I won’t sugarcoat it. Today was 90% misery and disappointment only salvaged by a nice climb in crisp, clean morning air and our true saviors who pulled us out of the hole we had dug for ourselves, Karen and Sierra!

We started the day with that nice 20 minute climb out of the valley, which, at the time seemed annoying but turned out to be a highlight for me. When we arrived back on Boreas Pass Rd to resume our descent, we were greeted with maximum viable speeds of 8-10 mph on good stretches and lots of braking and extreme vigilance required. So that was the next hour or so.

Morning views were pretty beautiful to be honest and we eventually reentered the valley we had been forced to leave hours earlier.

A few miles of terrible road later, we arrived in Como, a town with little to offer us on this day, except for a rumored community spigot that we might have been able to use to top off our supplies. But we were anxious to start the next segment so I did not pursue this source of water. That turned out to be a mistake, but not an egregious one.

After a short gut-wrenching stretch on US 285, we found ourselves on a paved downhill road for a few miles and this was the last enjoyable riding of the day. We turned off this road onto a gravel one that was in the process of being replenished with new gravel. Places with new gravel were loose, places without new gravel were terribly washboarded. Imagine how it would feel to drive a car over a twenty mile stretch of rumble strips and that’s what we did. Kudos to the bikes and gear for holding up, they were really banging around!

I won’t dwell on the complaints and I also want to be clear that good roads cost money and this area doesn’t have money to spend on paved roads and I would never expect them to. We signed up for this so this is all on us!

Anyway, photo dump time:

So let’s pivot to our friends Karen and her daughter Sierra who were waiting patiently as the day ticked by. Our original (aka pipe dream of a) plan put us in Hartsel around lunchtime followed by a nice meal at the High-Line Saloon. Then we’d go our separate ways because we had 30 more miles of gravel to get to a campground in the national forest. It felt reasonable, given that the route was 40 miles with a net altitude loss of around 2500 ft.

They live about 25 minutes away and Karen had graciously offered to give us a ride if we needed it and today we did! Arriving to Hartsel at 2:15pm with no water and mentally if not physically exhausted, our only other option was camping in a dusty lot behind the bar, which is something we had explicitly been warned against doing by our GDMBR-finisher friend Dave. And what would we do with the rest of the day? Nothing but a convenience store for supplies and who knows what sort of gravel menace lay ahead on the next stretch?

So the plan was hatched. Karen and Sierra would join us for a delicious, relaxed meal of veggie burgers, fries, onion rings, and corn dogs. We’d take our time catching up; we hadn’t seen them in years. Then they would drive us to Salida where we could regroup and head back into the mountains the next day!

Now we’re holed up in a pretty nice motel in Salida, all things considered, poised for a big day tomorrow climbing Marshall Pass. It’s a 15-20 mile climb depending on where you start counting but the conditions are supposed to be far nicer. Well see!

P.S. Shout out to Harald who’s watching our tracker dot pretty closely. He noticed we were likely in a car later in the day based on our speed and route choice, and perhaps was worried something bad had happened. Thankfully it’s all good but it’s nice to know you’re out there keeping tabs on us!