage me: “You’re already there!”
Lost Lake is a kidney-shaped body of water covering a bit less than five acres on the northern flank of Bryan Mountain, a non-descript peak topping out at less than 11,000′. There are nine campsites situated around the lake, and a trail (along with a network of social trails) circumnavigates the lake. The best view, in my opinion, is found on the eastern shore, looking a bit west of due north.
The trail guide says Lost Lake is a 2.7-mile round trip. I’m not sure if that’s the correct distance or not. If it’s measured from the trailhead, the hike is another half a mile each way. I’ve only ever seen one or two vehicles actually make it to the trailhead due to the deep water on the road that services it. Everybody else just parks along the main road. In any event, Lost Lake is the shortest hike from the Hessie trailhead and is therefore the busiest destination on the menu.
I stayed at the lake for a bit over an hour. There was a steady stream of hikers coming and going, and it looked to me like all the good shoreline resting spots were in constant use. At least a few of the folks didn’t seem to realize how well sound travels over water, and the other people there could clearly hear their conversation. I had my picnic lunch and relaxed, while other hikers fished or swam.
My first disappointment of the day was the washed-out bridge that stymied my hike to Skyscraper Reservoir. My second disappointment of the day was my peach. I should have realized it’s far too early in the season to get my favorite Palisade peaches, but when I bought them, they seemed ripe. I want my peach flesh soft, juicy, and sweet. Instead, it was crunchy like an apple; not very juicy, not terribly sweet, and only vaguely peach-flavored. So it goes.
Bridge Out!
First view of Lost Lake
Best view from Lost Lake
Lost Lake
While I ate and rested, I had my GoPro Max doing a timelapse. I should have played around with this camera before doing this. It doesn’t work at all like either of my older GoPros. With those, when I’m doing a timelapse, it snaps a still photo every two seconds (or whatever interval I want). After an hour or so, I’d have a couple of thousand stills that I can crop in whatever way I want. That allows me to make sure the image is not cockeyed, or to crop them in a way that simulates zooming or panning. Disappointment three is that the new camera outputs not a bunch of still photos, but a fully-formed 1080p video. My video editing tools allow me to do the pan/zoom/rotate thing, but I would lose quite a bit of resolution. Unless I figure out how to take a still photo every two seconds, I’ll have to continue using the older camera for time-lapse videos.
Shortly after leaving Lost Lake, the clouds started getting a bit threatening. By the time I made it back to the car, it had started to hail. The skies to the west didn’t look good at all. Perhaps it was a good thing that I couldn’t take my longer intended hike. I had my rain jacket with me, but I might very well have spent a few hours slogging through the rain.
On the LOCO drive last month, I had an issue with my right rear brake caliper. That was the second time it happened. It also cropped up on the drive back from Atlanta. When Michael fixed it the first time, we noted that the disk was starting to crack and the seals on the caliper didn’t look good.
The plan was to buy new pads all around and replace the rear disks and the right rear caliper. But I wanted to go on the LOCO drive, so it went on the schedule for some time after the trip. We see how this turned out.
I also decided that, while we’re doing all this, I may as well upgrade to stainless steel lines. And, what the heck: why not paint the calipers, too?
Not long after I bought the car, call it a decade ago, I told myself I should be able to change my oil myself and learn how to replace brake pads and disks. At about that same time, I had Doug help me replace the pads, but it didn’t stick. More recently, I had Michael show me. He is very patient with me.
The object of the game, then, will be to do as much of this work myself, with a little supervision by Michael, and in the end not only have fresh brakes but the confidence that I can do pads and disks myself without supervision.
Before the LOCO trip, I checked some prices but didn’t place any orders. When the time came to place my order, it turns out that the pads I usually use are not in stock anywhere. Neither are the disks. So for this job, we’ll be using OEM parts. Luckily, the caliper I needed was in stock. The stainless steel lines were not only available, but I had a choice of silver or red. I chose red.
I replaced the front pads a couple of weeks ago, as soon as my order arrived. The front pads were shot and I needed to replace them post haste. I did this without Michael’s presence. Hurray!
Let’s Do It!
Thursday evening, I had Michael show me how to remove one of the calipers. My plan was to get everything taken apart on Friday. That is, get all the calipers off the car and replace the rear disks. For better or worse, I intended to do one corner at a time, removing the calipers and remounting the wheel. Then I could clean and paint the calipers. Finally, have Michael show me how to replace one of the brake lines, do the rest on my own, then put it all back together without assistance and be back on the road Monday or Tuesday.
Eisenhower said that plans are nothing, planning is everything. This plan, like many of my others, was nothing.
Things went well enough on Friday. That is, I managed to get the three other calipers off the car. The fronts and rears are different, and I attacked the fronts incorrectly. I figured it out before long. On the left rear, I had a bit of difficulty getting the pads off due to the disk having developed a lip.
Next job was to clean and prep the calipers for painting. The new one was simple: just mask off the bits I don’t want to be painted. Then I went after one of the fronts. I hit it with brake cleaner and wiped it down, then tried a wire brush and sandpaper. I think it’s as good as I’m going to get it. Michael agrees that it’s good enough to paint.
When I removed the front calipers, I noted the position of the brake lines. It wasn’t obvious to me how we were going to unfasten them. Michael had a couple of free hours on Saturday, so I had him help me with them. We decided we needed to take more of the car apart. I started with the wheel liner, but that didn’t help.
Then we went after the clam louvers. I already had the colored access panels off. Naturally, I dropped one of the bolts. Sort of removing the front clam, I’m never going to see that bold again. I may hear it rattle and buzz, but I’ll never see it. We now had somewhat better access. It’s still a pain. Michael’s short-handled wrenches came in handy. In the end, Michael did both sides.
I went after the rears on Saturday. I asked Michael for help, but I managed to do both of them myself. I was happy they were so much easier.
When we were done, we talked a bit more about getting ready for paint. It was only then that I actually looked at the left-hand rear caliper. It was in nearly as bad of shape as the right. There’s no point in putting it back on the car. The left side rotor was in pretty good shape, a bit of a lip, but no cracks or discoloration. I somehow had assumed that the state of the right-hand caliper was associated with the state of the disk. When the bolt backed out, the pads would engage on the disk, at an angle. I figured the heat damaged both disk and caliper. But, no, I will now blame the condition of the calipers on age.
So I ordered a replacement left rear caliper. I checked maybe a dozen places and the only one that had any was the same place I got the other one. A couple of hours later, I get an email telling me that he doesn’t have any. It has to come from England and will be a couple of weeks.
Cracked disk
OEM replacement disk
The difficult fastener
Red SS line
Car in kit form
So much for getting back on the road Monday or Tuesday. How does July sound?
Here I may as well add that I’m trying to get my windshield replaced. I went to Safelite. A week later, they told me one was on the way. That was two weeks ago. One vendor I reached out to is having some made, but it’ll be “late summer” before he has them. That could be September 20th.
The team has built three cars in the last six months. The other two cars were used a few weeks ago in the One Lap of America. At that event, they met some Toyota engineers. Naturally, the Yaris build was discussed, and contact information was exchanged. We’re calling it a Lotus Yaris.
As I mentioned earlier, there was a problem with the car. We could drive it, could race it, even. But it wouldn’t go over about 5500rpm. There’s no power at all under about 3500, so we had a very narrow band to drive. I typically spend 90% of the lap above 5700.
The issue was that we couldn’t get the high cam to work. When the engine is cold, the ECU limits the rpms to the crossover point. With the stock Lotus tune, the crossover is at 6200rpm. On my car, it’s 5700. We have two ECUs for the race car, one with a Toyota tune (where the crossover is more like 6500) and one with a Lotus tune. This tune wasn’t the stock Lotus tune and was more like mine, but may have been more aggressive. So it’s not clear to me exactly where we’re getting limited. Something like 5500 or 5700.
We’d send a driver out for a session, Mike and Dan would brainstorm a solution, we’d bring the car in, make some changes, and send it back out. Nothing was working. This is probably the first time a Lotus was used as a parts car for a Lemons racer. At one point, they’d swapped the coil packs from my car into the race car. I said they could swap whatever parts they could easily swap, as long as my car was all put back together in time for me to go home. They had a few ideas. Mike even reached out to the Toyota engineers he met on One Lap.
Late in the afternoon, Mike came up with an idea that I was sure was the fix. He had put a different thermostat in the car, a 160-degree thermostat. The ECU wants more like 173 to work the cam. If the thermostat is opening early, the car might never warm up in this weather. Mike put it in the car early Sunday morning, in the pouring rain. Sadly, the thermostat wasn’t the answer. We never did get it fixed. So it goes.
Still working on the car 30 minutes before the race
With the “parts” car
On the track
“I have another idea!”
Flood wreckage
Spot the swimmer
Team photo. L to R: Eric, myself, Kevin, Dan, Mike
The Weather
Typical weather for this area in early June would be a high of around 80 with the sun pleasantly embracing you in its warmth. It might be the kind of day where the sun is so pleasant, warm not hot, that you might forget to apply sunscreen. Not that that would be a good thing to do. In the late afternoon, perhaps a thundershower would roll through.
A week ago, Kevin was concerned about it being hot enough to warrant wearing a cool suit. For track days, I don’t wear my Nomex long johns, but I do for the races. It’s a lot of clothing. I managed just fine in August when you can expect temps in the 90s. I wasn’t concerned. With rain in the forecast, I wasn’t worried about overheating. Turns out, even wearing all that, even with the Nomex underwear, I was sometimes chilly enough to put my hoodie on.
This was not a typical June weekend on the high plains of eastern Colorado. This weekend, as far as the weather goes, we may as well be in Seattle. We’re having one of the wettest springs I can remember. In Denver, we’ve already received the amount of rain it usually takes until the middle of August to get. My lawn looks as good as it’s ever been.
There’s a lot of standing water in the fields alongside US 36 between Byers and the track. The herd of buffalo stood ankle-deep in mud.
It didn’t start raining on us right away. But it rained. Boy, did it rain. It came over the track in bands, never very heavy, but modulating between light and moderate, with occasional short stretches of no rain.
We were parked just west of the fuel pumps. There’s an access lane next to the wall, the access lane bordered by concrete barriers. A few feet farther there’s a drain surrounded by sandbags that are there to keep sediment out of the drain. This is marked with a traffic cone. Naturally, this is the low spot in the immediate vicinity. I never bothered to pay attention to any drains in the paddock before, but off the top of my head, this is the only one.
Saturday afternoon there were rivers running to the drain in this low spot. And the drain couldn’t keep up. The sandbags formed a dam that guaranteed the water would get at least six inches deep. For starters.
Our next-door neighbors were set up a few feet from the drain. They were campaigning a brown BMW 3-Series cut up and rebadged to look like an old Subaru Brat. Their livery was a knockoff of a UPS theme: “URS. What Can Brown Do For You?”
They had two canopies set up, tables and chairs huddled towards the center in an attempt to stay dry. What wasn’t on the tables was in plastic tubs. Before long, there was a small stream flowing from the blacktop to the drain. It got bigger.
Once the HPR River was flowing strongly, they had to move some of their stuff. It was bad, but not that bad when I left on Saturday evening. Overnight, though, the water got so deep a couple of their tubs floated off and capsized, spoiling some supplies.
By Sunday morning most of the water had drained. That was temporary. It rained harder on Sunday.
I arrived on Sunday at 7:30. We had three canopies deployed, plus the awning of the RV. One canopy was for the car. When I got to our camp, one of the canopies had collapsed. It was partly under the awning, and the weight of the water coming off it was too much, breaking a couple of struts. Both the others were still standing, one holding about four or five gallons of water.
The rain started almost simultaneously with the start of the race. I was lucky to get some track time during one of the dry spells, but the bands of rain that blew over were a bit more intense. HPR River flowed fiercely once again. The puddle turned into a pool.
This drain is quite far from any lower ground. I began to wonder if it was really a drain. It would have to run quite a distance to drain to the ravine that forms the lowest part of the track. In Gilbert, we had retention basins all over the property. The idea was that no rainwater would leave the development. All these basins, big or small, had something that looked like a drain. I forget the term, but this drain is only six or eight feet deep and filled with rock aggregate. These wells help the ground absorb the water. In a heavy rain, they’re designed to back up. I think that’s what this drain is.
Sunday afternoon, the flood forced the URS folks to flee to higher ground.
At about 1:30, some wag sauntered up to the pool in shorts and flip-flops and took a “swim”. A brave soul. As you can guess, most of the puddles upstream had the rainbow sheen of various and sundry automotive fluids. I couldn’t help but think of all the horror stories about floodwaters in Louisiana with all the petroleum infrastructure there. But he had a small crowd of onlookers who laughed and joked.
The Racing
This is now the third time I’ve jumped into and raced a car I’ve never driven before. There are so many cars on the track in these sorts of races that you’re in traffic pretty much all the time. To try to drive a car fast that you’ve never driven before, wheel-to-wheel through a turn, not knowing how the car behaves is a bit intimidating.
The stick shift was a bit sloppy. There’s no reverse gear lockout, and second is a bit hard to find, so you have to be careful. The suspension is quite stiff; the big bumps on the highway straight are sharper shocks to my backbone than in the Elise. It understeers a fair amount. The cure for understeer is to slow down. The weight is mostly in the front, so heavy breaking makes the tail light and prone to rotation.
With no high cam, it’s tough. Bouncing off the rev limiter slows you down. You have to shift as high as you can without hitting the limiter. It took me seven or eight laps to figure out which gear I needed to be in for each turn
Entering the track for the first time, I got passed by three cars before I got to turn three. Coming out of the pits, you join the track after turn two so that’s the first turn. I managed to collect myself by the end of the lap, and within a few laps, I was getting comfortable.
On Saturday, we had the Garmin running so we could see our lap times. The device supports multiple drivers, but we didn’t make a profile for me. Kevin drove before me, and we just kept his session running. It rained pretty much the whole time Kevin was driving, and his best lap was a 2:53 or 2:54.
For the first several laps, I’d exit turn two a second or second and a half ahead of Kevin’s best lap, but a third of the way through the lap I’d be behind his time. I couldn’t imagine I could lose that much time that quickly. He just must have been slow through the first couple of turns.
I ran for a bit over an hour. The radio was working, and the guys would periodically ask how things were going. I really wanted to use Kimi Raikonnen’s line, “Leave me alone! I know what I’m doing!” but I wasn’t sure they’d recognize it as a joke.
Finally, they told me to do a couple more laps and come in for fuel. The track was starting to dry and I was finally putting in some good times. I was improving by two or three seconds each lap. So I stayed out longer than they wanted. I got a few stutters on the sweeping right-hand turns, so I finally pitted. Kevin said, “I knew you didn’t want to come in, getting faster like you were!”
On Sunday, I got another hour of seat time. Again, I was lucky with the weather. Neither the Garmin nor the radio was working, so I had no idea what sorts of times I ran. Kevin told me later that I was turning in some consistent 2:28s. Eric had the team’s fast lap, a 2:24.127.
Viewing the official results, I think I managed to figure out which laps were mine and which were Eric’s. If I did this correctly, Eric had the 3 fastest laps. Of the ten best, 6 are mine and 4 are Eric’s. Of our 50 fastest, 24 are mine, 22 are Eric’s. Conditions, though, were extremely hard to compare. Eric has said he thinks he had a drier track than I did, but I’m skeptical. In any event, over 50 laps it looks like we compare pretty well.
We ran almost the same number of laps – I had 2 more. We ran our sessions back-to-back, me first on Saturday and he on Sunday. He ended both his sessions by causing full-course cautions with spins: one stalling the car when the starter wasn’t working and the other stuck in the mud. I had to stop my first session due to fuel but ended my second by getting a black flag (more on that later).
Kevin is quick to remind me that fast laps don’t matter. What matters is running laps.
There were 73 cars entered. We managed to come in 50th. Being an endurance race, the idea is to run the car as long as possible. The event is 8½ hours on Saturday and 6 on Sunday. We completed 201 laps. Given our lap times, accounting for yellow flags and red flags, that would be about 10 hours of driving. The winner completed 297 laps. If we’d have been able to run the whole race, we’d have done nearly that many. If we can get the high cam to work, we could be a contender.
Seventy-three cars on the track is quite a lot. Almost certainly, all 73 were not all out at the same time. Even so, there are more cars on the track than at my most crowded track day. And the difference in driver skill is pretty great. About 40% of the folks at the drivers’ meeting raised their hands to the question, “Who has never raced at HPR before?” That would include first-time racers and experienced racers from out of the area.
I saw license plates from quite a few states. Because my car always attracts attention, I talk to quite a few people. One fellow told me he has an ‘05 Elise. Not thinking, I said, “You’re not in the club.” Of course he’s not in the club: Jaap lives in Boston but is originally from the Netherlands. Another guy I chatted with was from Oregon and suggested he might have seen me on my Pacific Northwest trip. That would be a long shot.
Anyway, that 40% of drivers who have never raced at HPR before include some guys (and almost all the drivers were guys) who may be quite experienced at other tracks. But there will certainly be some drivers who have never raced anywhere before, like my teammates from my earlier Lemons race.
Given that there is a wide range in the speeds of the cars and the wide range of driver skills, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll eventually come across a car that you’re evenly matched with. It’s more fun to pass than to be passed, and it’s much more fun to race somebody that’s evenly matched with you.
I was able to pass in nearly every turn on the track and in a few braking zones. I also got passed in all those areas, plus a few. On the uphill sweepers, I could pass on either the inside or outside, depending on where the slower car wanted to go. Once I was passing on somebody’s inside and was a bit hard on the brakes. The rear of the car started to swing out; I was afraid I was going to hit the guy. He was on my right, and with no mirror on that side, I don’t know if it was a close call or if he had to take evasive action.
My only driving error cost me a black flag. There was a local yellow flag. No passing is allowed under the yellow. I was behind a Datsun 260. He really slowed down and moved way over to the outside and pointed me by. I knew I couldn’t pass under yellow, point-by or no. I looked at the next bunker and didn’t see any yellow, so I passed him. The next time around I was shown the black flag. When I explained it to my teammates, they joked that it might be a good strategy: point somebody by under yellow to try to get them off the track for a couple of laps.
My penalty was to be held at the penalty box until I won a game of rock-paper-scissors. I told him I’d serve a longer penalty than that, as our starter had failed and I needed my team to push me. They weren’t there (they thought I came in for fuel and were heading to the hot pit). I won the game on the second play, and the officials kindly push started me.
Debrief
I leave the event with my giant ego intact. Eric blistered my best lap by 4 seconds, but he spun twice, once getting stuck in the mud. He thinks he may have been pushing too hard. I’m guessing had more “dry” laps than he did, giving me an advantage.
I enjoyed the challenge of jumping headfirst into driving an unfamiliar car in a race. Although this is the third time I’ve done it, I’m thinking it’s unlikely I’ll get another chance.
When Eric said he’d have a motor home there, I thought it’d be nice. Given the weather, it wasn’t nice: it was indispensable. I didn’t spend all that much time inside this time, but it gave us quite a bit more room out of the rain. Thinking about the next race, a true 24-hour race, where we’ll have to nap between stints, it will be a big advantage.
Because of the weather, tire wear was minimal and we never use the tires Don and I mounted on my wheels. I guess I won’t be buying any tires for those wheels until after our September race. Not a big constraint.
Ryan raced in this event as well. He was driving a Dodge Caravan minivan. At least when they had brakes. He spent at least one night at the track camping in a tent. Not ideal. John, another LOCO, often drives one of the BMWs that’s always there. His teammates tell me he was on a trip to Watkins Glen.
I would have liked to have driven more laps. It’s my own fault. I’d have had maybe another half an hour if I didn’t get my black flag. Given the number of hours we were working on the car, though, I got my fair share.
I had a great time in spite of the weather. I’m already looking forward to the next race. If our engineers get the high cam sorted and we keep the car on the track, we could fight for the podium. The new challenge will be driving in the dark.
I only had the camera in the car on Saturday. All my best laps and best passes were Sunday. So it goes.
I raced Lemons back in 2018 I’m doing it again this year, twice. First is the Lemons BFE, two days of racing adding up to fourteen and a half hours. In September we’ll run a true 24-hour race.
I’m driving for a team called DadBod CarMod. The car is a Toyota Yaris. I get to drive these two races because has my old engine and transmission. It’s my kind of gig: very little is expected of me. I’ll admit to feeling a bit of pressure, though. I’ve run maybe 1300 laps at HPR. I think I’m pretty fast, but the only way to know is to see how I do against other drivers in the same car, on the same day, in the same conditions. Naturally, with my experience comes expectations.
Lotus Yaris, a work still in progress 2 days before the race
Back in 2018, the team had five or six drivers. I was the only one with any experience, so it’s no surprise I was the best. In my ChumpCar race, two of the drivers had raced before, and the third had raced motorcycles and had just gotten some instruction in cars. None of us had driven on that track. I was second best by a small margin.
How will I stack up against the others this time?
Mounting Tires
The week before the race, Kevin asked if we could mount some race tires on my rims. Sure, we can do that.
On the LOCO trip a couple of weeks ago, I visited a few times with Don. During the course of one conversation, Don told me he has a shop in Broomfield with a lift and that I was welcome to use it if I wanted. Thinking I’m going to buy a set of tires later this year, I asked if he had a tire machine. He does and said I was free to use that, too.
Kevin dropped the new tires off at the house on Monday and Tuesday I was at Don’s shop. He didn’t tell me what sort of shop he has and I had no particular preconception. Nonetheless, I was a bit surprised to learn it’s a machine shop.
He gave me a quick tour. I met the geriatric French Bulldog at the door, and was shown a number of large, impressive CNC machines, then took me into the “measuring” room. It was quieter in there. A high shelf went around the room, holding examples of the shop’s work. Some items were quite small – a tiny titanium cylinder with holes and flanges – and one nearly as large as a basketball. Some are used in satellites, some at the CERN accelerator, and others in some sort of quantum mechanics application. I found it all fascinating. There may even be another LOCO connection: it’s possible one of the parts is used by some project that Greg works on.
As for mounting the tires, the deal was that Don would show me how to use the machine and I’d do the work. I was looking forward to it. In the end, Don did all the work. He bought the tire machine to do motorcycle tires, so it’s a bit different in how it grips the wheel than the machines I watched online. Most interesting was his little balancing machine. It’s not a spin balancer: it just uses gravity. The heavy side of the wheel naturally goes to the bottom.
I still expect to buy tires later in the year. When that happens, I’m looking forward to doing the work myself and only seeking him out if I have any questions.
I took the wheels over to Mike’s on Thursday and sat in the car for the first time. I didn’t get strapped in but did get in and out a couple of times. Ingress and egress are easier than on either of the other two race cars I’ve driven.
It looked like there was still a fair amount of work to be done, and the car has to pass inspection in less than 20 hours.
Inspections
Before any car can compete, it has to pass a technical inspection. Before any driver can compete, they have to go through an inspection, too. At least, their helmet and clothing do.
Our time to take the car through tech was 1 pm. I got there just a few minutes before 1.
We got in line a bit after 1. While we were in line, the Lemons photographer/reporter quizzed us about the car. We told him it’s the first race for the car. It has big unicorn stickers on it. We gave him the story of the drivetrain. We’re calling it a Lotus Yaris. Kevin’s Elise wheels are on it, with the Lotus center caps. We had a baby seat strapped to the roof. Every Lemons car has a theme.
We had an issue with the roll cage. We failed, but they’ll let us participate if we address three welds, with reinspection at 7 tomorrow. They put us in the A group. We were expecting to be in B. When we were done with tech, we took the baby seat off the top. Being in the fastest group, we couldn’t afford the aerodynamic drag.
As to clothing, they are doing things a bit differently than the other races I’ve been in. Before now, you took your suit, shoes, gloves, and helmet and they looked at the labels to make sure all is up to spec. This time, drivers were to arrive fully dressed, helmet in hand. After checking the labels, we raised our arms and turned 360 so they could see everything.
I was failed for my helmet and gloves. The helmet was okay, but the HANS device connectors were installed incorrectly. I did this installation before my first race, a bit more than eight years ago. He asked me how long it had been that way. I told him, “One Chumpcar and one Lemons”. He showed it to the other inspectors. It was easily remedied. The gloves failed because the certification labels are gone. I probably should have replaced them a couple of years ago.
With the helmet fixed and a borrowed pair of gloves, I went back to complete the inspection. When I did my little rotation, he spotted that I have a tear on my suit, on my left shoulder. It’s been there for years, passing the previous Lemons inspection. Because I’m also wearing a layer of Nomex long johns, they passed me if I put tape on both the inside and outside of the suit over the tear. They said I could have a seamstress fix it for about fifty bucks, or do it myself with some Nomex thread.
The day was an open-lapping day, but I didn’t pay to drive. Eric took the car out for a few laps. He reported that the car understeers a fair amount, and he was having a misfire above about 6000rpm. I think Mike and Dan got it squared away before I left. We need to spend about 90% of the race above 6000rpm.
The “free” breakfast at this hotel was out of the ordinary: build your own breakfast burritos. Soft corn tortillas, scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese, and green chili. Unfortunately, the corn tortilla wasn’t up to the job: any attempt to pick it up to eat it resulted in catastrophic containment failure. It was far from the best breakfast burrito I’ve had, but compared to the “free” hotel breakfasts I’ve had on my last couple of trips, it was a step up.
Today’s plan for the group was to spend the morning at the Colorado National Monument. We’d have our picnic lunch at the visitor center, departing at 12:30.
I had to get my brake caliper bolt taken care of. I went to the place around the corner but it was deserted. I got the phone out and searched for another place. I went there, it was also closed. The next one was an address that turned out to be smack in the middle of a mobile home park. Fourth, fifth, and sixth places all closed. All of these shops were within a couple of miles of each other. Searching for another shop was a bit like doom scrolling: closed, closed, closed.
That left me with few choices. I could go to the local Walmart or a new car dealer. I elected to try the local Buick dealer. Yes, in retrospect, I would have saved myself some time by trying to call all those places, but I thought it would be easier just to show up rather than trying to describe my issue.
I did have to describe the issue to the Buick dealer and that resulted in being put on hold while the person who answered my call talked to a service writer. I didn’t bother telling them what kind of car I was driving, just that I need this thing done pronto and that I could do it myself in ten minutes if I had the tools. They said they could help me out, so off I went.
Luckily, they weren’t busy. Naturally, they were surprised to see a Lotus. Every new car dealer service department I’ve been to has a protocol they follow: log the VIN in their system, get my name and address and mileage of the car. A guy even wanted to plug a tool into the OBDII port, but the service writer told him not to bother. When they went to take it to the shop, I was asked if it was a manual transmission. These days, nobody knows how to drive stick, so it took them another minute to get someone who could work a manual transmission to move it.
I took a seat in their lounge and waited, wondering both how long it would take and how much they’d charge me. I was a bit surprised when, half an hour later, the service writer came to the lounge to give me my keys.
I asked him, “What’s the damage?”
“No charge.”
Wow. That was better than I could have expected.
Lacking the notes for the trip, I relied on my phone to navigate me to the Colorado National Monument. There are two entrances. The group’s plan was to enter through the southern one and exit through the northern one. Naturally, my phone directed me to the northern one. I didn’t realize this until I started seeing familiar cars going the other way.
I wanted to take a couple of very short hikes. One was right after the entrance I was supposed to use and the other about midway through the drive. Due to all my running around, I didn’t have time to go all the way to the other end, do the hikes, and make it to our picnic spot in the allotted time. So I just did the second, shorter hike. It’s all good: at least I got out of the car and walked about a mile.
This short hike starts near the Coke Ovens overlook. There’s a much longer trail here as well, but I just headed to a spot right next to the Coke Ovens rock formation. It’s about half a mile from the road to the end, and descends a bit less than two hundred feet. The other trail here is the Independence Monument trail. I encountered a German couple who were on their way up. “It is much farther than you’re going, and it’s quite hot!” There is an entire network of trails around here which might be more fun in April when it’s not so hot. (Not that today was hot, but the sun was shining brightly, and it looks like there is very little shade to be found.)
After my little hike, I went back to the visitor center to find the rest of the group for our picnic. I left the picnic a few minutes early. Everybody else had been able to gas up in the morning. I needed a pit stop. Rather than leave with the group only to be abandoned at a gas station, I left early. I record my fuel consumption every time I fill up. I made my notes and was a bit surprised that this last tank yielded me 36.6 miles per gallon. When I looked up from my phone, I saw a green Europa pass by and get on the highway. But I only saw the one car, and I think he joined us midway through the day yesterday, so I thought maybe he was heading off on his own.
I fired up the car and hit the highway. We had a few miles of interstate to deal with, so I got on the highway and established a leisurely pace, five or ten miles an hour under the limit. This was a calculated risk. If I had missed seeing 20 brightly colored cars passing the gas station, I’d be getting farther and farther behind. Without directions. If the Europa was on his own, the group would catch me and all would be good.
Before long, I saw a long line of brightly colored cars in my mirror. I was back in the pack!
After our stint on the interstate, we finally would be driving on roads I’d never traveled. I love new roads. This one goes over Grand Mesa and is called the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway. Wikipedia tells me that Grand Mesa is the largest flat-topped mountain in the world.
Sometime after we left the interstate and started climbing the Mesa, I spotted Ross driving the other way. What the? How did he get ahead of us, and why was he going the other way? A few turns later, I found out why. It turns out the green Europa wasn’t off on his own, he was at the tail of a group of cars who left before Mike. They were all, except Ross, parked on the side of the road. Well, not exactly the side of the road. They were as far off the road as they could get, which wasn’t far. Everybody’s left tires were still on the road.
Chris W. had his 4-way flashers on and everybody was out of their cars. We learned that they came around a bend to find some large rocks on the road. One rock was described as the size of your head. Ross hit it, the next car managed to miss it, and Chris W. hit it. Ross couldn’t continue and took his car back to the last town while the gang set to work attempting to patch Chris’s tire. They tried a couple of plugs, but there was no way they could fix it.
Cindy lives not terribly far from here, and she has a full set of tires mounted and balanced, so she went home to get a tire so Chris could continue. The rest of us continued on our way.
Coke Ovens formation
Looking back at Rimrock Drive from the Coke Ovens formation
A local inhabitant
Roadside distress
Sangre de Cristo range (photo courtesy of Peter Monson)
Next to hitting a giant rock on the road, my brake caliper bolt and Jeff’s windshield wiper were minor inconveniences.
Before we stopped, the day had been downright toasty. This incident with the rock was at high elevation, though, and I was happy to put on my hoodie. I’d taken the top off the car before our picnic. Now we were at elevation and the clear skies were getting less clear. At 50mph with the top off, it was starting to get chilly. Then, of course, it started to rain. It wasn’t a hard rain, seldom enough to require more than the intermittent wiper setting. But I was getting wet, and that rain was cold!
At our next stop, in Hotchkiss, the three of us who had been running topless all decided it might be better to put the tops back on. It was a sound decision. Before long the rain was coming down hard. In places, it seemed like small rivers were crossing the road. I never hydroplaned, but it was wet and I was happy to be dry. Well, as dry as one can be in an Elise in the rain.
Checking into the hotel, I was standing next to Mike. He asked a question I never thought I’d hear from a Lotus driver: “Did you get enough curves?” Well, it wasn’t so much the question that was unexpected, as that after asking it, he said he did.
With our extended stop on the side of the road, we arrived at our hotel in Gunnison a bit later than expected. We got checked in and a few minutes later made our separate ways to the restaurant. Before our orders had arrived, Cindy, Chris, and their companions showed up at the restaurant, to much applause. We were all happy to see them.
Sunday, May 21
My hotel room was not the best one. I am right across the hall from the elevator. I thought that would be the worst part about it, but I am also directly above the lobby. The problem with that is, I could hear the front doors open and close whenever anybody came or went. I tried to use the fan on air conditioning unit to mask the noise, but the controls were slightly broken. Slightly, in that the temperature control knob just turned and turned but didn’t affect the output. And of the six or seven positions on the fan control knob, only “Cool High” and “Stop” were working. The fan did cover the noise of the doors downstairs, but after about twenty minutes, icicles were starting to form so I had to shut it off.
I woke up for a short while a bit after 2 am. You might think nobody would be going in and out through the lobby at that time of night, but you’d be wrong. I did manage to fall back asleep and just before I woke up, I had an odd little dream. In the dream, I was in my living room at home when a small bus crashed into the house. I asked the driver what happened and she pointed to a woman in the seat behind her. “She had a heart attack!” This is dream logic in effect. A passenger on the bus has a heart attack and causes an accident.
Over breakfast, I asked Ross how badly damaged his car is. He said the oil pan was okay and that he wasn’t losing any fluids. He thinks the exhaust was crushed, causing too much back pressure. The car ran, but only at an idle. He could drive downhill, but it was no good uphill or on the level. He managed to get it down to the safety of a parking lot at the Powderhorn ski area.
Today we were back on familiar roads. We’d head east from Gunnison and take CO 114 to Saguache. The plan for the group was to take US 285 to US 50 and ultimately picnic at the Royal Gorge. Before we left the hotel, I was undecided whether I’d stay with everybody else or head home from Salida. As the morning went on, I developed a slight headache. That was the deciding factor.
Here’s a short video made up of footage I shot over the three days. Oh, and cleaning out the car after I got home, I found my route notes. They managed to hide themselves under the passenger seat.
Here’s another video. I left this one in 360 mode, so you can pan and scroll and zoom. It’s a part of Glenwood Canyon between two of the tunnels. I’m old enough to have some memory of this canyon before it was interstate, when it was a two-lane road. The canyon is quite scenic and unlike any other canyon in the state.
Way back when, there was a movement to get the 1976 Winter Olympics to Colorado. As part of this, there was a ballot initiative asking voters if they wanted to put the interstate through the canyon. I may be misremembering, but it was defeated, and we couldn’t get the Olympic Games without the highway. Nonetheless, they started working on putting I-70 through the canyon in 1980. It was completed in 1992, and it’s a marvel of highway engineering and has been featured in at least one book published by National Geographic extolling the work. The project required 30 million pounds of structural steel, 30 million pounds of reinforcing steel, and 400,000 cubic yards of concrete weighing 1.62 billion pounds.
It’s a fantastic stretch of road, but it’s not without problems. Quite often, there are rockslides that damage the road and cause closures. These have been more common recently, due to wildfires in the area. The living trees hold the soil together, and with the trees dead or gone, any severe rains tend to cause rockslides.
Every year, the club does a couple of long weekend drives, typically one in the spring and one in the fall. Years ago, we used to call them the “Colorado Good”, a play on the name of the Colorado Grand, an annual classic car charity tour.
Friday, May 19
Our rally point this morning is the Love’s gas station on the north side of Buena Vista. I figured it would take two and a half hours to get there, and I added a few minutes in case I hit the tail end of morning rush hour traffic.
Colorado weather is notoriously changeable. A common remark is, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” Yes, I’ve heard people in other places say similar things, but Colorado is truly a “four seasons in one day” kind of place.
Today it is rainy. It’s an “upslope”, meaning it’s coming more from the east or northeast, and by going west, I would be able to get out of the rain and into the sunshine. I was thinking things would clear up at Kenosha pass, but that was optimistic. On the west side of Trout Creek pass, one usually sees a gorgeous view of Mt. Princeton and the other peaks in the Collegiate range. Today, though, the clouds hung low over the Arkansas valley and if you didn’t know there were mountains right in front of you, well, you wouldn’t know.
We met at our assembly point. On the way there from Colorado Springs, Jeff had his windshield wiper fly off his car. Will and Kat were behind him when it happened. When Will and Kat pulled into the gas station and got out of the car, they saw that Jeff’s wiper was sticking out of their front grille. What are the chances?
Our first stop was a photo opportunity at Twin Lakes. Again, normally you’d see some majestic peaks from here. The ceiling was lifting somewhat, but the tops of the mountains are still shrouded.
At Twin Lakes
From there, we went back to US 24 and headed north, over Tennessee pass.
Tennessee pass crosses the Continental Divide at an elevation of 10,424’. It climbs only 272 feet from Leadville and descends 1.826 vertical feet to Redstone. It was the first Continental Divide highway pass that was kept open all winter, starting in 1928.
Zebulon Pike came this way in 1806.
On November 24, he and three others set off from their camp near Pueblo to climb to the summit of Pike’s Peak. On the fourth day of their climb, they were in waist-deep snow but they reckoned they were still 15 or 16 miles away from the summit, still a mile above them. They turned back. They concluded the peak was the highest on the continent with an elevation of 18,541’ and that “no human being could have ascended to its pinnacle”.
After he failed to summit his peak, the expedition continued and he found himself in South Park. He crossed Trout Creek Pass and worked upstream along the Arkansas, which he had incorrectly identified as the Red. By his reckoning, the Arkansas stopped more than eighty miles to the south. To the north, he expected to find the Platte, and just past the Platte, the Yellowstone. Pike stopped near Mount Elbert, a bit short of Tennessee Pass. His men were tired and didn’t want to go any further. It was December, after all. No doubt, conditions were rough. He wasn’t lost but didn’t really know where he was.
Thirty-nine years later, John Frémont (who would later become the first Republican candidate for president) was the first to cross Tennessee pass. Ostensibly, his mission was to map the area around Bent’s Fort on the high plains of what is now southeastern Colorado. The credulous might believe he was lost, too. But his real goal was Monterey, California on behalf of Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, with a view to national expansion. California was still Mexico until it was the spoils of war the following year.
We stopped for a picnic lunch at an I-70 rest stop. I had printed our six pages of directions for the trip, including our hotel and restaurant information and Mike’s nice route description. I had the cameras in the passenger seat of the car, so I tossed the notes on top of them to sort of hide things from casual snooping.
After lunch, we headed west on I-70. Most of the gang got off the super slab to follow Cindy on a tour of some back roads. Normally, I’d be down for that but I kept on the interstate. Once I was on my own, I thought it would be a good idea to find out just where I’m headed. Somehow, I was now missing the notes. How the heck did that happen? (Odder, the notes are clearly visible in a video taken while driving on I-70. So I didn’t leave them at the rest stop.)
I wasn’t the only one who didn’t follow Cindy. Will and Kat passed me before long. They’d have stayed behind me, but I waved them by. It would have been embarrassing to miss the exit for the hotel. Just after they passed, the car acted funny for a few seconds. At first, I had a moment of panic: did I just blow a fuse? But that wasn’t the case, and all was well again very quickly. I later figured out what happened.
When we got off the highway, I ended up following Will and Kat through a fast food drive-through. They didn’t stop either but went to a different restaurant. I decided to quit stalking them and struck off for the hotel on my own. I only made one wrong turn.
I later had a chat with Cindy, who led the non-interstate tour. None of her route was in the notes, and things got complicated when she experienced a little mechanical trouble. She doesn’t know what happened, but she momentarily had neither brakes nor clutch. The clutch pedal went straight to the floor. Both systems use the same reservoir, so it’s not surprising an issue with one might cause an issue with the other. She had the rest of the gang go ahead without her. A few minutes later, both clutch and brakes were back to normal. She’s local to that area, so she managed to take a different route and rejoin the others by getting ahead of them.
For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant called Enzo’s. I could ask Mike, who did his usual stellar job of planning and leading the group, if he chose the restaurant because of the name. If that was the case, he might deserve some grief: Enzo is Ferrari, not Lotus.
Getting off the highway, it felt like I was applying the brakes. I realized now that this is what happened when Will and Kat passed me earlier. This same thing happened on the way home from Atlanta. One of the bolts holding my right rear brake caliper in place had worked itself out. It didn’t come out completely as the parking brake cable is in the way, but it was out far enough for the caliper to occasionally be cockeyed on the disk. This happened years ago on the left side. That time, the bolt came completely out. I’m surprised this one happened again, but the caliper has other issues and I’ll be replacing it in the coming days.
In any event, the fix is an easy one. All I need to do is jack the car up, dismount the right rear wheel, get the caliper into place, and tighten the bolt. The only problem with this plan is I lack a jack and any way to remove the wheel. I got online and looked for any auto shops that would be open on a Saturday morning and found one right around the corner from the hotel. They open at 8, so I should be back on the road fairly quickly.
I paid for this event in December, long before I started planning the Atlanta/Barber trip. This was originally scheduled for the 16th, which meant I’d miss this as I’d be lapping at Barber that day. Then, not long before my big trip, I received notice that it had been delayed for a week. This doesn’t make up for missing Barber, but I’ll take it as a consolation prize.
Michael and I checked over the car. I’m good to go for the day, then we’ll do some maintenance.
April 23
The weather was nearly ideal. A bit chilly early, but ultimately was about 60 and sunny with a slight breeze. Great weather for lapping.
There were more Corvettes than usual, probably a few more Camaros than usual, and only a few Porsches. Throw in the usual Miatas, Subarus, and VWs you have your field. There was a McLaren 570s. And we three Lotus: Ryan, Eric, and myself.
There was one more noteworthy car: the Autozam AZ-1. He drew a crowd. He ran the afternoon session. Well, part of the afternoon: he got a few laps then started overheating.
Ryan is chasing a two-minute lap. I’m thinking a 2:16 would be the best I could expect.
Dennis came out for a ride. I failed to go through my usual spiel about how we’d need to use hand signals, and how to show me that he wants to stop. After a few laps, I gave him a thumbs up and he nodded, so I kept going. At Road Atlanta, Dan lasted six timed laps. Here, Dennis made it five. I gave Mike, the owner of the AZ-1, a ride. We don’t know if he was made of sterner stuff, as we got the checkered flag after four.
Road Atlanta was my first track day with the new GoPro 360 camera, but because I was able to run only a few laps I don’t have much of an idea what to do with it yet. So I threw together a little highlight reel to get some experience with the tools. It was all much more time-consuming than I would have guessed, but so it goes.
