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Motorcycling Mt. Princeton Colorado

Buena Vista, Colorado

Motorcycling and photography

Sitting in my apartment at my desk in New York, toggling my windows between Reddit, Photoshop and Dreamweaver, I get a call from my friend Scott. Scott is a park ranger at Black Canyons Nation Park and one of my oldest friends. We shoot the shit for a bit and before he brings up the Trans-America motorcycle trail. You see, there is a mostly off-road trail that runs from The Appalachians to Washington state and it so happens that it passes through Colorado. We made plans to do a section of it knowing that I was going to be in Colorado next month.

For a variety of reasons, doing the Colorado section of the Trans-America trail did not work out. However, the compromise was to head over to Mt. Princeton near Buena Vista and do some off-roading there. This area is a hot-spot for dirt-biking activities so we had no shortage to trails to explore.

It’s always about the experience. When there you fall into the comforts of home, you forget that there is 360 degrees of possibilities.

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Expedition 1: Tin Cup Pass

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Motorcycle selfie

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standing on top of tin cup pass

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Expedition 2: Old Mines and Single Track

After riding up to the pass in the morning and back down to Princeton hot springs for lunch we decided that it still wasn’t enough to we started driving down any dirt road we found. One led us down a single track trail through the woods for a bit and the other to an abandoned mine.

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single-track-trail

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Old-mine

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Camp

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Expedition 3: Hancock Pass

By far the most challening section we went on. However, the sights from the top was the most interesting with an amazing straight shot view of the continuation of the road to Pitkin. Next time we’re doing the entire thing.

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Costs

This trip lasted just 2 full days and 2 nights. That being so, it came in quite expensive at $500. The large majority of the cost was renting a dirt bike for 2.5 days at $350. Next was $100 of gas for the truck to take the bike 3 hours from Evergreen to Buena Vista as it wasn’t street legal. Camping was free and food filled in the rest of the costs. I would definitely do this trip again when I purchase my own bike to bring down the costs. Bringing your own bike and extending the length of the trip would bring the cost down to $30 a day.

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Sasha Juliard

Author Sasha Juliard

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