45 miles, 4:58/8:00

Today is a big climbing day in cool, forested mountains. One climb is Togwotee (TOE guh tee) pass, Continental Divide crossing #7 at 9,658 feet. The last few miles we turn onto pavement and on the way up we’re stopped by road construction. They say they can’t allow us to follow the lead vehicle line, we have to ride up in a truck. The flag woman calls someone on her radio, and pretty soon a guy comes down in a pickup and we load our bikes and ourselves in the back. After a mile or two he stops and lets us out. We crest the pass on our own and turn off on a dirt road. This one climbs up and down and comes around a bend showing us a wide open view of grassy valleys and big rocky ridges. Then we start down a canyon and we’re flying on gravel, winding left and right. My eye catches something huge flying in front of me on my right, and ahead when I catch him Dave stops and points. It’s a great horned owl sitting in a tree, looking at us. He’s so huge I can hardly believe it. We way goodbye and sail along downhill for some time and soon we meet back up with the highway that we left earlier.

They’re doing more road construction, and we have to wait for a truck to take us through. But the flag guy doesn’t have a radio, and he just chats it up with us about all the riders and hikers he’s seen come through in the last two years he’s been working on this road. He wanders around and waves at various men in trucks driving by, but doesn’t seem to have the power to get anyone to give us a ride. So we do what we always do when faced with a frustrating delay. We eat. A half hour or 45 minutes later a woman pulls up in a truck and we decide it’s our ride. We get in again and this time go probably three miles and then she stops. Neither time does she talk to us or help with the very confusing tailgate. Except when we said thanks, she said have a nice ride.

Truck ride through road construction

Now we’re in the middle of another zone where they’re still leading vehicles through but no one is going our way. So we take off on our own and have the smooth gravel to ourselves as we zoom down hill. We do get over a couple of times when big rigs come snarling by, but other than that it’s pretty fun.

After a few miles we turn off the highway and onto Union Pass Road. We’ll climb halfway up this afternoon, and the rest tomorrow morning for our 8th Continental Divide crossing. But it has been a long day of delays shopping for things we won’t find in little country convenience stores and road construction and wildlife watching and picture taking and now the day is getting long. We’re faced at the end with four miles of extremely steep road that has not one bit of flat or decline to it. Four miles and about 1,300 feet of elevation gain. Ugh. It takes us about an hour but we get up there, have a wee bit of a descent and find the first place possible to camp once we get onto Forest Service land. It’s actually a pretty nice spot with the Warm Spring Creek running through.