I vaguely heard the guys getting up and getting ready this morning. I even opened my eyes and tried to look around. I thought that someone was sleeping in the bunk across the room from me and I kept sleeping. Later I woke up with a start, and realized, there was no one in the other bunk, and everyone had already left. I quickly gathered up my stuff and threw on my clothes. I felt like such a fool and had overslept and was now behind, by an unknown number of hours. The other guys were already climbing Indiana pass, and I was just putting on my shorts.
I knew I needed to put in some extra effort if I was going to catch up to them, I really didn’t want to get too far behind them in this race. After all I had wanted to get ahead of the guys and here I was, now behind them by quite a distance.
I headed off into the dark, and it wasn’t long before the sun started peeking out. Today was another day where I just tried to keep my head down and put miles behind me. The long climb up Indiana was fine, a little snow here and there, but the real struggle of the day was yet to come. I don’t think I would have been so worried about the day if I had known how it would end.
The top of Indiana pass is a superfund site, due to mining operations. It was interesting to see all the buildings, even very old, that are still standing on top. Seemingly a whole town was built to support the miners up on top of the mountain. You also end up staying on top of the mountain for quite a while before descending down to lower elevations, meandering around up there, it was quite beautiful.
By about lunch time I had made it into Platoro, which is little more than a couple of lodges on the road up to the summit. I stopped for lunch, and snacks, and just caught the guys as they were leaving. This was also the first time in 18 days that I saw Jeff. For a bit I didn’t realize he was ‘racing’ and though he might have just been touring. It was unusual this far into the race to meet up with someone you hadn’t ridden with already. They left to keep pressing on, and I got a big lunch, and took my time. Since I had caught up with them at a lunch stop I wasn’t too worried about catching back up to them after. I wasn’t as far behind as I thought, which was encouraging.
I finished my lunch and headed out. The weather seemed to be taking a turn. Up at this elevation, and in this area it isn’t uncommon for short strong storms to roll through during the afternoon. Today though it wasn’t just rain, but pea sized hail, and a lot of it. It covered the ground like snow. I quickly put on my rain gear, and tried to avoid most of the stinging hail, but I was pretty exposed on the open road and just tried to wait it out. Thankfully, though it was intense, it was short and I was able to head out pretty quickly after the storm started. The road was a bit muddy, but nothing was really sticking to my tires so I wasn’t super worried. Sometimes the roads can turn into a thick muddy glue that sticks to everything and can halt any forward progress. I hadn’t run into any of that since the small section on Brooks road in Wyoming, and I wasn’t looking forward to anything like that again.
It wasn’t too long and I reached Horca, another very small community of a few outfitters, a house or two and a church. I didn’t have any reason to stop, and it looked like there was another storm on the way so I kept moving. The next pass was paved, so I wasn’t too worried about the rain, but the lightning did concern me a bit. As I was climbing the storm rolled over and in addition to rain, close lightning strikes came along with it. I quickly hauled my bike into the woods next to the road to wait out the lightning. Rain, hail, wind, snow I don’t mind all of those, lightning on the other hand freaks me out. I had a close call on my commute home from work, and since then I’ve been extra skittish during thunderstorms. Nothing like a bit of lightning flowing through your body to ruin a day.
Eventually the lightning strikes moved away from the area and I felt safe enough to keep climbing. The pavement was nice, but the grade seemed a bit steeper than what I’d been climbing on gravel, so it was slow going. Plus the rain was on again off again, so I was constantly shedding or adding layers. I was quite warm by the time I got to the top, but thankful the rain had moved on.
A quick few miles on pavement, and then back to the dirt, which was still wet from the afternoon storms. Thankfully this section was just a little muddy, and didn’t seem to be the kind of dreaded peanut butter mud often encountered in New Mexico. And wouldn’t you know it, just around a corner was the border sign and the welcome into Carson National Forest in New Mexico. Colorado was done, and the finish line seemed closer than ever. I kept pushing, determined to try and make up miles to catch up with the guys ahead of me. I was willing to push through the night if I needed to. So up anther climb I went. It wasn’t too eventful, util I reached a meadow on top. This is where the day started to take a turn for the worse.
Sloppy, extremely slippery, but also somehow sticky mud was everywhere. The road was basically one big slip-n-slide that stuck to everything. There wasn’t really a good place to ride off the road either, everything was sticky. I was doing fine until I got into a rut, and tried to slow down and turn to get out of it. Stopping the wheels had no effect on decreasing my speed, and turning the handlebars didn’t change my direction. Gravity and friction had left the building. I ended up sliding, with considerable speed, into the embankment on the side of the road, flying off my bike onto my left side. I hit my right knee on the handlebars and somehow ended up twisting both my seat post and my handlebars. It took a bit to collect myself and realign everything on my bike. Thankfully nothing was broken, though much later after the race I’d need to have my knee drained, most likely a result of the injury here.
I kept making slow progress. It would rain and I’d put on more gear. At one point I found that I had cell service and called my wife. I was at a very low point, I didn’t know where I could sleep, or how many years it would take for me to walk the rest of the route should it be this muddy. Her advice was basically, just keep going, you’ll figure it out. So keep going I did, though I was still not in a good mood. The mud started to firm up for a while and I was able to ride though some flooded sections in the dark. It was a bit spooky at times, being in a swampy, unfamiliar place. But like all good things the rideable sections soon faded. I was once again faced with unridable sticky mud. I’d have to push my bike, scrape off what mud I could, then keep going for another 5 minutes just to repeat the process. Thankfully it wasn’t long before I saw headlamps and heard someone telling me to just camp here. I had caught up to David and Tim who had gotten caught up in the same muddy mess and just decided to bivvy here in hopes that the mud would dry up by morning. With them was Jeff, who I had briefly met around lunch time when he was just leaving Platoro. Thankful that I had caught up with the guys, and thankful the rain had stopped enough for me to set up my bivvy, I scraped off as much mud as I could (it dries like cement), and tried to get some sleep.
