Leg 8

If yesterday was ambitions appetizer, today was resoundingly the entree. Two National Parks, two iconic mountain pass roads, 22k feet of total elevation ascension, and just over 7 hours of total riding time.

To keep this relatively to the point, I'll break this leg into two sections; the criminality of how unknown both parks are and the rare moment where something so widely reviewed exceeds the hype.

I started my morning early by making a quick trip into Mesa Verde National Park. I had heard and known very little about this park but I quickly discovered that not only is the road up to Mesa Verde steep, windy, and spectacularly scenic, it's also an incredible site to see where indigenous people lived literally on the side and on top of cliffs. The history here goes back thousands of years and a peek inside the vault in the visitor center shows an archive of old pottery, tools, and hunting equipment that would make Indiana Jones get a halfie.

My second National Park was Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and similarly, I cannot believe how quickly and effectively this park took my breath away. Is that because it sits at 8,200 feet above sea level? Perhaps. But also, it's an incredibly expansive canyon with sheer cliffs straight down thousands of feet to a roaring river below. And it stretches for miles. We all know the major parks, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Zion, and many of those are also on my itinerary this trip, but if I have one take away from this route in regards to the National Park System, it's that there are countless others that are just as, if not more, grand than the majors that are consistently overrun with crowds and noise. Both of these parks are easily sitting at the top of my favorites and ones I'm sure I will return to in the future.

In between both parks is the Million Dollar Highway that runs between Durango and Ouray, Colorado. Technically, the official MDH only runs between Silverton and Ouray, but since you can't get to Silverton from the South without taking Highway 550 first, why argue semantics and just call the whole thing the MDH? I digress.

This road is revered by cyclists, both motorized and human powered, the world over. It climbs virtually into heaven, is surrounded my infinite 14k foot mountain peaks, and has more turns than the spelling bee national championship. I saw 'curvy road' signs with symbols I had never seen before to try and highlight that the highway would not just hairpin, but have conveying corners IN the hairpin WITH a 12-15% descending grade. This road would make any race track in the world blush and I got it virtually to myself for miles and miles.

After Black Canyon of the Gunnison Park, I headed north through Grand Junction and connected with Highway 139 through Douglas Pass and again was met with a canyon pass road that is revered for not only its scenery and also its turns. Much like the MDH, this road had corkscrews, double hairpins, steep grades, and was completely devoid of other cars. The road conditions were very bad, chewed up asphalt with massive sinkholes masquerading as potholes, and numerous rocks in the middle of the road to avoid, but this might have been my favorite road of the trip this far.

For a motorcyclist, twisty roads are what instantly bring a smile to a riders face. Ask anyone who rides what their favorite road is, and the moment they start to speak about a twisty or windy road, the corners of their mouth will give way to a grin and into a full smile. They are the figurative crack cocaine that bring us back to our bikes, over and over and over again. Not everyone wants to put a knee down and tilt the bike to 18° like Rossi through these turns, but we ALL want to go through them.

Any of these four landmarks would have been standalone memories I could have talked about for the rest of my life, but to be so privelaged to do them ALL in one day IS something I will talk about forever. I cannot get those roads and those sites out of my brain and they are what rock me to sleep tonight.