I hit the road rolling on a sunny and hot Labor Day with plans of grandeur, a four or five day tour of Northern Colorado’s mountains, the first leg to a fall-o-fun that I’ve been looking forward to all summer long. With the bane of rafting finally behind me it was time to play! The idea was to ride slowly, stop often, bask in the warm mountain air, read a few books, and leave the blacktop for Colorado’s dirt roads and trails of interest. I rode south out of Fort Collins and all was well, the weather was hot, the sun was out, the traffic was light, or lightish, and my bike wasn’t a lead weight between my legs just yet, I was looking forward to the next week of my life!
Day one was to consist of riding to Estes Park, a prelude of the outing to come. Early on in the 22 mile climb up the Big Thompson Canyon I looked down at my thermometer, 98 degrees! Already I was dying. I took a break, jumped in the river, and laid down on the side of the road next to my bike. At some point I dozed off and a Lance-a-like in a full spandex unitard rolled up next to me and woke me up with a barrage of seemingly concerned questions. I answered as best I could, “my health is fine” “I don’t know my current heart rate” “yes that’s a cotton button down.” The list goes on but finally I got to my feet and proved to Dr. Lance that I was just napping and that laying on the side of the road half naked and soaking wet is normal for bike touring. To be honest I was out of water, hot, dehydrated, and desperately searching the sides of every house I passed for a spigot, but I couldn’t let the Prince of the Peloton know any of that.
A few hours after I left home I coasted into Estes, I needed something to drink badly, the heat was getting to me so I darted for Safeway. Somehow a nice old lady took interest in my weary state and began asking me about my camping plans for the night. Thinking nothing of it, I told her I planned on camping in the Park. Well this was a mistake; she ended up being an employee of the Park, actually the employee that sells you your camping permit in the backcountry office to be exact. She proceeded to tell me it was illegal to camp without a permit and got on her phone to call Johnny Law and let him know I was coming! It was almost five o’clock and the permit office was about to close for the evening. She must have seen the concern on my face and told me she was calling the Backcountry Office to ask if they would stay open just a bit longer and wait for me. I quickly cut her off and told her, “No no no, I am just going to camp outside the Park I meant.” Well this didn’t work either because she swiftly hung up and told me with slight aggression, “There is no free camping in Estes!” So I said I would go up to Lumpy ridge, that didn’t fly either, finally to get her off my case I told her I knew a few friends in Estes and maybe I would just couch surf for the night, which of course is a lie, I don’t know anyone up there…. With a disappointed look that only old people can give the younger generation as they feel we’re all out to cheat the world, she let me be, I figured she was satisfied with my explanation, but didn’t really care if she wasn’t; we both got on with our lives.
I finished up my snack, clamored onto my trusty steel steed, and off I went, up towards the Park to find my “non-existent” campsite for the evening. Sure enough I found one. Just where I wanted too, about 100 feet before the Park gates, just off the side of the road. I felt pretty good, especially knowing that prickly pear of a woman would be having an aneurysm knowing I got such a fantastic spot. With my bike stashed under a bush and my bedroll laid out, I lazily spent the last hour of sunlight relaxing, envisaging what the next few days would hold for me, and reading the latest issue of Outside. PS Outside, I have beef with you; we’ll leave it at that!
I tossed and turned throughout the night and awoke to the wind howling and the sky a flat black that even in the darkness of night I could tell was an incoming storm front. I hadn’t checked the weather reports, that kind of forethought and planning is usually beyond me. Lets be real, how often does it rain in Colorado in late summer? Or so I thought… It was 4:50 am and as my modus operandi dictates, “get into the park before 5:30 and avoid being charged for use of their road.” I hurriedly packed up to avoid the authorities or anyone driving by catching me in the last minutes of my thievery of 10 square feet of land and shoved off just as the sky opened up. 
I rode the first two hours of the morning in a dark mist and as the sun rose to the east it looked as though the skies were going to clear. After a few miles and a very insightful sign warning about rapidly changing weather conditions ahead, temps had dropped and what seemed like a vapor as I climbed Trail Ridge had turned into a deluge, the air began to freeze at higher altitudes and the first snowflakes I’ve seen in months started to drift downward all around me. My Chaco clad feet and bare legs began to numb and by the time I reached the 12,183 ft summit, 28 long uphill miles after I had started my morning, I was slipping into a cold induced brain fart. Simple calculations like adding socks to my feet would equal a warmer Paul were difficult to compute and comprehend. I coasted down to the west side of the summit barely able to hold onto the handlebars, searching the hazy horizon for a Café I slightly remember being somewhere nearby. The Park’s Alpine Visitor’s Center appeared as if only an apparition, a cold smile cracked across my face.
The Tuesday after Labor Day, the Parks operating hours switch over to their fall hours…. Another thing I could have planned for had I done any planning. I was 2 hours early. My toes and lips were blue, I was wet and tired, and a concerned ranger felt the need to again accost me with questions about my health. This time I was a little more open to talking about my lousy near hypothermic state than I was with Dr. Lance in hopes she had something warm for me to consume in her truck, but instead she walked inside the visitor center, changed the signs “hours of operation” to the new times, and took off with a heartfelt “good luck!” “HA!” I laughed to myself. I pulled out every bit of clothes I brought, which was not much since this was supposed to be the first week in September, layered up, found an awning to sit under and waited.
The Café finally opened, I ordered a hot cocoa and multiple cups of hot water, re-warmed, dried out somewhat, and in higher spirits continued on. Getting back on my bike I headed west and to the hopefully dryer lower elevations of Grand Lake. Cruising down out of the mountains I crossed the Continental Divide at Milner Pass and made great time to Grand Lake, where I had planned on ending Day two. I was soaked, and the miles were easing on by so I figured I would push on. The hopes for dryer weather were long gone, but by that point I was saturated so it was of little concern anymore. The truth behind doing anything out in the rain I have found out over the years is, it really sucks. Then once you are soaked you hardly notice, you focus on what you are doing and the rain no longer matters. Then it comes to the end of the day and you have to crawl into your wet tent, wet, again it sucks. I figured I would just ride, and I did, I rode another 75 miles, on top of the 50 it took me to get through the Park, and other than a needed stop at a Kum & Go in Grandby for a jumbo hot dog, my feet barely came off my pedals.
My Goal for Day three was to head from Grand Lake over the Continental Divide for a second time at Willow Creek Pass, and on to the town of Rand where Day 4 would start on a dirt road that cuts through some forests and pasture land back to Hwy 14 in Gould. Well I decided just to do Day three and Day four on Day two instead of stopping, pedaling was the only thing keeping me warm, and my irrational hope that the precipitation would at some point end was the carrot in front of my tired mind’s eye. By the time the light was fading I had ridden for 14 hours, in the rain, covered almost 130 miles, crossed the treacherous slimy and slick mud of the Rand-Gould cut-off road and had come to the conclusion that Day three would be my last if the showers continued.
The drag of day two had finally slowed to a stop and as the light quickly began to fade out of the gray moisture laden skies it was time for me to find a place to lay my tired head for the night. The ground was soaked, and I was eager to find another night of free camping. I came to the end of the mud road and decided to sneak off into a hay farmer’s field, between two tall stacks of bales. I pitched my small one man tent and made a quick hot meal of pasta and some old NOLS chilimac concoction that was pretty lousy. I found some packets of parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes stowed away in the bottom of my pannier that saved the meal, and to think my roommates back Fort Collins had chastised me about stealing them from a pizza joint the week before! Crawling into my one man catacomb for the night, I nodded in and out of consciousness in fear of pissed off landowners or local hunters stumbling upon my exhausted trespassing soul. At one point I even heard a truck come to a stop on the other side of my hay fortress and my heart began to race as I was sure I was getting kicked out of my humble abode.
Day three came early with the sounds of cow elk calling each other outside my tent before the sun had a chance to lighten the still gloomy and dismal sky. I hastily packed my bike and rode out of my cavernous hay hotel, hoping to be in the middle of the herd, only to surprise two hunters sitting right on the other side of my Great Wall of Hay. There they sat, calling each other as it seemed to me, because as far as I could see there were no elk….. I pedaled the last half mile of dirt road in early morning twilight, passing two big bull moose, half tempted to turn around and point the lost hunters towards something, anything. With an elated sigh I finally made it back to the hard surface of HWY 14! This was a small victory, but a glorious moment for me!
Once on the pavement the day started with a grueling 15 mile climb up the west-side of Cameron’s Pass, and believe it or not, the rain had not stopped. This is irrelevant information at this point though, I was still soaked from the day before and there was no end in sight, the thoughts of trench foot or wrinkle fingers consumed my mind momentarily. The prior days long march lead to some expected crepititis, or crappytitis in my left ankle. It’s a lousy acute pain in the lower Achilles tendon area, that you get I guess from over riding your bike? It brought me back to the summer of 2008 and some painful memories of my bike tour with Molly down the West Coast. We both had this aliment so bad we could barley hobble around when not on our bikes, and on our bikes was worse, I guess you need to take down time to care for your body…. My mind wandered to the wet days on that tour and how one night we ate a dinner of boiled hotdogs, no buns, no condiments, inside a campground outhouse. What a classy date! Right then, a hot boiled hotdog and the dryness of the interior of a putrid outhouse sounded pretty luxurious.
I didn’t get my hot dog, but I managed to make it over the pass and started in on what I expected to be a fast paced downhill. The first few miles proved me right, but in the little planning I had done for this adventure I thought the 60 mile ride from the top of Cameron’s Pass to the canyon mouth would be a fast and easy coast. I’ve even driven this canyon about 1000 times, and somehow I didn’t understand as I was pedaling down canyon what had happened to the steep grades I had expected. The silver lining was that I was not necessarily riding uphill anymore; however I was pedaling more than I wanted, especially with my deteriorating left achilles and my empty stomach. I skipped breakfast in the haste to pack up and get out of dodge incase the landowner came looking for those elk I though I was hearing.
Slowly I meandered into Rustic, and was elated to make it to the diner 3 minutes before breakfast stopped being served. Shedding my rain soaked clothing, I plopped down near the fireplace in a spacious booth for four, and packed my stomach with pancake after pancake until I could hold no more. After about an hour of chatting up the rest of the diner’s patrons, secretly hoping for a kind offer to be driven out of the canyon, my waitress stopped refilling my hot water and dropped my check off. I took the hint and suited back up for the daunting task of the final 40 miles back to town and the warm shower that my house promised.
I overheard others in Rustic chatting about how the weather gets worse the farther down the canyon you go, so at least I had something to look forward to... Soon I was passing familiar lower canyon landmarks; the narrows were running strong, the perilous stretch of river starting at Steven’s Gulch that had been my place of work all summer was causing me to twitch with images of raft guiding floating through my head, the lovely and very scientific river gauge at Pineview Falls appeared and was surprisingly at 2 ft, and of course the canyon mouth and Ted’s Place. I turned south onto HWY 287, and knew home was near. I mustered every last bit of energy I could, swearing at each winding turn or slight uphill that lay in front of me. At last, 50ish hours later, I returned to where I had started, cold, wet, tired and ecstatic that I was done! The final five miles my mind fixated on one thing, one last cold Old Milwaukee sitting my fridge. I went straight for it, ignoring my roommates, ignoring my happy pup, ignoring all else, I was done and it’s all my brain or body wanted!
In the end this mini adventure was not enjoyable; it was not the four or five days of sunshine that I had hoped for. It was not warm or dry. I didn’t get to read my book, or cook the food I brought. I didn’t get to hike the Crags like I wanted. It was lonely, miserable, wet, and bitter. It was full of suffering, a test to dedication and determination. I learned there is a thin line between determination and stupidity, when most would or should throw in the towel, some push forward. I didn’t get to see gorgeous views from the tops of mountains, but I painted them in my conscience, off in the cloudy and gloomy distances of my imagination. I did see a lot of wildlife, but didn’t want to stop to enjoy it. I crammed almost 250 miles of solitary, forlorn, friendless riding into 50 hours of life on earth. I did not have “fun” in the typical sense. Some would have lost hope, and abandoned me and the journey, in search for drier climes. My intellect toyed with the ideas of adversity and overcoming. There were lots of internal struggles on how to deal with what’s in front of you, and how to put the past behind you. In the end if I had to pick one word to describe this trip it would be: Miserable. There was good in this voyage however, in the face of countless long and steep mountains, less than optimal conditions that continually deteriorated, and mud roads as far as the eye can see, I was happy, truly happy to be out there, pushing myself to explore, to explore Colorado and my own thoughts about life. It was an amazing trip and although I wouldn’t wish anyone to have to endure those last 50 hours, I wouldn’t turn back when it happens next, and I am confident one day it will again.
