Tl;Dr Updates: So. Hard. Made it 20 miles to camp, ate my last food for dinner.
The best thing about Hopewell Lake was Kate, Merlin and Yeshe who provided food, water, and conversation. So great to meet them. Pancakes in the morning was over the top. (Repeat picture, but they’re worth it.)
I left Hopewell lake around 9, planning to make 77 miles to Platoro, Co. The first 20 miles were more of the Continent Divide Trail. I finished this, but just barely. When I reached Lagunitas Camp around 5 another cyclist (Single speed Jake) said the next 15 miles were very rough. There was just no way I could make that before the sun went down, and I was totally pooped.
Some examples of the Continental Divide Trail single track
A bit more about the CDT: this is a hiking trail, through some pretty spectacular countryside. It’s single track – not a place a can would ever go. The. Trail is as rough as going to Upper Lena Lake in many places, most of the miles I traveled were walking. When the trail is narrow, it’s hard to pedal because you will strike the sides of the trail rut. When the elevation is low, the trail is middle. When the grade is steep, the trial is eroded – Rocky, steep, sandy, tree limbs down… Just really, really hard. Most of the time the grades were steep – It’s expected you hike-a-bike UP the steep sections, but even descending them was way past my comfort level. Oh, and there are cliffs. Like death defying cliffs. Another day maybe I can provide more explanation, for now – Imagine the worst hiking trail you’ve ever traveled on towing two roll-away luggage bags and you’ll be close.
To keep things exciting, I decided to ride in my padded undershorts only – much better for keeping cool, and who’s gonna see me?
Turns out Tore is. When I went to take his pic, I discovered that I’d left my phone _and_ wallet a quarter mile back up the trail. I walked back, he rode. He got there first. He seemed really strong and ready to go.
The single track basically traverses two ridges and a valley. Getting down off ridge one was hard, getting up to ridge too was tedious until it was terrifying:
Strong winds, a heavy bike and a narrow trail were scary. I usually hike-a-bike with me on the left, I switched to the right in case I had to toss the bike to avoid going over the edge.
I met Cool Jacob from Arkansas single speeding it into the CDT. What a bad ass. I still wanna know what brakes he was rocking.
Lagunitas Camp is a national Forest camp, no fee, basically only vault toilets. There are a bunch of small lakes, about a dozen people fly fishing, very few eager to engage in conversation. This was bad news since I basically had 1 meal left with me, a measly 600kcal. I took my time setting up camp and went to bed early, slept ok.
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