July 12, 2009
Creede-Lake City: Namesake day - riding the Slum
Lodging: Traditionally Kelvin stays at the Moose Lodge on the edge of town. When we stayed here last year, it had really gone down hill. We took a recommendation from some motorcycle riders and stayed at Town Square Cabins 970-944-2236 Cabin 4 Queen Bed $89. Two night stay required. These are located right in the center of town and are quite rundown. Moni kindly said that it must be difficult to make changes/improvements because the cabins are a historical site. I think it wouldn't change the historical status if our bathtub had two knobs instead of one knob and a pair of vice grips. John spent some time on our day off scouting out better lodging. The Alpine Village Cabins are located one block off of the main street. John said they are new and nice both inside and out. 719-564-6214 Suzi $85. Two beds. We will stay here on our next visit.
Another sunny morning. Boy, are we lucky. Jacinto was at least out of bed when I left. Moni and Fred were gone, they hadn't seen Ken. John was still in camp. That's a whole long story I'll fill in later, sounds like an adventure.
It is not 8-10 miles to the little store, Moni pointed out to me. According to my computer it was 17.5 miles. I caught up with her and Fred there. We rode together a piece, John caught up with us at the bottom of the first climb. Moni and Fred went off looking for a waterfall, John pulled ahead, and I was left to climb alone again thinking Slum memories.
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This was a nice climb - sure beats Kebler Pass. I guess everything will look easy after that climb.
The clouds were building - made me think of Shari Bernard and her one little cloud calling all of it's little cloud buddies. Looks like we'll finally get hit with the afternoon Rocky Mountain showers. Jacinto caught up with me right at the top of Spring Creek Pass. He wanted to press on, but I pointed out that it looks like the rain was moving across in front of us. If we sat and ate, the rain might miss us. To help me out, it started to sprinkle lightly. He reluctantly agreed - Jacinto doesn't like to stop when riding. Says his legs get lazy and cold. While we were sitting there a woman with a backpack came off of the trail. She was also doing the Colorado trail and had been on the road 7 days/100 miles. She was going down to Creede to resupply. We thought her quite clever. She had lost the bite valve from her Camelbak and was using a stick inside of the hose as a stopper. I enjoyed hearing her story while I ate my sandwich. Jacinto finally couldn't stand it any more - he wanted to go. We did the downhill and a mile of the uphill before I cut him loose. He's like John, likes to do the whole climb without stopping. That is not my style.
It was only four miles to the top of the Slum from the bottom. I rode the first mile and the last mile in one chunk the center section has some switch backs and I had to break that up more. I did get a few sprinkles, but not enough to worry about.
After getting to town I found that the front runners, Ken and John, whom we presumed had missed the rain because they were early, had actually gotten soaked and pelted with hail.
Our cabin at the Town Center Cabins was less than satisfactory. The motorcycle riders had given us a bad recommendation. It would be a rest day project to find good lodging in Lake City.
This was a great day - enough work to make dinner taste good, but not so much that I was falling over from exhaustion.
Rest day tomorrow.
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Today's ride: 51 miles (82 km)
Total: 342 miles (550 km)
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