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:

 

Day 15: The Unidirectional Flow of Time and Water

Today we rode from Durango to Pagosa Springs Colorado. It was an "easy day" consisting of 87 miles and five thousand feet of climbing - much less dramatic than yesterday but still very beautiful. For me and several others that were coming in later, an extended thunderstorm suggested convincingly that we should take a SAG (get a ride in the tour vehicles) to the finish from the last rest stop, resulting an even easier 70 miles. Besides the rain and hail, the SAG also made sense because the final leg of route was on US 160, the main arterial in and out of Pagosa Springs. And I was able to make myself useful by helping to break camp and pack up at the final SAG stop.

The southwest corner of Colorado is very similar the land around Santa Fe, except there is more water in Colorado.  Similarly, the place names largely reflect the original Spanish settlement of these parts. Our route took us up, across and down the south-flowing tributaries of the San Juan River on beautiful back roads.

 Crystal clear creeks:

 Video of  super clear Pine River heading the only way it can: down

Before this video was filmed I was having problems with my bike shifting - it wouldn't drop down to the smallest sprockets.  After a fast stretch drafting the big boys, the shifter cable gave up the ghost at about mile 19, breaking altogether. I always carry a spare shifter cable in my seat bag, and luckily there were no complications in fishing the cable head out of the shifter mechanism. So I was back on the road with working shifters, having occurred about a 15 minute delay for the roadside mend.

We saw a lot of open country:

Nature does a better job of recovering from tough times than do people:

After lunch riding along Stollsteimer Creek

Storm clouds moving in:

Rachel is ready for rain and most everything else:

A field of purple flowers:

The route went by many stately Ponderosa Pine trees:

They've got a Chimney Rock here in Colorado too:

Chimney on the rightmost peak here. Unlike the one in North Carolina, this one really does look like a chimney:

After taking the SAG into town, we were off to the eponymous hot springs:

On the way to dinner at the Lost Cajun restaurant, the weather was clear enough to highlight the ridge of the South San Juan mountains. Tomorrow we ride to Wolf Creek Pass to the left of what's shown in this picture and I expect to see snow close up if I get there:

On a more tragic note, we lost one of the strongest riders in our tour when he struck a vehicle that turned right in front of him shortly before the end of the stage. I won't get into more details in this public forum. 

But its made me think about how time flows and how water flows.  With the flow of time, everything can change in an instant, and there is no going back - no "do overs", no rewind. Water also flows in one direction as illustrated the movie clip above. But water has a cycle, replenished by evaporation then precipitation.  Susan N today described a life as a circle, sometimes a small circle, sometimes a big one that encompasses many years. What is the cycle of life? Its hard to say but my intuition is that if there is a cycle its a lot bigger than we are. What I want to do with my life is express the same kind of frolicking joy that I saw in that creek below me when I took the video.

Day 14: US 550 photos

Today's stage from Montrose to Durango Colorado (109 miles, 8850' climbing) via Silverton was so staggeringly beautiful and so tiring that I'm skipping the snappy repartee and am just going to annotate the photos. Although I've been through Durango many times (in a car), I've never made north through the San Juan range to Silverton or Telluride, so this was all fresh to me.

This map image shows where we traversed the range:

 

 Heading south out of Montrose the San Juan range was side-lit by the rising sun:

Firday morning traffic was pretty bad with lots of trucks in a hurry to get somewhere. After riding an hour or so we were closer to the range

 

The Peakfinder app gives name and elevation - its one of Colorado's 58 "14ers"

We passed through the town of Ridgway which looks be a tourist mecca. That helped the traffic situation since now there were more cars than trucks, and they seemed to have a more sight-seeing nature.

The Uncompahgre River gorge which we will be riding up comes into view. Don't ask me how to pronounce that!

Nice!:

The Uncompahgre River within the gorge was surprisingly discolored.

The quaint hamlet of Ouray is tucked into the top of the river valley,

Surrounded by peaks. If you have a magnifying glass, Rachel can be seen riding through town in this one:

Once through town our future was foretold:

Starting a gorgeous climb:

Looking back down on Ouray:

Town promo plaques:

The road was cut into the side of a very steep valley

And includes a cute tunnel

And truly staggering drop-offs:

 

Its almost hilarious that there is no guard rail or even a small wall like on Going to the Sun Road (see prologue post). You could literally just fall off that. Same point from a distance:

They call this the million dollar highway, and like Steve G joked, maybe if it was the two million dollar highway it would have guard rails.

Looking down into a waterfall in the gorge below, zoomed and then not zoomed:

More leaf peeper action once we were above 9000':

The road leveled out for a while, which broke the ascent into two climbs, which made it much easier than yesterdays:

One we resumed climbing again we were among these red mountains:

Which were been mined extensively from 1880s to 1970s:

Those tailing piles seemed to be the source of the water discoloration as the feeder streams above this point had crystal clear water.

Interestingly one of the main shafts goes under the mountain all the way to Telluride, which I guess is about 6 miles by mine tunnel, 60 miles by car!

The bald mountains reminded me a bit of those tall hills in Scotland. Of course these are much much bigger:

First of three passes reached! I think this will be the high point (in the elevation sense) for the tour:

Heading down toward Silverton

 

 

Lunch was in Silverton which is the terminus for the steam locamotive tourist railroad

The climbs resumed right outside of town. Although it was very hard to pedal at first due to being off the bike and stuffing myself, after 10 minutes the legs warmed up and I made OK time up the hill:

Second of three passes reached! You can see by my outfit that the day was getting warmer.

Descending off Molas Pass, an amazing mountain:

 

 

 Identified with the help of Peak Finder:

 

 

 

The last of three passes completed:

My sartorial motto is "Dress to be noticed by cars, even if that notice is a scoff!"

On the way down to Durango we passed through Purgatory. Luckily we weren't stuck there