I forgot how nice a cool mountain morning really is. Wanting to get a early start to the continuation of the climb from yesterday we packed up the car. I started out leaving Lisa Marie behind so she could get some early morning wifi and return the cabin key. The cabin was wonderfully warm even though the temperature went into the 40s last night. The rushing river never stopped and the sound was quite soothing. Before leaving we snapped a couple of new pictures to remember. Today’s rule was slow and steady. I had 27 miles to get to the top of the pass. I knew there was no easy way and I was expecting a four hour ride to the top. Early, the grades were pretty steady and nothing too difficult. At Mile 15 that changed. Garmin informed me of the 11 1/2 mile climb to the top and decided to show me all of the elevation changes with its color coding. YUCK! I actually double checked the mileage because this was clearly the longest climb of the tour. Most of the other climbs or a half mile to a mile maybe a little bit more. Out East the climbs were shorter but steeper grades. Today’s climb or should I say that 11 1/2 miles was the toughest ride I’ve ever done. The altitude and the temperature constantly rising through the climb. Lisa kept close all day. We learned our lesson from yesterday. We would meet up every 20 to 30 minutes and most of the time she was sitting reading a book. As we got toward the top it was more difficult to find little pull-offs for her to sit and wait. But finally after just over 4 hours we made it to the summit. Here we both took some time to eat and drink and most importantly rest. I think we both were feeling the effects of the high altitude. So after a good long rest I got back on the bike for the descent. I had 30 miles to the destination and I was hoping most of it was like the side I just climbed and would be all downhill. The first six miles I didn’t even pedal. I spent time feathering the brakes and controlling my speed. It was such a great change to not pedal and been moving at speeds close to thirty miles an hour. The terrain on this side was much different than the climb. The mountains quickly faded into the distance and meadows appeared taking up most of the landscape. About 20 miles down on the backside the terrain pretty much flattened out. The winds were directly in my face and the ending difficult. We were both glad to finish today. Tomorrow is mostly downhill but we will have to see how it goes.
Insights from Lisa Marie
Day two of climbing, made it to Cameron Pass, elevation 10,276 feet. The Sherpa isn’t feeling so good, not sure if it’s altitude sickness. Stomach is way off and it’s been a challenge when the bathrooms are few and far between. Glad Norm had shown me where the “issue tissues” were. As we started downhill from the top of the pass, the scenery had changed to a little bit more rolling hills and flatten out as we got into the valley. The temperatures started to rise again up to almost 83 and Norm’s Garmin was reading 118 at one point in the sun. Wind started to pick up and I know he was getting tired. At one point I asked him if he wanted to stop and of course he said no. I took some more pictures as we made our way to Walden Colorado. We did pass through some of the burnt out part of the forest where last year Colorado had its biggest fire. Several thousand acres were burned, but the brush has started to grow back. We made it to Walden around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, had our lunch/dinner at the only restaurant in town. Went up to our room and I went horizontal for the rest of the day. Norm did some blogging and then he also rested.
