Day 103 – Out with a bang

The heavens were tearing themselves apart.  East to west, the skies were angry.  Transition and dischord, the merging of calm and chaos.  And on the boundary, the divide, were two bikepackers, two weary and inspired CDT travelers.

To our east the sky was quiet, the sun even shining bright at times.  On the west, toward the Pacific, there was only darkness.  Thick and low ceiling clouds that reached out to the divide, but could go no further.

We moved with haste.  The wind moved even faster.

At an exposed saddle after Nevada Mountain, we couldn’t ride in a straight line.  Couldn’t walk in a straight line either.  Pellets of snow began falling, stinging our exposed skin.  Keep moving, get up into the trees.

Cross winds

The trees were thin but the relief was immediate.  A large white column was heading straight for the divide.  The clouds were moving so fast.  There’s no real shelter here.  Keep moving.

Snow started in earnest.  Still morning, the sun was hanging out in the calm to the east of the divide.  So it was shining brightly on us, while the storm picked up to blizzard intensity.  Only on the divide…

The CDT continued with its signature “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” personality, analogous to the divide weather we were witnessing and sitting in the middle of.  Righteous singletrack descents would be proceeded by rubble fall-line tread, or no tread at all — just markers on the open hillside.

Eventually the squall broke the boundary and engulfed us in a white out.  Visibility was down to tens of feet.  The snow swirled and whipped across the mountains, out of control.  It was nothing short of surreal, and amazing.

“I’d feel ripped off if we didn’t get at least one good snow storm on this trip,” says Ez.

We stopped to add the last pieces of clothing we were carrying to our bodies.  I could see a massive descent coming on the GPS.

And before we could even get back on our bikes, the skies parted, blue was revealed, and we rejoiced!  We were left staring off to the east, wondering where all that water and energy had gone. It just disappeared. Could not cross the divide.

The rest of the day was quite cold, and the wind rarely let up.  But the riding was good.  That massive descent was incredibly fun — once we crossed the trail-less meadow and found it on the edge of the trees.  The climbs continued steep, as they do when rollercoastering on the divide, but they lost their sting without the threat of impending doom from the west, and knowing that our time on the CDT proper was coming to a close.

End of the CDT. .. on to the gdmbr!

It was with some sadness, from both of us, that we turned off the CDT, to descend on the divide route into Lincoln.  Sadness and relief, for sure.  It’s been a wild and amazing ride, and a privledge to be able to cross the country truly along the spine of the continent, and through the communities and ecosystems that call the divide home.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act being signed into existence.  And today we start a massive wilderness detour to finish our trip to Canada. There are more legal miles of CDT towards the Scapegoat wilderness, but we will leave them as an exercise for the reader.  They don’t tie in well for a thru-route, forcing a paved ride back to Lincoln, and they are going the wrong way.  We never set out to ride every last inch of legal CDT, but even still, I feel we have done the CDT, ourselves and mountain bikers in general, proud.

We fought the wind into Lincoln, en route to a big meal.  On the way, we ran into Spatula, who was just a couple miles ahead of us in the storm.  He said ‘enough’ after that and was bailing early into Lincoln for a roof/warm room.  Other hikers and some divide cyclists were also in town.

It is indeed nice to have a roof and a full belly tonight.  We’re looking forward to the rest of the cycling, mainly on roads though they may be (should be some trail yet!).  The goal is to make it to the official terminus of the CDT.  For the immediate future, its the divide route and some much more relaxed riding.