Stage 9

I woke up still amazed by the radness of the place I was.  I wanted to just stay here.  I was able to get packed up fast today as I was warmed by the Sun early on the exposed east facing ridge I slept on.  As I put my front bag on my bike fell onto the Cairn it was leaned up against and I put a small scratch in the stanchion of my fork. CRAP.  Although I knew the only thing between me and Silverton was a short mostly downhill ride I still made breakfast.  I still had just over a liter of water in my bag from Spring Creek.  The last descent was short and fun, it looked like it had been re routed in the past few years.  At the Stony Pass summit there was a tourist jeep tour.  I stopped to read the sign and talked to them for a minute and told them I had ridden from Littleton, they thought this was absurd and gave me a bottle of water.
Stony Pass was steep and as with all the other detours even having memorized the directions at the top I was confused if I was going the right way.
At the bottom of the hill there was finally a marked dirt highway and I knew I was going the right way.  The old mining "chairlift" over this road was cool. I rode a pass through Main street deciding where to get food and a beer.  I ended up at "Thee Pits Again", I figured it had to be good with Guy Fieri's picture in the window.  While I was eating I texted my mom to also look into flights and maybe book one for the 19th.  The food was good but I was still hungry and decided I could use a shake so I went to the burger and shake place on the side street across main.  I then went to the outdoor store I had seen on Main to see if they had a the MSR pump filter I wanted.  They didn't but had some cheap options, I decided to stick with the tablets.  I wanted to go to a bike shop to add some oil to my fork but knew I needed to get back on the trail.
I stopped at the grocery store on the way out of town and resupplied on bars and picked up a sandwich for dinner.  Last I stopped at the gas station and filled up water.
The pedal up the road was rough, there wasn't much shoulder like 285 but to top it off it was hot.  It took much longer than it should have to get to the trail head at the top of the pass.  A roadie passed me and asked if I was riding the CT and when I told him I was he told me to keep it going I was almost there.
The climbing was easy on the start of the trail.  I ran into a older couple that looked like they were through hiking, they told me they were doing trail work and I was excited to ride some fresh dirt.  I told them I wanted to get to Hotel Draw that night and they told me I had quite a ways but there was good camping there.  Shortly after I ran into 3 guys on rigid's wearing assorted Jerseys that said Fort Collins on them.  They were through riding from Durango to Denver and were on day 2.  I told them they were closing in on Silverton.
I got to Rolling Mountain pass which was pretty cool, in one direction was another endless gulch and in the other a epic valley.  This descent was fun.  I crossed a waterfall with shall at the base which was pretty neat, there was people camping on the small plateau next to it.  I then crossed a bridge and a guy told me I was out late.  The sun was started to set.  I got to Celebration Lake at Bolam Pass and there was a couple setting up camp and a tent already setup.  It looked like the same tent I had seen at Razor creek days earlier and I believe it was Marks.  I contemplated camping here as it was getting dark but I knew the next day would be rough if I did.
I kept pushing on knowing I was back in big cat territory.  Right off the bat I saw a bunch of eyes in a field looking at me.  I focused on the closest one and identified it was just a deer.  It seemed like a cool area if I could see.  There was a lot of riding on terraces and I couldn't tell how high up I was.  I summited the pass next to Section Point, it was really rad here and I thought I was already on Black Hawk Pass so I decided to keep going.  A few minutes later I was climbing again which means I was not on Black Hawk pass and I was still climbing to it. As I was pushing my bike up the steep hill close to the top of Black Hawk Pass I saw HUGE cat foot prints and what looked like drag marks in the middle of the trail for a few hundred feet.  I was on edge at this point and just wanted to get over the pass and down to Hotel Draw to camp.  I kept looking around to make sure I wasn't going to be a mountain kittie's next meal.
I made it to a jeep road and a gate to a service road.  There was a camp site with a big jug of water that had a sign that said "water".  I knew I still had plenty of water in my bag from town but I wonder if this was trail magic.  I couldn't find any great camp spots after searching around the intersection with Hotel Draw Road and I found a big patch of dry dirt and decided it would have to do.  My phone was off to save battery and camera battery dead so no pictures for this day.

Mileage: 51.44
Climbing: 8,229
Sleeping Elevation: 10,385