Matt's Cycling Perspective:
I have always wanted to ride this pass! We have been coming toTurquoise Lake since 2008. My first attempt to ride over Hagerman Pass, which was back in the summer of 2008, was cut short when I decided to veer off of Hagerman and turn up a steep rocky section! Turns out this steep rocky section is part of the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race. But I had to go back again and finish the actual pass! That is what I did! My plan for this current trip was to start on the dirt road just off Turquoise Lake Road and bike all the way to Basalt, CO. I did my research before hand and found that a guy rode from Basalt to the top of Hagerman Pass and clocked it at 32 miles. Considering Hagerman pass from the east side, which was where I was starting, was 8 miles from the start of the dirt to the top of the pass, it should have been 40 miles one way with a round trip of 80 miles. Nope. Let's just say this information was incorrect and ultimately lead to my downfall.
But, enough of the whining and now on to the riding!I ultimately made it up the top of the pass! The road up to the summit is a smooth gravel road until you hit 5 miles and it then becomes fairly rocky and filled with potholes. I was shocked to find my wife at the near top of the summit in our CR-V! She drove our CR-V through this? Trust me the picture of the rocky road does not give it justice! Now my wife is not the "driving" kind of person, so to see her drive this section of road with worn touring tires was remarkable and impressive! A true "sagger" she really is! I was even more impressed with my father-in-law who was out there on his tourning bike with his 35C slicks also trudging through this rocky section! He did walk a bit, but he ultimately made it to the summit with me!
Beware! There is a false summit with a short decent! You will find this around 7.7 miles! If you do not see the butterfly sign with summit information, you are not at the top! The top and the summit is at 12,001 feet above sea level!
Desending down the summit will lead into some rocky and semi-technical terrain. There is a stream that crosses a section of the road! You will get wet! Once you finally get down to the service road, you will find easy terrain and also an opportunity to soke up the surrounding beauty! Make sure you take time to check out Hell's Gate! At least this is what the locals named it! Seems to be a train wrecked back in the 1800s. However, I was unable to find accurate information on the Internet. It is worth a photo or two. You can see the left remains of a few rusted train cars!
I hit pavement at about 22.5 miles in. This makes for a fun decend, but with my knobby tires, a bit slow! You will find there is one more climb at about mile 33 and another 647 feet to climb. This is just enough to give your legs a bit more sting! This is also where I started to realize my researched information was incorrect. After 46 miles of riding, I should have been in Basalt. At this point I sat down and ate and filtered water and decided to turn around and start back to the summit since it was becoming late in the day. After roughly five miles of cramps and pain, I realized I did not have it in me to make it back to the top of Hagerman Pass again. It was going to be another 4,800 feet of climbing and roughly another 39 miles to the summit. This was after just climbing 4,700 feet and already riding 46 miles! I then decided to turn back around and head again towards Basalt. Therefore, the total and correct mileage from Turquoise Lake Road to 2 Rivers Road in Basalt is 54.39 miles. My researched information was incorrent by 14 miles. Here is where my true downfall begins and leaves me standing at Basalt and crying to my wife for help! A couple cell phone calls later, my "sagwagon" was on its way! My father-in-law drove from Lake Turquoise towards Basalt to come and get my deflated ego. I was feeling a bit guilty and I figured I would ride another 22 miles and stop in Glenwood. He found my sorry butt at the local McDs in Glenwood! Thanks again for saving me Dad! When all is said and done, I would not recommend this as an out and back ride unless you try to turn around when the pavement starts and roughly around 22 miles. This will give you a nice 44 miles of beauty and high altitude riding!
Erica, Olivia, and Cooper's "sagwagon" Perspective: My mother was along for this sagwagon adventure! We decided to ride up a ways and see how far we could get! That was our moto for the day. The start of Hagerman Pass is a dirt road and stays fairly easy going until about five miles in. This is where the dirt road changes to rough and bumpy road! The stretch continues off and on with some uneasy patches here and there. Thank goodness we just had the CR-V's brakes worked on! My tires on the other hand are a bit worn, but did okay in the long haul! I caught my mother clutching the car chair arm a couple times! I think she questioned my ability to travel over these rocky boulders! Oh how she underestimates me! We caught ourselves on some narrow stretches where only one car could travel a time. We kept watchful eye around switchbacks to make sure we were clear. Make sure to follow road etiquite! The car traveling up always has the right away! I stopped several times and walked up the road to see what lay ahead. If it looked okay, we continued traveling. Since the road becomes narrow, we did not want to get caught in a situation where we could not travel ahead and we could not turn around. 
However, when we got about about 5.5 and 6 miles in, we couldn't turn around! We were so close to the summit! By this time I think I convinced my mother the same. She was also yearning for the satifsfaction of the summit. The surrounding beauty is breath taking and can not be described through words alone. There are several opportunities to take snapshots. We did not see any wildlife during this pass adventure, but we did see some red wild mushrooms and some bright red-orange Indian Paintbrush flowers! We also saw a 10th Mountain Division Hut. A hut? Yeah right. A beautiful mountain cabin is what it really is! You can also rent it out!
So we get to the top! Or so we thought! The view down below was awesome! We walked along what looked like tundra and Olivia and Cooper tromped here there and everywhere! There were moments the altitude took our breaths away! We figured we would be waiting an hour or two for Matt and Dad. I felt ill prepared this trip since I did not have my ice chest with cool beverages and snacks and even reading material! I honestly did not think we would make it to the top in the CR-V and therefore did not pack accordingly. To our surprise, Matt was pedaling up the last stretch with Dad not too far behind!
We enjoyed some photos and had the discussion about not seeing a summit sign. I had even walked around the bend to make sure we really were at the summit. Around the bend, the road begins to desend. At this point we let Matt continue on towards Basalt and we all head down the pass again. I got the disheartening news a bit later from Matt. We did not make it to the summit! We had only arrived at a false summit! The true summit was about a quarter mile ahead of where we were! I was quite bummed! I had worked so hard to make sure we got to the summit safely and we weren't even there! So make sure you are at the true summit! If there is not a butterfly sign with elevation posting, you are not really there! I will not make that mistake again! Also, my adivce from a "sagwagon" point of view is to make sure if you are in a passenger car that you can make it up the pass. You do not need 4x4 persay, but you do need a vehicle with enough clearance to go over these rocks! You will have to make the judgement call! If you decide to not "sagwagon," take advantage of taking nature photos and fishing! The fishing is outstanding! We had great luck at Turquoise Lake! I pulled out eleven trout alone! Although I will not share with you my luck in choice of bait! You will have to figure that out on your own! Good luck!
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