Day 5: Buford, Colorado to Yampa, Colorado

June 30, 2010

I was up and riding early, ready to tackle what I assumed would be a challenging day of riding: Up and over two 10,000 feet passes, on a mostly unpaved road.

The pavement lasted for ten miles past Buford, and then it turned to packed gravel, very rideable. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. The real climbing started at Ripple Creek Lodge, which was closed down, apparently on the order of the federal government; there was a long, complicated explanation posted on the door of some sort of environmental damage that had occurred at the lodge, but I couldn't figure out exactly what had happened. After dawdling a while, I started climbing again.

I finally reached an overlook just before the first pass, realized I was famished, and stopped to cook one of the freezer bag meals Joy had prepared for me. As I started the descent from the first pass, the gravel turned loose, and I found it almost impossible to hold a straight line, or even, in fact, to keep the bike from sliding off the road. What would otherwise be an awesome descent on a completely empty road wasn't much fun. On the way down I talked to one of the few motorists I would see all day. "You're hardier than me!" he said, before warning me that the next pass was steeper than the first.

The guy was right about the steepness, and the gravel (apparently freshly applied) kept getting looser, making my progress very slow. I ran out of water and filtered some from a fast-moving mountain stream. I had run out pretty early in the day; I would have been in trouble without the filter.

It seemed to take me forever to descend the second pass; the gravel was almost impossible to ride on, and I kept unclipping and sliding to the side of the road. About two thirds of the way down the mountain a motorist approached me, leaned out the window, and asked me if I wanted a ride to Yampa, my destination for the day. I was feeling so tired that I was tempted by his offer, but declined, mainly because I thought I was much closer to Yampa than I actually was.

Eventually the road flattened out and the gravel turned to dirt, a huge improvement. By the time I reached the outskirts of Yampa I had run out of food and water and was bonking. The last six miles into town were torture. I had already decided that if there was ANY sort of indoor accommodations available in Yampa then I was not going to camp.

As soon as I wobbled into Yampa I was immediately accosted by a drunk in shorts and cowboy boots, who staggered out of one of the bars and shouted out questions to me. I was in no mood for this, and ignored him until he lost interest.

Yampa was a very small town, all of whose streets were dirt, but which sported a few stores, a couple of bars, and two hotels - one an old restored place, another a relatively modern place that looked like a chain motel, but with a name that I'd never heard of. Connected to the modern motel was "Penny's Diner", which also had the look of a chain, but which I'd never heard of either.

It turned out that the motel and diner were actually primarily for the use of a railroad company's employees, not the general public. The railroad either owned the motel and diner, or had some sort of partnership with them. I was lucky to get one of the two rooms available to he public.

The room seemed luxurious after two nights of camping, and I felt much better after eating two complete, separate dinners at the diner. Later I talked to Joy on the phone, watched an interesting show about Johnny Cash at San Quentin Prison, then went to bed, concerned that I was developing a saddle sore.

Today's ride: 65 miles (105 km)
Total: 414 miles (666 km)

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