Woke up early at 6a.m. to overcast skies and it was cold. Put some embrocation on my legs and headed out. Got into gunnison and had some tea at a coffee shop becasue My fingers weren't working to good becaus eI was too lazy to put on my full fingered gloves. Changed into knickers and put on my gloves and headed out. made decent time to the the start of the climb and got rained on for about an hour. Reminded me of washington and I was wondering when I would run into some bad weather. This was the biggest and pretty much last pass that I had to go over. Monarch pass is over 11,300 feet high and marks the continental divide for my trip. I am also about halfway done with my trip, around 2200 more miles to go. I met a biker who was from belgium who was touring and he was warming up after the descent by the side of the road. We talked for awhile and he told me it was raining at the top and the road was good pavement but steep. Saw a sign that read 7 miles to the summit and started to climb. It started raining and I put my raincoat back on, knee warmers under my knickers and booties with another pair of wool socks. I love smartwool socks, they are awesome. Climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed some more. A red jeep passed and started honking and yelled and gave me a fist pump out the window and that cheered me up for about 20 yards. I never went above 6m.p.h. the whole climb. It took me 2 hours of contiuous climbing to get to the top. That is like a 3.5 mile an hour average. That climb was brutal and cold and windy and raining. I stopped at the top and got a picture of the sign for the continental divide and then went inside to warm up and who was in there but shawne. I couldn't believe it. He was sick for a couple of days and I caught up to him. We sat around and talked for a bit and decided to descend the nountain together. He was going to push on about 50 more miles and I was going to try ands tay ina hostel in salida because nicky said it was cool and I have been wanting to stay in 1 since I started the trip. 2 hrs to climb it and 20 minutes to descend it. We rolled into salida 23 miles away in 40 minutes. I asked around an found the hostel and shwne continued on. Got a hot shower and am going to do some laundry. Went to a laundromat and stopped at a bar to wait for it to get done washing. Met a girl named jackie there and she was very supportive of the trip and encouraging. Got to talk to miles and pat and steve as I was folding my laundry/walking home and I really feel happy and good about what I've accomplished. Somehow going over the continental divide boosted my spirits. I'm about halfway done and I fell really good about today. Went through some nasty weather, met some cool people, got a shower, had a beer, met up with shawne. Today was a good day. I'm very content right now. That also might b the 3 beers talking. I don't know.
I am 2 days away from pueblo,Co. If the boulder girls want me to come up and hang out I will, but I really don't want to backtrack once I'm past pueblo, so shoot me an e-mail leftd@usa.com and I will ride up there, otherwise maybe I'll see you around.
No comments:
Post a Comment