Secret Powder Stash
Day 2 was mostly off-trail riding. After parking at the Tucker Ponds trailhead, we headed south along the Pass Creek Trail toward Campo Molino, a very popular play area past Tucker Ponds.
We headed off-trail before we got to Campo Molino and headed into our guides'-Matt Entz (whom you might recognize as a rider for Boondockers) and his friend Marshall Mathias-secret stash of powder.
About all we're allowed to reveal about our second day of riding was that we rode near, on and in the shadow of the Continental Divide. One more morsel-we did cross Bonito Pass at one point.
The snow was deeper in this area than where we rode on the first day in South Fork but then we stayed more in the trees except on a couple of occasions when we rode out on a couple of points to see the surrounding amazing scenery or on an open ridgeline. In places we were at 12,000 feet plus. It was a challenging day of riding as we traversed drainages, hillsides, mountains, parks and backcountry roads-all laden deep with powder.
Early in the day we were forced to stay at lower elevations because of low cloud cover and, you guessed it, snow showers. The clouds never really disappeared that day but they did lift enough that we had decent light and could see the surrounding mountains.
We didn't see another sledder on our first day of riding in South Fork and on day two, well, we didn't see any sign of human anything, including snowmobile tracks.
Aside from all the qualities snowmobilers look for in a riding area, perhaps South Fork's greatest asset is its location: just far enough away to limit the number of snowmobilers who are willing to travel that far to ride, but close enough that it's well worth the trip if you do.