Colorado Trail Durango Segment 28

Well the description on MTBProject.com says "Drive (or ride) approximately 18 miles up Junction Creek Road to the junction with FS 171N. This intersection is well marked with a sign to the Colorado Trail."  Well challenge accepted!  I had been going a little further up FS 204 (Junction Creek Rd) each week or so, at least up to where the snow hadn't melted yet.  Then I put it off another week, as a visitor from Thailand, of all places, came to Durango to ride Kenebec pass, which he was told was still snowed in.  Looking at the map, I was not sure which section of the Colorado trail that was on.  I did some killer rides up at Hermosa creek in the mean time.

I hit the Forest Service road for a little threshold training at the beginning of the couple hour HC climb.  I keep riding up past the upper trail crossing of Log Chutes 2, (last ride this is all I had), gaining 2000 feet in about an hour, past the Animas overlook, ( a common drop into unnamed single track for me).  I continued up past Log Chutes 3 and Downhill trail head, past Rand's Point and Cape Horn.  I caught a glimpse of Kenebec pass, (as pointed out bu a local I meat on the Extended ridge trail over looking Durango) and if I understood him correctly, it still looked snow locked to me.  But I never seemed to get above it and actually started to descend a fair ways to 171,

which climbed a little to the Colorado trail Crossing.


While the Strava file shows mainly a descent (Lower Kenebec, not the pass) for some time it seemed like there was a lot of up and down even before the last brutal climb to high point.

There is a beautiful waterfall about 2 miles down:


Followed by a smaller falls that you rode right along, about 3 miles down: