Cement Creek is a great place to link high routes on mountain bikes. This past weekend we went and checked out Crystal and Star Pass. Tim and Drew pedaled from town pedaling up Tony's, across Upper Upper, Brush Creek and gained Doubletop via 409.5. 409.5 is a brute of a climb but great way to link Brush Creek to Cement Creek. I pedaled from my home in CB South to meet them on the Waterfall Cut-off. This is a favorite. Contouring, tight and technical. This trail spits out pretty far up Cement Creek where we continued until we grabbed the Crytal Peak Trail. It is a brilliant climb that tops out on Crystal Pass for a short descent before gaining Star Pass at 12200 feet. From the top of Star, it's a wicked singletrack descent down 400. It eventually turns to a jeep road that invites you to air off its rolls that empty's down Brush Creek. This is the same Star Pass that the famous Elk Traverse heads over. Right now... you could still ski the bowl. So while it is passable by bike, I would not exactly call it ridable.
There was a short snowclimb to top out the headwall. We were joking around and calling it Bike-A-Neering.
Unfortunately Trail 400 could still use the chainsaw, but we did appreciate that the trail is non-motorized at the moment due to the down trees and snow.
Cement Creek is a great valley to link up big rides as opposed to North of town that backs into wilderness. Ski tour to the North and East through wilderness, bike tour to the South through forest service land! There are great singletrack link-ups from Cement all the way to Salida. So get a map and explore!
Cheers,
Chris
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