Waterton Canyon Report

Goddamn Colorado
It's maybe the fifth time I've done Waterton Canyon, and it was fun as always. I like Waterton a lot as a testing ground for bikepacking gear, because it's so close to home (22 miles from my house to the campsite), relatively easy getting to the campsite (can do it on a road bike), and it's also the start of the Colorado Trail, and there's good relatively technical mountain biking you can do from there.

The sun sets around 5:00pm this time of year. They close the canyon 30 minutes after sunset, which means that I was not supposed to be climbing up there around 8:00pm. Oh well. An alternative is to take the trails from Roxborough State Park, which are significantly more technically challenging, but don't close when it's dark.

I took my Cutthroat with a relatively minimal gear setup:


  • Revelate Terrapin 14L seatpost bag
    • Camp clothes (wool shirt, leggings, extra socks, puffy jacket)
    • Sleep stuff (40F sleeping bag, sleeping pad, inflatable pillow)
  • 8L Sea To Summit Big River dry bag, strapped to aerobars
    • Tent soft stuff
  • Two Rockgeist feedbags
    • S n a c k s
    • glasses
  • Rockgeist top tube bag
    • Repair kit


The tent poles were ski strapped to my downtube, and I had five water bottles mounted up. Overall, I was impressed and pleased with the bike's handling while loaded. I want a full frame bag to carry moar stuff, but I could just as easily throw two cargo cages on the fork for more gear. Three bottle cages in the frame is pretty great - I can get 78oz of water in there, and it's more portable/convenient than a bladder. A bladder holds 100oz though, and then there's more space for other things in the triangle too.

Beautiful mountain views

The Cutthroat is super comfy on the gravel parts of the ride, but it did feel a bit underbiked on the harder parts of the rides. There was a bunch of snow on parts of the Deer Creek trails.
Gravel road up to Waterton

Camping gear was good. Big Agnes Fly Creek tent sets up relatively fast, but it could be faster - was jealous of the bivvy + tarp setup that another rider had. I think I'll try the fast fly setup, with only the foot print and rain fly next time. May be faster/easier to deal with, and it's not like we have that many bugs in Colorado.

Should have brought the fattie

I brought a 40 degree bag because a forecast I checked put the low around 45 degrees in the area. The forecast changed after I decided on that bag, and then it wasn't even a relevant forecast. The temperatures got into the low 30s - the last temp I recorded on my bike computer was 36F, and when I got started in the morning, the first I registered was 32. The 40 bag worked relatively well - I wore my clothes to bed, including the puffy jacket, and the only part that was uncomfortable was my feet. The natural solution is a pair of down booties - that'll probably let me comfortably camp with the 40 bag down to 30 degrees, and possibly even lower.

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