As tired as I was, no sleep was had. Couldn't seem to shut my brain off. Only one yahoo drove loudly by our campsite around 11:30p, but that wasn't why I couldn't sleep. I did lie there with my eyes closed most of the night and for me, that's good enough. I still felt rested in the morning.
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| The riding was easy from camp, nice way to get the day started. |
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| We had camped about 5 miles shy of Cañon Plaza, which lie in the valley below. |
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| It may not look like much, but this is the famed Silvia's Snack Shack. A bit too early on this day, but she practically has a convenience store in there. |
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| Fast paved section through Cañon Plaza all the way to Vallecitos. |
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| Justin waits for me as we make the turn onto the infamous 'Dog Alley' of Vallecitos. |
I have to admit, after hearing story after story of dogs chasing riders as they pass through, I was on high alert. I was very much looking forward to putting this short bit behind us. Although I can't say I recall anyone ever actually getting attacked or bit, crazed dogs can be a tad unnerving.
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| Justin leads the charge, rather a soft pedal down the alley. |
Look closely at the photo above. There is a white dog, lying in wait just beyond the speed limit sign. It would be the only dog we'd see and it couldn't even be bothered to stand up or bark at us. Dog Alley: Dud. Whew!
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| Whoever this Asshole is, no, not Justin - the sign, they have a good sense of humor. Ha! |
There was and up & over coming on route leading to the next town, El Rito. I think if we knew how easy and fast the riding was to this point and the availability of wild camping, we would've pushed on the evening before. But, we didn't and we were making good time so it felt like a win.
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| Justin noted a nearby creek, good time to top off on water before reaching Abiquiu in a few hours. However, he realized his filter was painstakingly slow. My BeFree was gushing fast, so we shared it the rest of the way. |
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| Good road surface and a nice grade made for some pleasant climbing. |
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| El Rito Ranger Station as we begin to transition out of the forest. |
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| Interesting little town. |
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| In 1999 the Mars Polar Lander was launched and subsequently lost, the joke here is, it landed in El Rito. Or was this just a disguise for a cell phone tower? Either way, it's quite the sight and a true slice of Americana, a stop on the roadside oddities tour. |
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| Long fast downhill towards Abiquiu. The lower we got, the warmer the temps. |
We passed a few northbound tourers on the descent. We had seen about 10 so far, stopping to chat with almost everyone. It was great to get first-hand knowledge of the upcoming route and pass along similiar info to them. Everyone was in a great mood and stoked to be out on route. It was a real highlight of the entire ride. You can follow the touring dots on
Trackleaders too, white are southbound, gray are northbound.
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| High desert attained. Cerro Pedernal Peak dominates. It was often the subject of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings as she could see it from her home on the Ghost Ranch outside of Abiquiu. |
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| Rio Chama was flowing thick. |
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| Bodes General Store, now over 100 years old. |
Bodes had everything. First things first: chocolate milk. I think I went inside for three separate transactions and we made a pizza stop next door. It was a much needed resupply and this time I bought suitable dinner and breakfast items.
The daunting 4,000'+ climb up the Polvadera Mesa was now on deck. We both had heard the stories of how rocky the roads were. I was very curious to find out as I ride on a lot of rocky jeep roads here in Arizona. I figured I'd feel right at home.
It was now midday, pushing into the lower 90's. Good time to climb, eh? Well....
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| The pavement quickly turned to dirt and I was pedaling slow, watching Justin creep farther and farther ahead. |
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| We stopped at this creek for a much needed shade break. |
I was feeling like garbage, not bonking, but the heat was really taxing my system. I wanted to take a nap. So I closed my eyes for a couple of minutes. We met another northbound rider who noted this was the last water source for quite some time. We were good and resumed our slow gain in elevation.
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| After 1500' of gain, we reached a flat section and noted the building storms and surrounding lightning. |
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| Ahh, much better at the higher altitude and increasing cloud cover. |
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| Entering the Santa Fe Nat'l Forest. |
We had stopped to put on rain gear as the drops began to fall and of course barely five minutes later it stopped. No complaints as we weren't ready to find out if this was death mud or not.
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| Justin topping out on a climb before the one downhill on our way up. |
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| Cue the downhill. Side view of Cerro Pedernal. |
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| The downhill came at a good time, some 12 miles after our climb began. |
It flattened out and got a bit sandy, but rideable. We met a lady from Switzerland who was not enjoying the sand on her skinny tires. Like all the other northbounders, she was extremely positive, which also put us in a good mood. She asked us how far we planned to get and we told her we wanted to be over the summit and down a few miles. She seemed shocked at our ambitions and noted the rocky terrain. We told her the sand didn't last long and the climb was short, then a long downhill waited for the final miles to resupply at Bodes.
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| Here come the rocks. I was able to ride it and that seemed to be it for a while. |
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| The bigger nuisance was the deeper sand. It was that really fine, powdery stuff. Hard to pedal when it gets a couple inches deep. |
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| This was our view for miles on end. Slabs of solid rock. |
The grade wasn't too bad and riding the slabs was fairly easy, but the constant dips between slabs began to take a toll. The rain also decided to return and out came the rain gear again. We were somewhere around 8400', the climb topped out at 10,200'. We opted to hike-a-bike for a while, use different muscles and keep the effort down a bit.
The elevation was slow to come by and it was now getting late in the day. I was beginning to think I may regret only bringing a bivy and not my one person tent. Would the rain stop so I could set everything up, and change into sleeping clothes?? Or was I destined to be damp/wet all night. Time would tell.
We kept going and by the time we reached 9100', the rain had indeed let off the gas. We were feeling the effects of the effort and began looking for a good place to call home for the night. It didn't take long and we got everything set up and I actually enjoyed a decent dinner.
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