We got about 20 miles out of Steamboat the next day when one of Cate's spokes decided it did not want to travel with us anymore. Thankfully, Cate was able to successfully replace the spoke! We got some help from John, who was biking in the area, to true the wheel.
Truing Cate's wheel in Clark, CO.
We camped that night in the Routt National Forest. The next morning, we exited the forest and were biking through the "impressive" Three Forks Ranch when, sadly, some cows had escaped onto the road. Being the naturally timid creatures that they are, the cows saw two terrifying bicyclists and began a mad, four mile dash down the road in front of us.
Mountain biking cowherding.
Still going, several miles later!
These cows lost all self-control in their fear-addled cow brains. They pooped everywhere--the road, themselves, us--and they pooped vigorously. Finally, thankfully, we got enough speed on a downhill to pass all six sprinting and pooping cows and calves.
Later that day, we hit a paved road and headed uphill for about 10 miles. Soon after turning onto the road, a motorcyclist pulled over to warn us that the road was closed up ahead--he heard that snow had washed out the road in a couple of places. We figured we were turning off before the washouts, and how bad could washouts be for bicycles, anyway? We thanked him and kept riding.
After 9 miles, we hit a sign reading "Road closed 1/2 mile," and for a very obviuos reason. The road was very much destroyed.
Thankfully we could still bike around!
Soon after this, we said goodbye to trees for the next six days, as we entered the Red Desert of southern Wyoming.
Camping by the tallest greenery around--what nice bushes!
After a day through the desert, we arrived in Rawlins, WY, where we stocked up for the next couple of days. We were headed into the Great Basin, a large depression on the Continental Divide. The small amount of surface water in the Great Basin flows neither to the Pacific nor the Atlantic, but rather is absorbed entirely internally. Here we would have limited water and no real grocery store for several hundred miles.
Entering the Great Basin.
Wild horses in the Great Basin.
The first day out of Rawlins, we had 55 miles to the A&M Reservoir--our longest day so far in miles, but an easy ride on flat and mostly paved roads. It was over 90 degrees, and it was magical to see blue water in the desert. We immediately wanted to strip off our clothes and go swimming, but then we noticed two half-naked men down by the lake. Weird! Why weren't they fully naked? Anyways, once we realized they had pants on we went and said hi. Turns out they were Southbound Continental Divide Mountain bike tourists! Woohoo! We camped with Sasha and Jason from Bloomington, Indiana that night. It was nice to hear stories of their trip so far, and it was nice to camp with people even in the middle of nowhere. You can find Sasha's blog here.
Camping by A & M Reservoir.
Sasha and Jason have real bike outfits!
The next day, we had an even longer day--58 miles--to our next water source. The wind picked up steadily during breakfast and we started off with a heavy cross wind. After about 20 miles the wind only got stronger and stronger, and finally our route turned southwest, meaning we had about a 50 mph headwind, with stronger gusts. The noise was deafening, and even the multitudes of pronghorn antelope with big, fuzzy butts couldn't keep us amused for very long.
After about 25 miles, we met three more bike tourists! TJ, Bobby, and Elliot were also riding the route southbound. TJ and Elliot just graduated from a high school in Colorado, and Bobby was their teacher. They mentioned that we caught them at just the right time, as they had been trying out some naked Great Divide riding, and they had just put their clothes back on. We told them we didn't think that was a weird idea at all.
Clothed Great Divide riding.
About 40 miles into our day, averaging 4 miles an hour uphill in the wicked headwind, we stopped for a snack and realized we definitely didn't have enough food for the next three days. What had we been thinking? Grumpy, hungry pandas continued riding, and eventually realized that we were riding high on a treeless plateau, straight into a lightning storm.
In our wind-deafened minds, we at first thought the lightning on the horizon was pretty interesting--cool scenery nicely contrasting the monotonous sagebrush. Pretty quickly our minds realized that the lightning was headed straight for us, very quickly, and we had no cover at all. We rode off the road, down a sandy slope covered in small knots of wildflowers and black, shiny rocks, and had just enough time to jump off our bikes, dig for our rain coats, and crouch in a nearby arroyo before the rain drenched us and the lightning flashed all around us. We sat with our knees to our chests and our heads on our knees, and thought about how dry it had been earlier and how nice that had been.
When we rose up out of our frozen crouches, and limped back over to our bikes, it was already 6:30pm. We hauled our bikes back to the road, and kept riding to Diagnus Well, a patch of wetlands where water flowed from a pipe sticking out of the ground. We didn't get there until 8pm, and we stuffed cold tacos into our mouths and fell asleep before it was properly dark. What a hard day!
20 miles into the next day, we left the desert and crossed over some hills into Atlantic City. This town of two bars and two restaurants seemed accustomed to pathetic bicyclists staggering in and eating a ton of food, so they weren't too alarmed by our dusty faces and hungry stomachs. We were able to buy a few groceries for the next couple days: two cans of soup, graham crackers, and five candy bars each. Embarassing but completely necessary.
Grubstake's pancakes and candy bars literally saved our lives.
Leaving Atlantic City, we rode by Carissa Gold Mine and into South Pass City, a ghost town from the Wyoming Gold Rush.
Carissa Gold Mine--the origin of the Wyoming gold rush.
South Pass City Mercantile.
We camped that night on Pine Creek, in a very beautiful spot with a lot of trees--a huge luxury.
It was so nice, in fact, we couldn't stop taking pictures of it.
The next day, we biked a roller-coaster road following the Wind River Range.
Yay we got out of the desert and didn't starve!
Today a large cowherd blocked the road, and we followed a NOLS truck through the writhing mass of mooing and pooing cows.
I missed cow poo! Thank goodness we're riding through it again!
Cows.
Now we are in Pinedale, WY, and looking forward to taking showers! (Everyone sitting next to us is too.)
LOL. Really LOL. good thing you had another chance at the cow poop. Cowgirls, now, who ever would have guessed two formerly eastern girls would be out there herding.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been fun to camp somewhere int eh general vicinity of other riders - were those tents about half a mile apart? Don't get too cozy there.
Glad you didn't starve to death or we might not have had the chance to laugh so hard
Love,
Dad
As usual, I reacted with a mixture of hilarious loling and gasping with fear for you. Please continue to avoid starvation and being hit by lightning. Love you.
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