Sleep was hard to come by at the Raven’s Rest hostel. The open mike music went on late into the night, and then the random strumming and drum circle continued into the wee hours. Some thru hikers are funny. It occured to me that this is really one of the first times bikepackers have really interacted, on trail, with thru-hikers. It just hasn’t really happened before. We love talking to them and hanging out, but a lot are not quite what we expected. I’m sure we aren’t quite what they expect, either, but really bikepacking is so new, especially on long distance trails, that they probably don’t know what to expect. It is cool how they accept us as part of the group, doing the same thing, more or less.
They all piled into the pack of Lucky’s pickup for a ride back up to the pass (most had taken a ride from him into town, too). We slowly packed up and got to pedaling up the pass. 2500 foot climbs on pavement aren’t our favorite, but traffic is light, speed limit is 30 and it seems so easy compared to what we’ve been riding.
The beetle kill in this area is sad and new. Slumgullion CG is closed due to it. We dropped down from 11,300 feet. It’s funny that 11k doesn’t feel high at all.
Most of the day was spent riding dirt roads on the La Garita wilderness detour, which is the same for CT and CDT. It’s not a bad route, and we had favorable winds, though the tail wind was often robbing us of cooling on the climbs. A bit of a cooker on some of the climbs.
But overall a pleasant day to cover a bunch of miles. We did rejoin the CDT and get to ride it a dozen or so miles up to North Pass. Lujan meadows was our destination since there was a chance Trail Angel Apple would be there, but some CT thru-hikers told us there’s no sign of him. Bummer.
So we stopped just off highway 114 in not really the best campsite we’ve had, but we’re both so sleepy that I don’t think it will matter.
Tomorrow is the dreaded Sargents Mesa. It will be interesting to try it in a non-race situation, and backwards. How bad can it be? (Pretty bad…)
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