Riding Into The May Snow - A Moving Medication in the Rocky Mountains

Three feet of snow in early May and we still point the bikes toward Rocky Mountain National Park. With my buddy Jake, we leave Estes Park and climb Bear Lake Road toward 9,500 feet, watching temperatures, scanning shadowed corners, and keeping one rule front and center: no ego. If it gets sketchy, we turn back. That’s real motorcycle safety, not bravado. 

Past the park gates, the fear evaporates. The Park Service has the road clear, and Colorado delivers that rare contrast of dry black asphalt framed by piles of pristine white snow. I trail Jake through careful corners while my camera rolls, and the Continental Divide rises over the handlebars like something ancient and quiet. Along the way we spot deer, elk, and even a moose settled into a snowy meadow, then we kill the engines at Bear Lake and let the mountain silence rush in. 

But the ride is only half the story. Over coffee before the climb, we talk about friends carrying PTSD, people crushed by work stress, and how hard it is to find a moment of peace in a loud world. We land on why riding matters so much: it’s moving meditation. You can’t live in the past or the future on a motorcycle. You have to be here, now, and that focus opens the door to gratitude and to the kind of shared experience that sticks for a lifetime. 

If this hits home, subscribe to Peace Love Moto, share this with a riding buddy, and leave a review. What’s your “can you believe this” ride, and who are you calling for coffee and a run up the canyon?

Transcript

The Safety Pact Before Climbing

Clear Roads And Frozen Beauty

Coffee Shop Talk On Peace

Gratitude And A Simple Challenge

Ron 0:07

You know, living on the front range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, we're used to Mother Nature's mood swings, but this week, she was crazy, or at least a little bit dramatic. It's early May, and just a couple of days ago, Rocky Mountain National Park just got slammed with three feet of fresh heavy snow. I'd planned to meet up with my friend Jake for a motorcycle ride today, but when I looked at the peaks, just blinding white up there, I'll be honest, I was a bit skeptical of what we were going to try to do. When you see that much snow, your rider brain begins to kick in and starts calculating things like, is this a good idea? Because we've got shady corners, melting runoff, and possibly black ice. But my buddy Jake is a smart guy. And he's a good friend, so he suggested we not only go up into Rocky Mountain National Park, but we ride all the way to Bear Lake in the National Park, which happens to be at 9,500 feet. So again, I'm thinking it's early May, right after a blizzard, and my internal monologue was just saying, yikes. But we're experienced riders and we checked the temps. It was in the 40s and low 50s in Estes Park where we began our ride at 7,000 feet. So we made a pact. We'd start the climb up to Bear Lake Road toward Bear Lake, but if the road turned treacherous, we would turn back. No ego, no risk, just two mature middle-aged guys with common sense. Right. Recorded in beautiful loveliness, Colorado. Welcome to Peace Love Moto, the podcast for motorcyclists seeking that peaceful, easy feeling as we cruise through this life together. Are you ready? Let's go. That fear, it evaporated the moment we passed the National Park Gates, right outside of Estes Park. The Park Service had done this incredible job in the past 24 hours. The roads were clear, a bit wet in the shadows, but sure, it was staying above freezing, and it was all completely clear. So we rode, watching the temps, but we climbed higher and higher, turn after turn, and my friends, the world transformed. It was that rare Colorado contrast where the asphalt is black and dry, but the shoulders are piled high with pristine white powder. I had asked Jake to ride ahead of me because I had my Insta360 camera mounted onto the front of my bike, and I just wanted to record that. Yeah, I was trailing Jake on his bike, watching him lean into the corners very slowly and carefully because we were, you know, you never never can tell what's around the next corner up there. But as the snow-covered continental divide loomed right over our handlebars, just massive and silent, that's just undescribable. We weren't the only ones out there. We spotted deer, an elk, and the crown jewel of Rocky Mountain National Park, a moose that had bedded down in the snowy meadow taking in the sun. And then we finally pulled in to the Bear Lake parking lot at 9,500 feet, and we just sat there for a second. We killed the engines, and that deep, high mountain silence rushed in and rushed over us. He and I have both lived in this area for quite a long time, but we agreed that we're still overwhelmed by everything around us up there. We had been to that very spot many times on summer days, but today we looked at each other and both said exactly the same thing. Can you believe this? Can you believe this? But the ride itself is only really half the story. Because about an hour before we rode into Rocky Mountain National Park and climbed way up high, we stopped at a coffee shop in Estes Park, the beautiful little village right below the Continental Divide, just west of where we both live in Loveland. We sat there for a while, just two friends, and we talked about more than just the beautiful day and the write-up that we had just experienced. We talked about people who we know who are in the thick of things right now. Friends struggling either with the heavy weight of PTSD and others drowning in high pressure work stress and others just trying to find a moment of peace in this very loud, crazy world. We looked out the window at our bikes in the sun, and it hit us. It hit us both. This hobby of ours, this passion for riding motorcycles, it isn't just a luxury. It's really for both of us, we both agreed. It's a form of moving meditation. It's a way that each of us process the world. It's good for us. We agreed on that. It's good for our mind, it's good for our bodies, it's good for us to ride motorcycles. Because when we're out on our motorcycles, we can't be in the past and we can't be in the future. If we aren't in the now, we're not riding. And in that now, there is, we agreed, this profound sense of gratitude that's just so hard to put in towards. But I'll try. If you have a friend or a group of friends who will look at a snow-covered mountain with you and say, Let's go. Well, how can life be much better than that? Really? I mean, shared experiences act like a mirror. They reflect the joy back at you, doubling it. Seeing the Continental Divide in Bear Lake today through my own visor was great, yeah. But seeing it with Jake riding along there in front of me, that's a memory that'll stick for a lifetime. And I've got the recording to prove it, right? But there's a second layer to all of this, too, and I know that Jake agrees with this as well. If you have the health and the spirit and the means to throw your leg over a motorcycle, you are one of the most fortunate people on earth. There I said it. You have found a way to bridge the gap between the mundane life and a majestic adventure that will change you forever. So, my challenge for you this week, my friends, is simple. Don't let your yikes and your head stop you from finding the magic on the road. Reach out to one of your riding buddies. Go grab a cup of coffee and don't forget to take a second look out there together and say, can you believe this? Thanks for joining me today, as always. This is Ron Francis with Peace LoveMoto in Loveland, Colorado. And if you ever find yourself out this way, let me know. I'd love to meet you. Share a cup of coffee, and let's just go have a majestic ride together. Thanks again. Have a great week. Peace.