GDMBR 2025 — Day 8: Operation Indiana Pass (phase 1/2)

Allison and Alan ended up camping on the patio of the La Garita Trading Post, so we all were able to set out together in the morning. Their destination was Del Norte (about twenty miles) because they were hoping to enjoy the comforts of the town and wait out some potential bad weather. Liz and I had other plans.

The first few miles were lovely quiet gravel roads winding up into some highland areas. We rode easy and comfortably.

There were cool red rock features that made everything feel much more desert-like. We even saw some cactus (not pictured).

We transitioned into some fun, flowy double track dirt/gravel that was a bit muddy in places from yesterday’s rain. Still fun and Liz was pushed right up to her comfort zone for the umpteenth time on this trip. On some sections we were much slower than Allison and Alan because they’re more accomplished MTBers and their bikes had wider tires and front suspension. They waited for us at the main course changes, which was nice!

We arrived in Del Norte shortly before noon and Liz and I had decided to push on in support of Operation Indiana Pass. We were in dire need to resupply though so we went to a very nice grocery store and found all of the things on our list (and a few that weren’t!): two packs of tortillas, jar of peanut butter, gummy candy things, lip balm, gouda cheese slices, some salty snacks.

After shopping we found the Al’s at a diner and popped in to say goodbye. It was hard not to join them eating stacks of pancakes and other tasty food, but we settled for peanut butter tortillas. It was really a pleasure riding with them, but we are a bit time constrained and didn’t want to take a short day. Instead we would dive head first into getting over Indiana Pass in two days.

Stronger and faster riders could knock out Del Norte to Platoro in a single day. There are no services whatsoever between these towns, and 5000+ ft climbing over 50 miles with much of it over 11000ft of elevation. We knew this was out of our reach. Instead we would stage about 2/3 the way up the first 4000ft climb, Indiana Pass, camp overnight and get an early start to knock out the remaining 30 miles.

The first section of the climb was gradual and pleasant on a paved road. When the road turned gravel it also shot up to 6-7% avg. Also at this point we refilled our water reserves, filtering from a small stream. Up, up we went, eventually climbing over two thousand feet of Indiana Pass.

This was Sunday so there were no logging trucks, which we’d been warned about. Instead there were a lot of tourists, perhaps, or locals coming and going from somewhere.

We were keeping an eye on thunderstorms that were supposed to be around in the afternoon, and sure enough it started to rain pretty persistently so we took the time to set up the tent just off the road, banking on it being a short storm that would only delay us. A bit more than an hour later we were all packed up and heading up again.

We were on the lookout for an “informal campground” that was listed on the paper GDMBR maps. Unfortunately, we never found it but we did find a nice utility line right of way with some flat ground. We had finished setting up and were just getting ready to eat when the rain started up again.

We quickly snarfed a bit of food (ended up sleeping pretty hungry) and retired to the tent, safe from the rain. FWIW, we can’t eat in the tent because of bears and whatnot. Our food is all stored/hung in a kevlar bear bag 100m from the tent.

The rain lasted until 1am or so, and we each slept a bit, but not the greatest sleep ever. I was anxious about tomorrow with more potential bad weather and a lot of climbing and unknown roads to deal with.