Day 6: Alto Alto South Boulder ???

After chowing down on a continental breakfast of scrambled waffles from a improperly lubricated waffle iron, Lydia and I set out to run the Alto Alto (Upper Upper) Section of South Boulder Creek. I had done this run before, and remembered it being a good class 3-4 creek. The flow was slightly lower than the last time at 500 CFS. We went to the put in to stash our boats, and were all unloaded when a “friendly” local informed us that we were trespassing on his property. We quickly re-located to the only guaranteed pubic right of way, which was right under the road bridge, and locked up our gear for the bike shuttle once again. Upon arriving at the take-out, we were greeted by a number of very welcoming signs, like this one, posted every 50 feet along the river.

While looking for a legal take-out, we also came across this combination… No parking on any county road, and a No Trespassing for good measure…

And then there’s this one. Note, that this is in an area that has been VERY obviously used as a parking area.

Without a legal place to park, Lydia and I decided to cut our losses and just go mountain biking. We went back into Nederland and stopped at the information center to look for some info on places to go. We were directed to the West Magnolia mountain biking area. I’m not sure why it is named West Magnolia, except that it is 1500 miles west of the nearest Magnolia. None the less, we had a nice 1.5 hour ride among aspen trees with some nice vistas. Here’s one of the prettier areas.

Overall the trails were on the dusty and rocky side of things, but there were definitely some nice fun sections. We made our way to Denver and were greeted by a call from the AAMCO that the Ody was ready to go about 10 minutes before we got there. We switched everything out from the Journey and returned it to Enterprise and were on the road headed west on I-70 at about 5pm out of Denver. Unfortunately, everyone in Denver had the same idea since it was the Day before the 4th of July weekend. Here’s a picture of an Elk Crossing sign Lydia Took while stuck in traffic.

At the end of the day we treated ourselves to good Italian food in Vail and headed into the mountains for some free camping, glad to be back in our own Van….
Timmy Out…