ASPEN — They arrived shortly after dawn and swiftly developed a small roadside city of tents, trailers and trucks atop Colorado’s most scenic mountain passes.
“I think we got the perfect spot,” said Analisa Fej, who flew in from Michigan with her son, rented an RV and charged up Cottonwood Pass two days before 168 professional cyclists in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge were to crawl over the 12,126-foot pass.
“To have such high-caliber riders go by right in front of us, that’s going to be a really special thing,” Fej said early Tuesday from her summit-top perch in anticipation of today’s stage.
Known as the “Queen Stage,” today’s stretch marks the burliest day of the inaugural race. It will route riders 131 miles from Gunnison to Aspen over two 12,000-foot passes (Cottonwood and Independence), making it the highest professional road-racing leg ever in North America and Europe.
Organizers and local officials expect today’s stage to be the busiest of the race, which is turning into the largest spectator event in Colorado history.
The seven-day, 500-mile race prodded the Colorado Department of Transportation last week to relax rules prohibiting roadside camping to allow spectators a chance to see the racers close up.
Still, the Forest Service, which owns most of the high-alpine land on either side of pavement along today’s route, will be busy on Independence Pass, making sure spectators know that CDOT’s temporary roadside-camping allowance doesn’t include all federal land.
Tuesday, the Forest Service had staked dozens of “No Camping” signs along Colorado 82 on the west side of Independence Pass. Forest Service spokesman Pat Thrasher said the agency “will have a fairly high profile” on the pass today.
“We are trying to accommodate camping along the course, but there are places where camping immediately adjacent to the roadside just isn’t going to be appropriate for public-safety reasons and resource-protection reasons,” said Thrasher, noting that the agency will open some day-use areas for overnight camping.
Taking full advantage of the suspension of roadside camping rules, Coloradans on Monday and Tuesday were rallying on high for a tailgating taste of the Euro cycling party they have seen only in newspapers and on television.
“This is so cool. Instead of watching it on TV every July (in the form of the Tour de France), here we are,” said Andy Lewallen, who rousted his wife and daughters from their Cañon City home at 6 a.m. Tuesday to race to the last switchback before the Independence Pass summit. “As soon as I heard this race was coming here, I knew the exact corner I wanted to be. And here we are.”
Tents and massive trailers lined Cottonwood and Independence passes by early Tuesday in anticipation of today’s stage.
Coolers began cracking open early, with food and drinks fueling the ecstatic vibe. Dinner plans were made with new neighbors as a steady stream of newcomers swelled the sudden mountaintop community.
“We don’t follow bike racing really, but this is pretty epic for Colorado, and we wanted to be part of it,” said Gunnison’s Lee Connally, who joined her friend Doug Engel in their retrofitted ski-area shuttle bus atop Cottonwood Pass late Monday night.
Cottonwood Pass closed at 3 p.m. Tuesday, but by 11 a.m., hundreds of spectators had raced up the pass from east and west. Independence Pass was even busier as several hundred race-watchers grabbed their ground for the next day’s viewing, which will be of exhausted riders as they summit their second 12,000-foot pass.
Still, CDOT spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said Tuesday afternoon that “everything has been super-mellow so far.”
Mellow seemed to rule the day as campers happily moved vehicles to accommodate late arrivals and took care not to park or camp on the fragile alpine grasses.
Late Monday night, Nathan Torres and his young son grabbed the last open campsite at the Forest Service’s Lostman Campground on the west side of Independence Pass. By Tuesday, all of the agency’s campgrounds on the Aspen side of the pass were full.
“Our strategy tomorrow is to sneak in where we can in the early morning and not irritate the Forest Service by trampling their tundra,” Torres said of his race-day plan.
By late Tuesday afternoon, the tailgate party atop Independence was erupting in a festival. Most of the pullout areas on the east side of the pass were swollen with cars and campers a full 24 hours before racers were expected to arrive.
Kevin Berg leaned back in his camp chair and absorbed the high-alpine scene. The Frisco cycling fan arrived at daybreak to grab a coveted summit spot and then pedaled 12 miles down and back up to phone in his location to friends arriving later.
“It’s going to be a big party up here tonight,” Berg said Tuesday. “It’ll be chaos tomorrow.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com
