Hi Donna,

What a nice site! I'll grant you your hippo!

Elsewhere it shows where I've been going since '72 on trials machines, but it doesn't look as if I'll make it this year:

https://www.mtbproject.com/trail/7038401/saint-charles-1326

Like most of the trails in the Wet Mountains west of Pueblo, the St. Charles trail was built in the '30's by the out-of-work fellows who joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. You can still see places where they hand-drilled the rock to blast inconvenient obstacles.

I knew some amazing fellows who actually rode pre-war Harleys and Indians up that trail.

It was much easier back then before ninety years of erosion exposing rocks, fallen timber forcing difficult detours, and smooth hairpins turning into nightmares.

But those fellows were stil amazing,horsing huge, heavy, clumsy machines up the mountain.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel