Leg 2: Lake City to Buena Vista
Day 6 - July 12, 2020
I am thoroughly exhausted. Today may have topped day one for getting worked. I biked for nine hours, did 70 miles, and almost 6000 feet of vertical. On the bright side I finished the whole La Garita Wilderness detour! It was mostly on dirt roads and was 99% rideable so it was different than any other day thus far, but I am just completely and entirely worn out. Not a normal day for a small town mountain biker with a backpack!!
I woke up early and hit the road out of Lake City after a mediocre sleep due to some rowdy Texans. Slumgullion Pass was for breakfast and had me huffing and puffing for all 2500 ft of vertical. I finally topped out and sang loudly on my pleasant dirt road decent into a beautiful pasture and meadow with some awesome ranches that I wish I owned. Also, the fly fishing looked mental! I pedaled on through some flatland and some crazy rock formations until I started my next ascent up Los Pinos Pass, a gentle 1500 feet of vert, and began to sing again with a little less enthusiasm on the way down the other side. I was feeling pretty tired at this point but pushed through the next 25 miles or so of flatland with headwinds and then tailwinds.
My
biggest lesson of today was to drink more water. I refilled water about 45
miles in meaning I had only drunk 1.5 liters up to that point! Not good style.
I felt fine though and filled up my jug with some cow pasture water
(questionable, but my only option). The thirst hit me after this and I chugged
that 1.5 liters down in the next 10 miles. After going down the wrong road for
a mile, hiding from lightening in a tree, and turning back, I started my last
ascent. 1300 feet of gradual vertical in about 16 miles to camp, and no water
sources. I am definitely in different country now than I was before. Hardly any
water and all the water is nasty. I got to camp truly parched, dehydrated,
grumpy, and exhausted and chugged some gross cow water after waiting for the
aquamira, which felt like it took forever as my throat got dryer and my skin
shriveled (pictured below).
I did a whole lot of feeling sorry for myself in the last bit of today and it didn’t help my situation (low mojo second part of the day). I’m feeling a little better after eating dinner and drinking two hot chocolates (which were provided by a trail angel near Lake City and made the cow water palatable). Just gotta make better decisions next time but I hope today really will be the hardest day of the trip... we shall see! Monsoons are here for sure.... I reckon I’ll have afternoon rain and lightening everyday to Buena Vista at least, just gotta expect it. Tomorrow probably won’t be awesome riding either but after that I bet the riding gets good again! At least I’m back on the trail... roads suck!
Day 7 - July 13, 2020
It’s amazing the range of emotions I experience everyday. Today was pretty brutal and I was hating life for the strong majority, but now I feel genuinely content and deeply grateful to be out here!!
-
Perhaps this simple life brings us into the present moment and our emotions are influenced more by our current situation, and not some far off thought or worry. In the our civilized lives, we are always comfortable physically which causes our emotions to fluctuate based on complexities that can be difficult to pin point. However, when you put yourself in an uncomfortable situation for a long period of time, the feelings and emotions you feel are a direct result of your current experience. This makes my feelings of contentment feel much more real, and of course my feelings of suffering are results of real suffering. For example, when I am out here sitting warm and dry in my sleeping bag with a full stomach, I am happy. Simple as that. When I am at home warm and dry sitting in my bed with a full stomach, there is no telling the emotions I am experiencing, because they are based on thoughts and anxieties that are clouding my mind. The wilderness, in my humble opinion, is undoubtedly and clearly the most REAL thing we have in life, and the rest of our world is just humanity’s ideas realized in a confusing, dynamic mess of progress, creativity, and turmoil. It is profoundly and imperatively important to understand and respect the REAL world, and to have something solid, unarguable, and un-misunderstandable like the wilderness to have as a foundation in life, for everyone. So many people today have lost touch with the REAL world and this has lead us to a confusing reality. I think this plays a large role in the mass hysteria and high rates of depression and anxiety in the population of first world humanity today. This is why we must conserve these sacred places of wildness forever, without them all hope for sanity is lost.
To conclude this philosophical tangent, the wilderness is what I can hold onto with a firm grip no matter what life throws at me, and this is why I return to it time and time again. Mother Nature really is humanity’s mother, for she birthed and raised us from our primal infancy, and she still has so much to teach us. In time, she will. Whether it’s the hard way or the easy way is up to us. In nature, harmony is always restored given enough time. No matter how much we "develop" this Earth, we will never overpower Mother Nature, so we must protect her from ourselves.
-
Today was relatively mellow, but definitely sucked a lot. The “dreaded Sargents Mesa” surely lived up to its reputation. It was an unfortunate day to have a bike. Ironically, I saw for the first time five other bikepackers, all headed south. They were all just as grumpy as me. One of them was super pretty girl who made me consider turning around and heading back to the San Juan’s. Oh how I miss the mighty San Juan’s. Today’s terrain was 100 levels down from their endless views, glacial streams, and smooth high alpine trails. All of the riding today, until the very end, was in a beetle killed, dry, over-tree-crowded forest with the most loose, rocky trails imaginable that made sure to hit every high point so I was just going up and down endlessly... and all hikeabike. On top of this it was a 20 mile stretch of zero water so I had to carry and drink cow poop water from this morning all day. I am an optimist and I can confidently say it sucked. The views were mediocre at best and the riding was brutal on both me and Lucky. ^Boy did I get spoiled on the first leg, but rides like today just make me appreciate it more.
When
I finally made it up the last climb, the tre
Day 8 - July 14, 2020
Boy did it feel good to get above treeline again and back to grand views and flowy alpine trails. This morning started off with some super fun trails through the trees and then an ass kicker of a climb. Lynn, an old lady at last camp whom I befriended gave me one of her delicious homemade energy bars and it was insanely good, giving me the energy to push on. I enjoyed some more flowy riding after this and then a couple more climbs above treeline later on. I enjoyed some beautiful views of the dramatic Collegiate Peaks.
I did a 2500 vert descent that was more rocky and technical than I would have hoped but had a few smooth sections. Near the bottom, I biffed off my bike and bent my derailleur hanger. At the bottom of the descent I got to fixing it which wasn't too difficult since I had the right part and tools, but as I was fixing it the sprocket gear spindle deal fell off my back wheel and wouldn’t go back on. I spent an hour trying to fix this and finally got it back on but it was the first real problem I have had with Lucky that I am not equipped to fix properly. I will talk to a bike mechanic in Buena Vista.
I
checked in with the parents and sister and set up camp a couple miles past where I broke down. The rain is coming down hard now with some close lightening. The waters
pooling up around my tent and sleeping underneath a little bit. The monsoons
are here and this is a big one. Not the most glorious feeling hiding in my tent during a storm like this! Sure doesn't make you feel very important... but I suppose that's the goal.
Day 9 and 10 - July 15 and 16, 2020
It
feels really good to be in Buena Vista, such an awesome town. Last nights camp
was creepy and had bad vibes so I was happy to get out of there even though
most of my stuff was wet from the rain. There were some small hikeabikes and
some really fun smooth sections of downhill as I contoured around the foothills
of the collegiate peaks with the Arkansas valley to the east. While most of the
day was spent riding through trees there were a couple killer viewpoints as
well. These are amazing mountains it’s kind of a bummer I can’t be all the way
up there in the alpine but I’ll just have to come back and do the Collegiate West segment of the trail on foot someday.
Today’s ride was long enough for me to feel very happy to roll into BV around 1:30 and check into the Lakeside motel, which is awesome! I ate two cheeseburgers, two milkshakes, and a soup/salad; I am a happy man. I also did my laundry at a laundromat and took my bike in at a bike shop near the BV surf wave. That will hopefully help Lucky stay solid or at least give me some peace of mind for the next part of the journey after the troubles I had yesterday.
I’ve been doing some planning and am thinking I’ll be able to make it to Joe's ranch by next Friday if everything goes well. This would be awesome because it means I could have a weekend there which I will be looking forward to. I’m also thinking I will hike Parkview mountain on foot with Joe and maybe dad instead of biking it, and then continue on bike to Steamboat.
Excited
to have my first, and much needed, rest day in Buena Vista tomorrow before I
hit the road hard again on Friday. I’m planning on staying with Tristan
tomorrow night so hopefully that works out!
———
Rest
day was mellow and much needed for my body. I got dinner with Tristan. He was super busy so I brought burgers
to the laundromat and we ate there while he finished his homework and got
caught up. Ended up sleeping at the motel again because Tristan was so busy.
Hung out with these two kids whose grandparents owned the motel, the older one
was so fired up on biking and had a million questions. Maybe someday he’ll do
something like what I’m doing!
Comments
Post a Comment