Old Fall River Road - Overview

This ride was way too much for 1 footprint. I have broken this up into 3 posts.

1. The overview of the trail.
2. What we saw and experienced.
3. Elk Jam and the Descent.

Old Fall River Road Trail

A wonderful challenge, fabulous ride, uncommon vistas and a definite checkmark. It was a "must do and one I would eagerly do again.

Our trip is not yet complete, but when it is, and when I write the wrap up ranking our top 5, this ride will top be at the top of the list.

The Stats

The Old Fall River Road Trail is 9.8 miles of gravel, mountainside road that leads up to the Alpine Visitors Center. The entirety of the trail is cliffside as the Trail ascends 3,290 feet to 11,796 feet in elevation.

What Hit Me

During the first part of the ride, as we rode up the mountain, we road alongside the river. Later in the ride, the river was more distant, and running in front of the meadows. Still higher up the mountain you are seeing the waterfalls on the opposing cliff face. Then we arrive near the top of the mountain and I realized that this water, the water I've been watching all along is snow melt (mostly). It is not spring water or from rains. It is amazing to me that there is that much snow melt.

The Ride

We were blessed to get in a ride on the very last day of the season prior to the road being opened to vehicle traffic. I can't imagine how or why a person would want to endure the roughness of the drive in a truck. And with car traffic …. I simply can not fathom sharing this road with vehicles. Traveling up mountain at 6 to 9 miles per hour, we would have been watching the cars instead of the scenery. And I am not sure the trip back down would have worked at all.

This trip, on the last day, was an absolute blessing.

Even with the ebikes this was work. We had to pedal the total distance. We had to keep our momentum for the ebike to “assist”, and you have to help because the bike is not strong enough to do it alone. And then there is the battery.

I used up 60% of my battery in the first half of the climb. I swapped to the spare to save some battery for My Lovely. She almost made to the top on her battery - just about 200 yards short. She switched to my first battery to finish the trip.

What We Experieced

Meadows
Wildflowers
River Views
Waterfalls
Cliffside views at different elevations
Wildlife, Tracks and scat
The Clouds Rolling Up and OverLeer más