Day 51: Guffey to Silverthorne

June 30, 2006

Met Brian the evening before...and he made me breakfast to fuel me up for the climb ahead

I was once again slow on the climbs, feeling better after all the company I'd had at Guffey but bummed I hadn't seen any other bikers in either direction since I'd gotten back on the road at Pueblo. I guess I missed a EB Opera singer about my age somewhere along the line, but I didn't know where anybody else was and the land I was going through was pretty unpopulated.

It took me a while to get over this hill for some reason...

Snow-capped Rockies! Now which spot do I have to go over them...

I finally dragged myself into Hartsel, stopping at the shrine of an old Pepsi sign, bumping down a washboard gravel street to find the library closed, bumping back up the street to a gas station, and getting myself a microwave burrito. It was kind of between breakfast and lunch and I didn't really want to have to be sociable in a café, so gas station burrito it was, complete with fashionable young weekending hiker couple scorning my socks and sandals combo. At least I wasn't stuck in Hartsel with a broken down car like they were. Ha. Too bad the tow truck pulled up before I left, otherwise I think they would have been jealous of me slowly pulling away from the town.

Fairplay appeared after about 20 miles of the same slight uphill, mixed in with a little bit of flat-looking ground just a few miles from town. Flat looked weird to me, but I knew it wouldn't last.

By this time, rain was threatening, but I had all but decided to make a run for Hoosier Pass. I knew it would be warmer to make the ascent in the afternoon than in the morning, and I was pretty sure I could make it to the top by 4 p.m. I didn't want another day of stopping at lunch time. So I fueled up with a Subway (my usual: Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki with pepper jack, cucumber, onion, pickles, olives, and extra sweet onion sauce on honey oat), pulled my tights back on and hoped the locals (and one stray Texan) were right in their assurances that the rain had already come and should leave the other side of the pass clear and this side just cloudy.

I made great time on the bike path to Alma (amazing what relative-flatness can do for your average), which just confirmed my desire to get over the mountain. But then the clouds started spitting at me. Nothing major. Just enough to let me know they were keeping me company. So much for local knowledge.

Alma sits at over 10,000 feet, and it seemed like the nights I'd spent at Estes Park were really helping my deal with the altitude. I'm sure if I'd have gone running or something, that wouldn't have been pretty, but putzing along on Kert didn't seem to bother me. I was still making better time than I thought I would, so I wasn't too worried about making it to Breckenridge before dark, but I kept anticipating when the worst of the climb would come. Then the sign 'Hoosier Pass Summit, 4 Miles' appeared and the grade didn't look too bad. Maybe I was delusional, but it really wasn't.

After many miles of chilly wind, I hit this sign and know I will make it over the top.

I thought it was strange this fox was just standing there letting me take its picture, but then I saw it was hurt (partly paralyzed--probably hit by a car) and was kind of sorry I took the picture at all.

I made it all the way up this big honkin' pass!

Oh, I was slow, but I made it to the top just fine in a little over an hour. Not bad considering photo stops. I took obligatory pictures at the top, called my mom with what little charge was left on my cell phone battery, and thought about how Mike Riscica's camera had broken right at this very spot. And about how wet I was going to get on the way down since the rain obviously hadn't stopped yet on the other side.

Ugh...rain on the way up, now it looks like the rain will follow me down, too.

Pulling on my sweater and jacket and gloves, I launched myself down the mountain on a well-deserved downhill after three days of climbing. But I couldn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped because the pavement was all wet and I didn't want to go flying off the side of the mountain just for the thrill of speed, so I kept my speed down and the rubber side on the road.

For ten miles into Breckenridge as I was getting pelted with cold rain, all I could think about was hot chocolate. So I was pretty excited when the first coffee shop I saw said 'Open.' Liars. The lady's nasally 'We're closed' grated on me, but I rode around a little and found a tea store with hot cocoa and a lady who wanted to ask me all about my trip. Almost stopped for dinner at a little crepe shop, but decided not to spend money on tourist-priced goods. I wasn't really in the mood for all the blatant commercialism all over town either. Rode by the hostel and found it unfortunately full. I knew that a lot of solo bikers had been adopted into people's homes or yards just by hanging around the bike path and looking TransAm-ish, but that didn't work for me, either. The cold and rain sent all but the hardiest locals indoors, and those guys weren't slowing down for anything. So on to a bike shop for housing recommendations.

They gave me directions to the back of a school where they thought I could camp, and one guy almost offered the little back yard of a shop across the street. They told me about the hostel in Silverthorne, farther than I'd planned to go, and the campgrounds near Frisco, so I thanked them and headed on my (downhill!) way. It was 15 miles to the hostel, but I was becoming very tempted by warm indoor accommodations with electricity and called to reserve a spot. WooHoo! Silverthorne it is. I blasted down the great bike path to Frisco, happy to ride alongside mountains instead of over them, got a little turned around when the bike path and AC map directions didn't quite seem to match, got some disappointing food at a Taco Bell, and kept coasting toward my hostel.

Bike path between Breckenridge and Silverthorne. It was a nice respite from traffic since I was getting tired.

I think I would have been camping on this lake...

Pretty rocky sunset...I better get to where I'm goin'!

I think I would have liked Silverthorne. It had familiar stores and marks of civilization without being quite so overrun with tourists, but the hostel was way, way downhill from the bookstores and places I would have stopped at just for familiarity's sake, so I knew I wouldn't be going back in the morning. And it was headed toward dusk and I just needed to get to where I was going.

Got checked in, got my own room, got a shower, got electricity, got a RADIO STATION and life was good.

Hostel room at Silverthorn. I was happy to have a warm place with electricity.

Today's ride: 86 miles (138 km)
Total: 2,494 miles (4,014 km)

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