Day 27: O’Haver Lake to Cochetopa Pass

September 14, 2024

Distance: 119km

Climbing: 1481m

The morning turned out to be cool, but not the at the freezing mark that I thought was possible. To get to this campground we had had to leave the road and go up a steeper road that ended at the campground. From the map it was obvious that the road passed close to the campground so I didn’t want to have to lose a bunch of altitude back to the road only to regain it right away. The map showed a hiking trail that connected from the campground to the road and the camp host thought it would be passable. It turned out to be quite rideable which was a nice little win.

Our resupply in Sargents was a good diner breakfast (for lunch) but a challenging place to shop for groceries.

Our resupply in Sargents was described by Andrew as a “food desert” - a term I’ve usually only heard in reference to parts of certain cities where the distance to any food other than fast food or convenience stores is prohibitive, but it certainly fit. We had to stock up for a dinner, a breakfast and a lunch. We had a few things, but Andrew worked his magic and we’ll get by with calories to spare, although it’s the first time we’ve had white bread (very compressible) and peanut butter in a squeeze tube (don’t use your imagination).

It’s hard to imagine living in places like Hartsel or Sargents, but perhaps that’s because it’s so different from what we’re personally used to.

Luder’s Creek campground. Four groups of riders and nobody else.

Smooth surfaces, reasonable winds, and nice views got us to tonight’s campground at 3000m. Earlier we had discussed how few riders we had seen today, but at the campground all four of the occupied sites were riders - we had just started from farther away and arrived last. That seems to be the pattern - we’re doing a bit more distance than the average, although there are certainly some much speedier people.

This has a lot to do with who is out riding the Divide. Of the North Americans, the majority are our age or older and retired - after all, two months vacation isn’t common. One exception though is the mother and son pair we met tonight. The son is taking a gap year having finished high-school and they are riding the Divide together - impressive in many ways. I don’t think we’ve run into any other Canadians.

Of the non-North-Americans (so far Australians, South Africans, Germans, Brits, Kiwis and perhaps a few others) there’s a wider range of ages as gap years, sabbaticals, and longer vacations are more common. Australians in particular seem to just decide to travel the world for months and quit their jobs to make it happen, or that’s how it seems to us. We’ve not run into any riders from any Asian or African countries except South Africa.

It’s a high altitude campground so we expect another cold night.

Today's ride: 119 km (74 miles)
Total: 3,084 km (1,915 miles)

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