Vapor Trail 125 - Rainbow Trail western terminus to Highway US285

This year we have included a nearly 11-mile section of the venerable Rainbow Trail. This section starts at the western terminus of the nearly 200 mile Rainbow Trail. The other end of the Rainbow Trail is near Blanca Peak, east of Alamosa, CO.

This bit of trail will be the last dirt and singletrack of the Vapor Trail 125. The section ends where the trail drops into the Canyon where highway US 285 is routed.

The rainbow is an up and down trail. A local favorite, but most locals know how much more fun it is with a pair of fresh legs underneath. There are places along this trail where a rider can pedal up to a good swift speed and then carry that speed through dips and curves, around ridge faces and up into gulches. Ah, the Rainbow...

The trailbed of the Rainbow generally stays between 8,500 and 10,000 feet elevation. The Rainbow is comonly thought of as a trail system found on the east slope of the northern Sangre de Cristo Range. Methodist Mountain is often considered the farthest northern peak of the Sangre de Cristo Range, but it is east of this bit, and on the other side of Poncha Pass.

The Rainbow passes along the northern face of Methodist, then continues east and south toward Westcliffe and then on toward La Veta.

The mountainside that much of this trail runs along is Porphyry Peak (11,586 ft). From the beginning of the Vapor Trail 125 course to Marshall Pass all was clearly in the Sawatch Range. South of Marshall Pass we begin to enter the Cochetopa Hills. I'm not sure whether Porphyry Peak would be considered part of the Sawatch, part of the Cochetopa Hills, or part of the Sangre de Cristo.

The high ground around Porphyry Peak separates the Silver Creek Drainage from the town of Bonanza, the Bonanza Mining District, and the tributaries of Kerber Creek, which flows south out of Bonanza. Kerber Creek joins other drainages moving water south through the San Luis Valley. These creeks flow into a closed basin north of Alamosa, but they add ground water to a rich aquifer that adds to the flow of the Rio Grande.

Silver Creek flows into Poncha Creek, which joins the South Arkansas, which joins the main stem of the Arkansas at Salida. When the course ran on the Continental Divide Trail, it roughly straddled the ridge dividing drainages that feed the Arkansas from those feeding the Gunnison (and therefore the Colorado).

As you follow the Vapor Trail course down Silver Creek, you are riding parallel to water that is flowing toward the Mississippi. When this section begins, it passes an intersection with the old Otto Mears Toll Road, built around 1879, which passed from the Arkansas River drainage into the Rio Grande River drainage. When the Rainbow Trail traverses up and away from Silver Creek toward Poncha Pass, it approaches the ridge between the Arkansas and Rio Grande basins. Near the end of this section of trail, a rancher's 2" black plastic water diversion pipe takes water that would continue down to join Silver Creek (and therefore to the Arkansas) around a land contour and down toward the San Luis Valley. This area is near the top of three distinct major river basins draining the North American continent.

The Section ends at a place that has been known as Mears Junction for as long as there have been english-speaking people in Colorado, since it was a place that Otto Mears defined as a transportation crossroads back when the mountains of Colorado were being explored by miners.

Where the Rainbow is good bicycle riding, the trail is generally traversing with little ups and downs. This section traverses, staying roughly between 9,500 and 9,000 for nearly 10 miles. The section ends with an aprupt drop of nearly 400 vertical feet in less than half a mile of trail down technical singletrack to the highway.

Much of the Rainbow Trail system is too rugged and steep to make good bike riding, but two-wheeled motorized travel is legal throughout the whole system.

The good racers of the Vapor Trail 125 are going to get here with some pretty well-used legs. Will it be fun for them? Hard to say what fun really is when you've been on a bike since 10 PM the night before, climbing to the continental divide 3 times, facing technical challenges and endless smooth road sections. Fun? Hard to guess.

It's so danged nice though. This is a danged fine section for the racer or the non-racer to come check out. Pretty trail. Nice trail.

Mt Ouray (13,970) as seen from the Rainbow (Photo by Tom Purvis)

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