Day 16: A picture is worth a thousand words

Day 16's course out of Pagosa Springs Colorado had an option to start the day early and do an out-and-back to Wolf Creek Pass with a requirement to be back to the hotel by 11AM. This is an iconic section of road that is the highest elevation reached by the annual Race Across America bike race. Because I skipped the last 20 miles yesterday, I resolved to do the out and back. Only two other of my fellow riders (Rasa B and Luis B) ended up doing the climb; many were discouraged by the cold valley fog hanging over Pagosa Springs at 6:30AM.

After the out-and-back the plan was to check out of the hotel then ride to Chama New Mexico. Here is the profile of the ride as taken:

So it was cold, it was foggy, and it was certainly going to be even colder at Wolf Creek Pass. I emptied my warm clothes stash and put on every stitch or took it in my jersey pockets as backup. What would have been smart would be to put a dry jersey into the mini-van that would drive to the pass, allowing a change from a damp (from sweat) jersey to a warm dry jersey at the summit. 

At any rate, the point here is that I had on two pairs of gloves, I needed to keep moving for both the time constraint and to keep warm, so I didn't take any pictures on the out-and-back. As I rode I thought I would challenge myself to communicate the scene with words instead of pictures. You can be the judge of how well that works.

Departing Pagosa Springs at 6:50 on a quiet Sunday morning, I could see a tinge of blue through the fog above me. It was clear this wasn't very thick and would burn off once the sun got higher. However in the meantime I could not see more than a couple hundred feet up the road, which meant my usual strategy of sizing up hills and deciding to go hard or easy depending on hill length did not apply. The larger Ponderosa pines loomed through the fog on the left and right, and occasionally one could perceive the vague presence of the San Juan River below the road or a 200' cliff above the road. After 6 miles, the sun seemed to be winning the day when a east-facing hillside glowed bright in sunshine. The road below however was still in shadow and retained some low fog and the next corner brought total shadow and more fog.

At around 12 miles the road widened to double width for a chain-up area which was the precursor to an upturn in grade and the start of the climb proper.  The elevation here was just under 8000' and the fog was soon left behind once I started gaining altitude. A scenic pull-over spot on the right had a semi-truck parked in it with a beautiful thin waterfall falling from the solid rock mountain side behind it. Susan N driving the minivan came gliding by and checked that all systems were go. The grade of the road stayed at 7% plus or minus 1% so I settled into a rhythm with 60 cadence in my 36-25 gear, keeping it at around 200 watts. Shortly thereafter the semi-truck got going and passed me with ample room since there was a passing lane for most of the climb. I saw it cross right-to-left on the hillside facing me then a full two minutes later cross left-to-right higher up on the side of the mountain. 

A bit farther the right side of the road consisted of a high rock wall which seemed to have a habit of shedding boulders. The tarmac of this section had been replaced by concrete but even the concrete had many sizeable divots caused by the falling rock. After 30 minutes of climbing at a steady pace, the 9000' elevation was reached and the mountain's roots were overcome. The feel of the road changed as it started paralleling creek descending a high alpine valley. However the valley was filled with tall standing dead spruce trunks intermingled with smaller next generation spruces. The dead spruce were not black and many still had upper branches, so I ruled out forest fire as the cause. After consulting Dr. Google, I learned that the die off was due to a spruce beetle epidemic in 2013 associated with drought conditions.

In a refreshing break from the continuous strong wind of most of this tour, the high mountain airs were calm and the climb was quiet except when motor vehicles passed. Thankfully traffic was light - I counted 10 vehicles in 5 minutes - so some peace and quiet interludes were there.

I continued the steady pace and found that I'd maintained a 2200' vertical-feet-per-hour rate for the hour and twenty minutes it took to reach the summit. That figure is in the mid-range of what I normally do at much lower altitudes and was better than I expected. A rare thing happen in the last couple miles of the climb which was that my breathing and pedaling were able to sync up - one breath per pedal rotation - which makes the effort seem very natural. I noticed years ago how when running this sync seems to happen automatically all the time, but on a bike not so much.

At the top Susan N was waiting with hot coffee, cookies and a warm seat inside the minivan. The temperature at the top was closer to 35°. First though I had to get her to get my proof:

The pass is also a Continental Divide Trail (CDT) contact point and a group arrived to drop off a through hiker. He struggled to repress his slight disdain at the idea of riding the Rocky Mountain region on road bikes and pavement instead of walking the CDT or doing the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride which is gravel road for the most part.

Once in the van, warming and sipping coffee, I stripped off the four layers of jerseys I was wearing and put them back on in reverse order so the driest was closest to my skin. That made a huge difference in removing the source of that clammy damp chill. I then added a 5th layer - a water and air-tight purple rain jacket with a hood that could go under the helmet. Finally I went out for another photo just as Rasa B and Luis B topped the hill.

So I handed over Susan's excellent services and set off back down the hill. I was worried about getting really cold coasting down the descent but found that the 7% down grade was shallow enough that I could pedal and generate heat until reaching the warmer temps below.

Now the fog was gone from the valley and I could enjoy the myriad shades of green from pine, cedars, fields of native grasses, beech stands and blue spruce along the San Juan river.

For the second, after lunch half of the day, I didn't need the finger covering gloves so was able to take a few shots and a movie of the beautiful south Colorado, north New Mexico territory:

 

Live action video - you can see there isn't much of a shoulder in Colorado

While New Mexico roads are better endowed with shoulders, albeit with rumble strip issues:

 

Our lodgings in Chama are rustic cabins with no laundry facilities. This is one night I could have used a washing machine and dryer to deal with the many layers I used in that climb. However that won't stop a seasoned cyclist from getting those clothes washed and hung out: