Woke up before dawn to get an early start. Everything was wet, but there was nothing to do about that except to just pack up. I had an extra (plain) oatmeal packet to prepare for the day!

It was Monday so logging operations would start and we’d heard some thunder past us on the road below in the pre-dawn hours. We only had one large truck come past the entire day though and we gave him the entire road. There was evidence of a lot of action that we were happy to avoid.

Shortly after we started riding we knew there was another opportunity to refresh our water supplies, filtered from a small clear stream. We had to be careful with water today because a stretch of the route went through the Summitville Mine Superfund Site and the water is contaminated.

The riding was difficult with a bit of walking mixed in. Cool temperatures and ok conditions were a welcome change. All the planning paid off and we were up and over Indiana Pass at 11910ft (our highest of the trip) by 10am. Anticlimactic because no sign or anything. Well, we still had a lot of work to do!

Descending down from the pass was not great. Roads ripped up from logging operations and we kept seeing the destroyed mountain get closer and closer. Won’t get into too many details but it’s still in active remediation and it feels like biking through a post-apoc sci fi movie sy times. Eventually we swung around the back side of all that nastiness and found ourselves on a beautiful stretch of road that strung around the edge of a vast, pristine meadow with views  for miles.

Stopped for lunch with about fifteen miles left — nine descending and then a short 800ft bump known as Stunner Pass.

The descent started fast and smooth but quickly degraded. We had to take several breaks for our hands and wrists. Both Liz and I have numb pinky fingers (my left, her right). It took about an hour to get down and as we approached the bottom, we heard thunderstorms brewing.

Stunner Pass left us a bit stunned, as it was steeper than expected (in parts) and also the road was composed of sort of a junky cobble stone situation, which we did our best to avoid by riding very close to the edges to find a smoother ride. We had to walk some parts just as before, all with thunder booming around the mountains.

Our most familiar road companions of the day were people on UTVs joyriding. All of them pass with a friendly wave and a few stop to chat. The cars that are able to drive on these roads do so very slowly because anything else would destroy their suspensions.

Finally reached the top of Stunner and we donned our raincoats because we could see and hear rain in the distance and the temps had dropped like a rock. It was just a matter of time. We had a two mile descent, which took a frustratingly long time under the circumstances. We pulled into the Skyline Lodge moments before the skies opened up and booked a cabin and ordered some more lunch stuff.

Once we got in the cabin, it was all hands on deck to dry everything out, charge everything up, wash all of our clothes, and replenish our calories.

We were able to buy very limited supplies here, but tomorrow there’s a food truck and convenience store about twenty miles up the road. For about eighty miles after that we’ll be largely on our own with no services or resupply. That will be at least two days, perhaps part of three.

And still tomorrow there’s rain around, although with no high mountain passes it’s a bit less stressful.