Day 25 – A dubious plan

It was a bit of a dubious plan. Snow levels were still high, melting fast and creating high runoff.

relaxing at Lucky Acres

We could have played it safe, staying in Chama with our awesome hosts, Dave and Bev. As attractive as that option was (mmm… Elk Tacos) we are action figures, as Eszter says. I’m looking down the barrel at a long weekend of tracking work. We saw a small window where we could sneak in a couple days more divide riding, check the snow for ourselves and try out my dubious plan.

Knowing I had to be internet connected for the weekend, shipping my computer wasn’t a good option. It may not make it anywhere in time, and we weren’t totally sure we could get where we wanted to go. So I am typing this entry on my full on laptop, which I carried in my backpack for this leg of the trip. I’m glad I got a relatively small one…

We were trying to get to Pagosa Springs, where internet and motels can be found. Also hot springs, and it gets us closer to Durango for our house sitting gig / layover for snow melt and Tour Divide.

The issue? Well, there’s still quite a bit of snow above Platoro, especially in the area of Elwood Pass which is at 11,600′. We’d seen a photo on the CDT facebook page of a very buried Elwood Pass.

Yet… our friend Rick made it into Del Norte on the divide route, just last night. We knew it was passable, if snowy.

But we didn’t want to go to Del Norte. We had seen a route over Elwood Pass that would drop us near Pagosa with a minimal pavement riding. We figured we could push through the snow.

Luckily Dave had been up Elwood’s 4×4 road before, even in the spring time. He recalled a very deep crossing of the East Fork of the San Juan River. He called a buddy who had been up it just this past weekend — full on whitewater and uncrossable.

Contacting the Forest Service confirmed the same:

“I just spoke with the Pagosa Ranger District. A mtn. biker just tried =
to make the trip up the East Fork Rd. towards Elwood Pass. The biker =
said the East Fork was at least 4 feet deep and there was no way he =
could cross. The Conejos Peak District believes there is 2 miles or =
more of snow before reaching the cabin, then another few miles of snow =
before reaching Park Cr. Road near Summitville, which drops into the =
South Fork area.”

Game over, right?

Open TopoFusion, drill down to the gnat’s ass detail level, load topos and aerials.

I see the crossings. There are two of them, and as we descend Elwood Creek, we’ll be on the correct side of the river already. If we can just bushwhack the half mile between the crossings through steep terrain, trees and what looked like scree….

I was somewhat confident it would go, but there’s only one way to find out!

So we got a ride from Dave up to the pass, where we had left the CDT. Luckily both he and Bev work up that way, but it was very kind of him to drop us there. It isn’t often that you get to know someone and walk away thinking “what a hell of a guy”, but so it is with Dave.

Easy pavement took us to Horca, where we bought too much food. Who knows, we might get trapped somewhere and have to backtrack a very long ways, so better safe than sorry.

More pleasant pedaling took us up the Conejos River to the tiny little mountain town of Platoro. Eszter had a score to settle there and a burger to eat. It was a good day to be a bike tourist — ride 4 hours, then eat huge and tasty burger.

From Platoro you climb, but it’s easy climbing and the scenery pulls you forward like a magnet. This is perhaps my favorite section of the divide route, and I was very stoked to get to ride it as a part of this trip.

Eventually we ran into snow, in the bowl before Elwood, just as Rick reported. We came upon two brothers riding the divide on a bike and moto. They were in for quite a project to get that moto through the drifts, shoveling away to try to dig down to something with traction. We skipped on by and wished them well.

At Elwood Pass we cross the CDT and the divide. Way too much snow to even consider. Even the road down the pass had plenty, and plenty of mud. It was just enough snow to really cement that we don’t want anything to do with the trail up higher, but not so much that it became too much a chore.

It was just really slow going, and our feet were getting soaked. Beautiful country, though — and all new to us.

As side drains came in to the main valley we got a chance to totally soak the feet with some deep crossings. “Whatever this dumps into, we aren’t going to be able to cross,” said Eszter. She was right. We crossed our fingers that we wouldn’t have to cross Elwood Creek since the tributaries were deep enough!

We never did have to cross it, marveling as we snuck views of the whitewater, including a 20′ waterfall absolutely blasting down the mountain.

Not long later, the headwaters of the San Juan joined in, and we were staring at our crossing. “No way I’m going across that.”

So we got to bushwhacking. Bikes are so awkward in the forest and on steep slopes, but if you keep at it, you will make progress.

Several times I got nervous that we were going to get forced into rock or near cliff by the creek, but pretty much it just sucked. Took us about an hour to travel that half mile, but we did emerge, victorious and sighing in relief. Backtracking would have been a very very bad prospect!

We pedaled on a little, trying to get a bit above the river’s level to camp. Good timing, and good to have that obstacle out of the way.

As we ate dinner a pair of super high clearance and totally decked out rock crawlers came back from the river. “Did you make it across?” “Almost” “Made the first one, but not the second?” “Correct.”

That was fun. Should be an easy pedal into Pagosa in the morning, with our next crossing of the river on a bridge. Pagosa for lunch, then it’s Baja 500 weekend, and we plot for an offroad route to Durango.