Day 24: Apache National Forest to Quemado, NM

March 18, 2013

I'm on the road just before the sun comes up, ready to grind out the climbing that the wind wouldn't let me finish yesterday. Well, kind of ready. Even without the wind it's a cold morning, so I pedal with sore legs that are slow to warm up and my ears and face half frozen.

But it's another beautiful day in New Mexico; there are a thousand worse places to crank slowly up into the hills. Without the breeze the ride is dead quiet. When I stop I hear only bird sounds: warning calls, flapping wings, woodpeckers banging their heads against trees a dozen times a second. It's so wide open and empty of traffic out here that you could Gangnam Style or Harlem Shake or whatever YouTube sensation you want in the middle of the highway, undisturbed, for 15 minutes until you hear the rumble of the next approaching truck. (I don't.)

The push takes me up toward the Blue Ridge Wilderness, where the road twists and turns with ease and never runs straight for more than a tenth of a mile. Two hours in I hit Saliz Pass at almost 6,500 feet. It feels great to start the day with a victory. It feels less great to squat on the ice-cold seat of the pit toilet at the campground at the bottom of the long and chilling descent, but this isn't the part of the country for being picky.

On the other side of the pass, the roads once again become lined with pine trees. The hills fall up and then back down with ease. Although the sun shines in a sky that's now almost cloudless, the air that passes over me blows cool. The waves from passing drivers continue, only now every third or fourth person holds their thumb and pointer finger up and gives them a shake as if to say Right on, man. Just like yesterday, the views are wide and impressive. And when the wind picks up around noon, it's a tailwind. The Land of Enchantment? Not an overstatement.

I grab lunch in Reserve and almost lose my mind when I find out I have a cell phone signal. That hasn't happened in two days. As I text Desiree and check email, I notice that again I'm the only guy in the restaurant who isn't wearing a cowboy hat and jeans. As I eat my enchiladas and rice and beans, the satellite radio plays a song by a woman with a solid country twang in her voice who sings about how her give-a-damn's busted. After that, a guy who also has a strong Southern drawl sings to his friend how, when he dies, he wants to be buried in a jukebox. Later on, the people at the next table talk about how much they love Reba McEntire. The food's about all I can relate to when it comes to rural New Mexican culture.

Meats, produce, feeds, Stihl chain saws, lottery tickets. All you need for life in the mountains of New Mexico.

And then, not far outside of town on Highway 12, I almost die

Twice.

In the span of five minutes.

Both times it happens when the drivers of passing cars, who only have to miss one obstacle out on these wide open highways, can't manage to do it. Only the fact that I stick close to the white line, pay constant attention to the mirror, and have full willingness to dive off into the dirt and rocks and tall grass of the shoulder — and do so with about half a second and a few dozen feet to spare — keep me alive. From the gutter I watch each time as the car that just missed me swerves left into the oncoming lane and then jerks back to the right, almost sending the right-front tire off the edge of the pavement. My heart races and pounds so hard I can feel it in the temples of my head. I angle my neck down and let out a huge sigh that's a mix of relief, anger, and disbelief. For once it's not the hills or the wind that turn the afternoon into a side show of bitching and swearing and saying insane things to an audience of no one.

Other than that it's great riding.

From this point on, the Do Not Pass sign is never the same.

I turn due north at the Apache Creek junction. The highway sends me past a string of dead-looking ranches — no animals, no people, no trucks — and up through a valley of pine and juniper trees, soaring hawks, and chunks of stone that have worked loose from the cliffs above and fallen to the road's edge. The valley isn't especially beautiful or impressive, but as it comes to an end I find myself wishing for it to keep going. That's because I know what lives beyond.

The grind to the top of the highest point I'll reach on this trip starts in a dramatic way. The highway pushes up beside vertical layers of brown and orange and pink rock that over the years have sent down dozens of mini-boulders that leave giant divots in the road. I look at them in detail because the grade is so steep and I'm riding so slow. At its toughest moments, I fall into the just-make-it-to-the-next-[roadside item] game to distract myself from pavement that stretches up and up and away.

But I keep at it, and soon things level out and then climb at easier angles. I start to look out to the horizon for the gap where I'll punch over the mountains and start down, but I just see a wall of green in front of me. All I hear is the wind howling over my ears and the swishing of the branches and needles of thousands of pine trees. Usually I keep something in reserve when I ride, because I never know what's going to happen and how late into the night I might have to push. Not today. I mash in a race against a setting sun that's already fallen behind the tops of the trees. Along the way I climb high enough to see patches of snow hiding the mountain's shaded hollows.

A few last squirts of adrenaline power me to the top, where I hit Jewett's Gap at 8,300 feet. There's no old man hanging around at the top of the pass near the disgusting pit toilets and garbage cans that mark the summit, but if there was I'm sure he'd be quick to tell me that it's all downhill to Maine from here and then let out a big laugh. I'm stoked about reaching the high point of the trip, so I tell the joke out loud to myself, laugh at it, and then try to come to terms with the fact that the wide open West is slowly making me lose my mind.

I just climbed to the highest point of this trip and all I get are a couple of trash cans and a sign about dead animal parts. I'm not impressed.

I could camp at the top of the pass, but that would mean throwing on every piece of clothing I own and still tossing and turning through a night in the low 20s. It would also mean hanging out with the bears and cougars and animal-devouring wolves I've been learning about for the two full days. And then in the morning, assuming I still have a face and all of my limbs, I'd freeze balls heading down the other side. So on I go, away from the summit, past partially frozen ponds and a grazing herd of about 30 white-assed elk who leap into full flight in two seconds when a noise from somewhere across the broad clearing signals danger. In the last light of day, the countryside glows brilliant in green and yellow and my love for New Mexico continues to grow.

I have this vision in my head of a National Forest. It's wide open, untouched land that's available for the public to use anywhere there isn't a cabin or a clear-cutting operation going on. It's an image of freedom and independence and a connection with nature. It's a chance to say go pound sand to crowded RV parks and silly yellow-themed KOA campgrounds. In the Northwest that's often how it works. But this part of the country does its own weird thing, where every mile of federal land along the highway is fenced. All of it. There's the odd side road or ATV trail, but if you don't find one of those you're hosed — no camping for you. And so the miles pass. With the sun gone and the cold moving in, I see a hundred great spots to throw up the tent, but I can't get to them without a pair of wire cutters or the willingness to hop a fence that could rupture a testicle with one wrong step.

Then, all of a sudden, it doesn't matter. I hear a wolf howl, not far from where I'm standing over the bike, as I look for a place to settle in. I'm tired and cold and hungry, and now the pictures of disemboweled animals I've seen plastered all over the area as part of a campaign against protecting wild wolves start to cycle through my head. Bicycle touring has taken me to all kinds of amazing places in the outdoors, and I've come to gain great appreciation for this country's open spaces. But in most every other aspect of my life I'm a city guy at heart; the wilderness makes me uneasy. So in that moment, with the animal part of my brain flashing a bright red warning sign, the fight or flight response kicks in hard. Sleeping inside all of a sudden sounds like my best idea ever. I put the hammer down, mash the pedals, watch the sky turn deeper and deeper shades of blue, and eat up the 12 miles between Quemado and me.

Before I left home I bought an expensive but powerful headlight, just for nights like this. It's awesome, but it has a big flaw that doesn't show itself until tonight: when the charge gets low the light doesn't fade, it just shuts off altogether. It's not dangerous — a car hasn't passed me in more than two hours — but it leaves me to pedal the last four miles using only the light of the crescent moon as a guide. Along the way, creatures of some kind rustle in the black of the bushes, my smallest toes freeze, and the last bursts of energy stored in my legs spill out onto the scarred surface of Highway 32.

The motel room is old and weird and poorly carpeted, in the way that all small town motels are required to be. But after a long, tough ride that brings me to the front door shivering, I sigh and shake my head and spend the rest of the night and into the early morning trying to make myself look and feel less homeless. The industrial-looking propane heater creaks and pops and makes metallic noises in the corner while I make plans to slow down for a day or two and rest up.

Today's ride: 82 miles (132 km)
Total: 1,089 miles (1,753 km)

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