Stealey Mtn Trail Complex Now Open

Our weird weather continues—everything is happening a month early. Friday I rode my trusty Yamaha dirt bike up Ouray (Colorado) County Road 8 (Owl Creek Pass Road) to the Vista Point overlook, which is one of the access points into the Stealey Mountain Trail Complex. All these trails are double tracks, meaning ATV trails. They’re also popular with hikers, horses, and motorcycles (in fact, I’ve only met horses and motorcycles in there). The trail complex is quite extensive. I used my new GoPro HD Hero2 helmet camera to capture video of the entire experience. Here I take a simple five minute segment that seems to combine all the types of terrain and scenery, including fording Owl Creek. Normally I don’t attempt fording the creek until August, but it was really easy last Friday (May 18th). That’s nice – I get to follow the trails on the other side. But it’s also scary – there’s not much of a snow melt this year, so where is the water going to come from? Time will tell. In the meantime, enjoy the ample greenery in the video.