We wake to rain pouring down in sheets on our tent in the night. Into the morning it is still sprinkling. We sleep in and enjoy the smell of rain and sound of the river. Dave had already set up the rain tarp last night to cook dinner and it’s a good thing he left it up. We eat pancakes under the tarp and enjoy more rain and the view of the rushing river and green forest.

After breakfast we retire to the tent to read and nap. What a great rest day! The sun pokes out just a couple times throughout the day, and each time we rush to hang up things to dry, from our clothes that we washed last night in the river to rain pants and jackets and even the sleeping bags which soak up a bit of water from the dew on the tent. Everything gets nicely dried by the end of the day and we get plenty of rest. This is our last night in Colorado.

25 miles, 2:47/4:00

Today is a short day in miles, but the rough rocky road and rolling hills make up for the lack of miles some. At the top of a big climb we stop to read the information sign that tells us about the geology and mining in the area, and that the naturally exposed rocky layers in the mountain we’re looking at is responsible for much of the heavy metals in the river, and that mining only added a small amount to that. While we’re reading a truck and trailer stop in the pullout and a friendly couple greet us. The man said that back in ’58 when he graduated from high school he and a buddy rode Hercules 3-speed bikes from Del Norte to Denver. He’s a fan of bicycles and touring and chats it up with us a bit, telling us he admires us.

We find a beautiful campground along the river but it’s closed, I guess for the season. So we tromp around it and camp just outside its fence right on the river. We have decided tomorrow is going to be a rest day and we want a really good spot to hang out for a day. This is it. Because the campground is closed there are very few people around. We only see one fisherman. Across the river is wilderness, so we won’t be seeing or hearing any cars on that side. We set up camp as it threatens to rain.

Map by Adventure Cycling Association.

44 miles, 6:00/8:00

We have a hard time getting up this morning since we’re a little tired from yesterday’s long ride and late hour, but it’s a beautiful day and once we’re up we feel good and anxious to move on. But first: breakfast. We pack up and head down to the restaurant with wireless internet. I order a veggie omelette with hashbrowns and rye toast, as usual, and Dave gets a cinnamon roll to supplement his breakfast. We’re lucky to get a table with an outlet to plug into, and I get to work making posts.

Halfway through breakfast we see two cyclists ride up and soon they’re inside chatting with us. It’s Bill and Cathy, two riders who met on the trail and are now riding together. We heard about them from Dee Jay and Kerry just a couple days before, and we pass on the message that Dee Jay and Kerry hope to catch up with them to ride another section with them.

After breakfast we go to the post office and get our resupply box, then repackage everything out front and fit it into the corresponding panniers. Bill and Cathy show up to get their own packages and we chat some more. We are disappointed to hear we won’t be riding with them today, as Cathy has a dental issue she needs to wait until Monday to get resolved.

We finally head out of town at 10:30 to tackle the forty miles and 4,000+ feet of elevation gain waiting ahead for us. The book calls today the Big Day, as Indiana Pass at 11,910′ is the highest pass on the Great Divide (though not a Continental Divide Crossing) and it is the day with the most climbing on the route.

The climb our of Del Norte is gradual for several miles, then gets steeper for the last ten or twelve. But we don’t feel like this is the Big Day when compared with all the other big climbing days because today the roads are mostly pretty good and packed and sometimes even smooth. Dave takes a couple pictures at the top and then we keep moving. Just over the other side of the pass is Summitville, an old gold and copper mining area and current EPA Superfund site that has poisoned the streams in the entire watershed. We had to carry water for our entire day until camp because the surface water is contaminated with heavy metals.

The mining operations nearly carved down an entire mountain summit along with other hills around this area, and there is a huge reservoir of burnt orange-colored water being held above a creek that flows down the valley. It’s just ugly. We decide to picnic on the edge. Soon it starts to rain so we throw on our rain gear, pack up and head down to our campground.

65 miles, 6:24/8:00

My friend Susie is picking us up in Antelope Wells, NM at the end of this trip on October 4th. We’re looking forward to a fun drive up with her, which will include a short stay on the way in Ojo Caliente, some hot springs I’ve been hearing about for years but have not been to yet. Susie had that particular time available to pick us up, so that’s when we need to be done. In order for us to have a rest day we must ride a double and earn it. As we’ve talked with other riders we learn this seems to be called a “Double McCoy” since McCoy is the writer of the guide book we follow. Anyway, today seems like a good day to ride a Double McCoy so we do. The mileage is just a bit more than yesterday, and the last few miles are downhill on the elevation profile, so we think we can get to Del Norte before the post office closes so we can retrieve our supply box.

The day starts with another chilly morning as we start the rolling but gradual descent from mixed conifer forests through various ecosystems as we lose elevation. As the miles roll by we find ourselves past the pinyon-juniper forests and down in another sage-filled basin heading into the wind. Across the basin lie rolling lava-rock strewn hills one after another, and the miles tick ever-so-slowly by. This kind of riding slows us down. The area is so rugged and beautiful all at the same time, and we watch hawks soar by, gliding close to take a look at these rolling figures passing through their territory.

As the sun gets lower we realize we’re not going to make the post office before it closes. That’s OK, we can go in the morning on the way out of town, but it’s much better to do all the re-packaging and sorting before we head to the grocery. Always so much to do when we get into a town.

The last ten or fifteen miles we climb up over rolling hills on roads of decreasing quality. Then we find ourselves on a two-track, sandy and rocky jeep road rolling over the hills and we’re sailing along like we’re riding single track. This is fun stuff on an unloaded mountain bike, and just a little more work on a loaded one. As we crest the final hill we see Del Norte down below and we’re anxious to zoom down there and get dinner started. It’s been a long day. We start down and get slowed by some sand. Then some more. And soon we’re pushing. And pushing. And pushing. Ugh! Good thing we didn’t really need to get to the post office tonight! Finally we hit the end of the sand and ride into town to find the RV campground by the river.

It’s getting late so I put up the tent and Dave cooks dinner. Then he heads out to get groceries and scout the restaurant options. While he’s gone I write up the last few days from my journal notes so I can hopefully post updates in the morning. We’ve discovered there’s wireless internet available at a restaurant where we can have breakfast. I do laundry while he’s shopping. We both take showers, get to bed late and sleep hard.

60 miles, 5:24/7:30

We wake early to our first frost on the ground. It’s cold as we get out of the tent, and Dave starts making coffee right away while I take down the tent. Soon the sun comes over the ridge opposite our meadow and we are warmer than I could have imagined we’d be in just a few minutes.

After breakfast Dave does a little maintenance on the bikes. He’s always looking and poking at the bikes and stays on top of things so we don’t have any major problems. Soon we’re off, coasting several miles downhill in the shade of evergreens and aspens and it’s freezing. Good thing we have the right layers for all temperatures.

After about 25 miles of downhill, not all as steep as the first few but some on pavement, we turn onto a ranching road in a dry valley and see yaks in one fenced area, and a little later we see white reindeer! Dave actually names them, because I’m completely puzzled by them. We stop and take off some layers and put on more sunscreen for the ride through the warm, dry valley and the upcoming climb over Cochetopa pass, another 11,000-something pass that goes a little easier than we expected. Again, the roads were really nicely packed and the grade, if not railroad, wasn’t too steep. A couple miles over the pass we come to Luder’s Creek Campground, a quiet place with only one other couple staying.

29 miles, 4:01/5:30

We sleep in today as last night’s errands kept us up late. We do a quick bit of email and get out of town at 11:00. It felt nice not to hurry so much.

We are climbing right from mile one today, and end up climbing 4,000 feet in about 23 miles. The last twelve miles are once again railroad grade, so it goes well and we can enjoy the scenery. Once we get to this point we can settle in to a good pace where we can chat with each other. We often chat in the morning if the road allows, and it can be my favorite time. Today we are joking around and having fun. Dave said that whenever he meets someone named Carrie (or Kerry) he wants to sing that song, and then he busts out a full volume rendition of this horrifying, uh, tune, which is nothing like the “Carrie” I’m thinking of from around the 50s, but instead is something one of those awful hair bands from the 80s sang and he’s really doing his best to get it all right, but he says to imagine it an octave higher.

Yikes.

So I say, well, I guess that’s like every time someone meets me they want to sing that Beetles song, “Michelle, my Belle” but they never know the words that come after that line. And I’ve heard it about three thousand times in my life and I can’t remember one person who could actually sing the next line so finally some time last year I Googled it and found out it’s French, and I understand it (having recently taken French) and I get all excited and blast out my best version at the top of my lungs, “Michelle, my Belle, sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble, tres bien ensemble… I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOOOOOVE YOU…” and then Dave and I are simultaneously singing our songs at the top of our lungs together. And then I can’t stop laughing, and then I really can’t stop laughing, until I nearly ride right off the edge of the cliff that we’re so gently climbing at railroad grade. And I look down from the edge and see a quiet little lake just down there with fishermen floating and I wonder how often they hear that kind of quality singing out here in the woods.

Late in the afternoon after topping Marshall Pass we descend just a bit down to about 10,000 feet and get to the recommended free-camping area. We see Dee Jay and Kerry setting up camp just below a huge aspen grove in a grassy meadow above the creek. We set up camp too, and spend a bunch more time chatting. We get their email so we can keep in touch. They have done many bike tours and also canoe tours in beautiful places and have lots of experiences to share with us.

51 miles, 4:52/7:00

Today is a very hard day for me. Funny how one day I feel super strong, and the next I’m worn out by mile ten. But that’s just the way it is, and I want to ride this trail so I keep going. Dave is always very encouraging. Calls me Chief Strong Butt whenever I get to the top of a pass. I wonder if he minds me saying that. Huh. Anyway, he’s chipper and gets me smiling and sometimes even chuckling even when I feel my worst. But he does this thing where he takes pictures of me when I’m feeling crappy. I’m not sure if he realizes this, but a good portion of the pictures he takes of me, coming up a hill usually, are when I’m really having a hard time. I think every time I say, out loud but also out of hearing distance, “Oh no.” every single time. I’m just now getting this. Must be his way of helping me buck up, because I don’t want to look like I feel in these pictures so of course I smile and sit up a wee bit. I think he must be pretty smart.

We get town and do our grocery shopping at a health food store. We spend way more than usual but everything is so SO good I want to tear into it right away. Have you ever had whole dried bananas? Think not of those nasty hard banana chips you see in colorful plastic bags in the regular store. These are soft and, ohmygosh, so super yummy. We get all kinds of these treats for lunches mostly.

After shopping we find the RV campground and find a good spot. I set up camp while Dave starts dinner. Just then a couple rides in on their bikes and stops at the spot next to us. It’s Kerry and Dee Jay, retired teachers from B.C. whom we actually heard about on our very first day on the Great Divide Route from riders going the opposite way. We spend time chatting about the Divid, our gear, food, more food. They’re very friendly and cheerful and even share some Whitewall cookies with us. They taste like Oreos used to back in the day. Then Dave rushes off to do laundry while I get a shower and put stuff away. We sleep well because it’s a very quiet spot for a campground in town.

61 miles, 5:20/7:00

We are lightning fast and get out of camp at 8:15 today. We have decided to ride two of the recommended days in the guide book in order to be on schedule for our October 4th ride with Susie at the end of the trail. It’s a big mileage day but we only really start to feel it near the end of the ride. The guide book has us sleeping in Hartsel, known as a tiny cowboy town. We think it might be nicer to sleep along the river that we see on the map right before it, or maybe ride past and camp along one of the creeks. But we get to the River and there are No Trespassing signs everywhere and it’s all fenced off. Then we ride into Hartsel and ask in the tiny mercantile about camping in the area and the woman says there is nothing outside of Hartsel for several miles, but we can camp out behind the town hall near the playground and use the restroom in the store (they’re open 6:30 am to 7:00 pm). We decide to stay, only because the water is a big unknown ahead of us and we’re darn tired. OK, I’m done in, and I tell Dave I need to stop. The woman tells us not to drink the water, that the town has no potable water and we must buy drinking water. That river right before town is owned by the city of Denver and they have no water in their town. I guess the well water is so heavy with minerals it makes people sick. The smell alone is pretty bad, and it turns my handkerchief washcloth a nasty orange in five seconds flat when I wash my face in the restroom. What a weird place to live. It’s dry and windy and looks like it generally is that way year round, add to that the lack of potable water and I’d be packing the wagon and heading out of town. But that’s me, and people gotta live somewhere. To each of us our own.

34 miles, 3:24

We get out at 9:20 today from our lovely free camp spot along the river. So what if the bark beetle has killed most the trees, they don’t seem to be falling at the moment so we really enjoy the lack of people around and to total quiet except for the river. This is the kind of camp spot I always imagine in my head as perfect. Except for the dead trees, of course. But nature will take care of even these details.

We climb Ute Pass today, which is over 11,000 feet, but it goes fairly easy as it is all railroad grade, as it follows an old small-gauge rail line from the 1800s. There are spectacular views of the ever-bigger Colorado Rockies that make all other mountains we’ve seen look small. I feel strong today and enjoy–yes, enjoy–this beautiful climb. We both do. It’s really amazing what a difference the grade and road quality can make for a climb. This elevation gain is twice as much as climbs that have felt twice as hard.

Dave is craving some fresh vegetables so we go in search of a salad bar in Dillon on our way through. We end up at Ruby Tuesdays for about two hours because they also have wireless internet. Score! So Dave drinks about ten refills of Coke and I drink several cups of coffee (it’s a cold, sometimes rainy day) while we take turns with email and post pictures and a quick post. This is how it happens on the trail. We try to plan but it never works out, so we just take it on the fly when we can get time on the internet. Now you know.

We had planned on a much longer day, but since we spent so much time eating salad and working on the internet we decide to call it a day when we get to Frisco, where we stop in at a bike shop and the guys are so friendly they give us a free tool, a 30% discount on a new tire, and directions to a free and very local camping spot by a stream. It’s all perfect, because we get camp set up and a quick wash in the stream and then dinner right before it starts sprinkling.