The Bike Trip Plan was to leave our camper in a safe & secure place while we (Terry and Dennis) biked from Kremmling to Gore Pass via Radium. We allotted three days for the trip but thought under ideal conditions it could be done in two days.
Ideal conditions did not include a bright cloudless day at hotter than normal temperatures while traversing up a fourteen mile long, baking, south facing, slope at a dreadful perpendicular angle to the radiating sun with no road shade and mostly dry creek beds.

Tire Theory: Once, a while back, Dennis bought inner tubes with Slime in them. Slime is a self sealing tire leak product. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Dennis remembers having difficulty checking the tire air pressure on this particular tire, just before leaving home. Dennis got two different tire pressure readings. He theorizes that the Slime is sealing the air valve over time, thus giving a false air pressure reading (as there may be more air than indicated). Thus high pressure blowouts occur. We have heavy duty tires that take up to 90 PSI, and we normally travel with 70-75 PSI. Of our last four flat tires, three of them were Slime inner tube blowouts (Not punctures). We have quit buying Slime inner tubes and recommend the same for bike touring.

History: David Moffat, Jr, who earned his money in the 1860's Denver gold mining boom, built the railroad that runs from Denver, through Winter Park's "Moffat Tunnel," through Hot Sulfur Springs (with obvious mineral springs that were popular to travelers at the turn of the century) through Kremmling (along the path of least resistance next to the Colorado River), through the Gore Valley, toward Craig, Colorado. Kremmling, is one of those western towns that would have had a dubious future had the railroad not brought economic commerce to the area. The town of Kremmling is named after Rudolph Kremmling who established, apparently, the first store in the area - sometimes, location is everything. Kremmling is at the confluence of Muddy Creek, Blue River, and the Colorado River.

The term "Kill Gore" evolved from Sir Saint George Gore, an Irish Baronet, who arrived in these parts in 1854 to hunt. In about three years time, Gore and his hunting party killed about 2000 buffalo, 1600 elk and deer, and 100 bear. This goring occurrence was very upsetting and disturbing to both the Native Americans as well as to the New Americans. The three year hunt was guided by the famous Mountain Man, Jim Bridger.

At about 2pm, after passing two dry creek beds, we were in need of water. We had only traveled about two or three miles up hill in two hours. We came across the first water in a stream bed called Sheep Creek. We stopped to use the water filter to pump water from the inch deep creek when the only vehicle that we had seen since we started climbing came to a stop. The driver stopped to see if we were OK and offered us some ice cold water. Obviously, our angels were at work again. The driver was checking us out - later we would learn that the Sheriff was looking for an attempted murder suspect. Anyway, the driver said he was the Water Commissioner and he more or less described what we would be facing for the next few miles. He let us know that there would only be one more creek with water before the D.O.W. house (the only human residence for the next ten or so miles - We figured that DOW meant Division of Wildlife).

At 3pm, we had only traveled two more up hill miles and we were heat exhausted. The drinking water was hot, the earth road was hot, and we were hot. Terry stated that we needed to rest, get out of the sun, and cool down. She was right. We parked our bikes, grabbed a water bottle each, found a tall piñon pine tree, and laid down in the tree's shadow. Terry quickly went to sleep for a half hour, Dennis slept for an hour. In the mean time, the temperature went down about 10 degrees, it was now only in the mid 80s. When we started biking again, there were shadows across the road that we could use for intermittent rest breaks.

Interesting act of nature: At the top of the nearest hill, within the view of the same upper-right picture, we saw the slow motion of a coyote nosing around some sage brush. Then suddenly a large jackrabbit bolted at an uphill diagonal run. The coyote took chase. The coyote could not always see the rabbit because the brush blocked its view, so the coyote would rise up on its hind quarters every fifteen feet or so in order to get a better view while as it was chasing the rabbit. They both disappeared over the ridge and we never got to see the outcome.